From rq, click for full size! Beautiful flower, but that caterpillar, oh.
© rq, all rights reserved.
Affinity
Art, Fun, & Nonsense.
From rq, click for full size! Beautiful flower, but that caterpillar, oh.
© rq, all rights reserved.
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The mildly deranged penguin says that “caterpillar” is a pregnant Morbier-like cheese. It will soon start to build the creamy nest under itself, and then put the creamy lid on, squashing itself in the process into the characteristic “ash”-in-the-middle. The very small and, well, slightly squished baby cheeses eat there way out of the protein-rich nest & lid, to start the cycle anew.
The babies which eat their way out through the nest are denser, and hence usually male. They tend to fall to the ground / mud, where the females — who usually eat their out through the lid — dive-bomb them to mate. The dark colouring of a successfully-mated female is (largely) the dirt and mud, plus undigested bits of the lucky males.
The “flower”, she thinks, is a camouflaged m’roomhopper, a predator of certain wild MUSHROOMS! rarely found in the area. They sit and quietly what until a desired MUSHROOM! waddles by, then hop on it (hence the name) with mouth wide open. It’s not a particularly successful strategy as their aim is terrible and, in any case, the sorts of MUSHROOMS! they eat are, as mentioned, rarely found. It is thought their secondary food source is long pig, but no-one has ever lived to confirm this.
Nevermind the Penguin M.D.
I think the flower is Potentilla pallustris.
It was found, growing quite happily, in the marshy border of a pond-sized lake out in the forest, so you’re probably correct, Charly. It’s a very subtle flower (colouring-wise) because the deep purple/red in real life isn’t nearly as bright as most photos seem to demonstrate (also possible -- I caught it at a late stage in blooming, which seems more likely). Thank you for the ID!
A melancholically beautiful flower. It seems it’s called kurjenjalka (foot of a crane) in Finnish. I’d imagine that in the kind of places where they grow, there are often cranes and their actual feet also.