Mertensia virginica 2, Virginia Bluebell, Howard County, MD, Helen Lowe Metzman

Sad, Sad, Sad. This is Virginia Bluebells, Mertensia virginica. Formerly common throughout the bottomlands of the Mid-Atlantic region. Now Bluebell land has more and more become Lesser Celandine land...and invader from the old world that simply wipes out the vernal communities of plants along streams and rivers. The loss of this habitat means the loss of a host of bee species that depend only on these bottomland flowers. Difficult to control, Celandine, just simply takes over bottomlands and like the Zombie Apocalypse all you are left with afterwards is a shell that appears to be alive, but actually...is not. Makes my fingers sad just typing this. This picture was taken by Helen Lowe Metzman Native Plant Champion. Lovely isn't it all those shades of pink to blue, too bad your children will only see it in gardens. Photography Information: Canon Mark II 5D, Zerene Stacker, Stackshot Sled, 65mm Canon MP-E 1-5X macro lens, Twin Macro Flash in Styrofoam Cooler, F5.0, ISO 100, Shutter Speed 200 USGSBIML Photoshopping Technique: Note that we now have added using the burn tool at 50% opacity set to shadows to clean up the halos that bleed into the black background from "hot" color sections of the picture.