The "Hot Lips Plant"

"With a scientific name of Psychotria Elata, this species also goes by the fitting names of the Hot Lips Plant, Flower of Lips or even Hooker's Lips. The colourful red flowers have evolved to attract pollinators including hummingbirds and butterflies. The plant can be found in the forested areas of tropical America such as Costa Rica and Colombia.
Photo credit: Rex Features."
via tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com

 

Flower Paintings by Leon Roulette

via amolife.com

 "Leon was born in Southern California in 1959. Early in his youth, he found himself especially interested nature and read all he could about naturalist like John Muir who captured young Leon’s imagination. In his early adolescent he came across a small box containing his father’s painting supplies and a few of his paintings that had been stored away after his father passed away. Though Leon’s father died when he was too young to remember, Leon felt a connection with this humble box of paints that he knew his father once used. Ultimately, this was a life changing event for him: Leon decided he wanted to paint, too." 

Leon Roulette

Inside Insides

image via insideinsides.blogspot.com

"Andy Ellison works at the BU medical school in Boston where he frequently works with a research-only MRI scanner. Over the past few months he’s been sharing some fantastic animated gifs of his calibration and quality control scans using assorted fruits, vegetables and other plants. As you can see the results are absolutely mesmerizing and I urge you to check out his blog, Inside Insides, for many more scans and hi-res images."

via thisiscolossal.com

Magic by Moonlight

 


"The mysterious behavior of Victoria flowers has stirred people’s imagination ever since this giant water lily was introduced into cultivation in the mid-nineteenth century. Native to South America, Victoria evolved into two distinct species: Victoria amazonica inhabiting the backwaters of the Amazon and its tributaries and Victoria cruziana found further south, along Río Paraguay and Río Paraná.
see more via longwoodgardens.wordpress.com

 

Water Drops, Daisies and Bumblebees

"The photo above provides a wonderful demonstration of the physics of light in water drops as well as the attraction of water molecules to plant molecules and to one another. In this case, the liquid drops result from rain and fog. A drop of liquid behaves like a simple lens – just like a camera. Therefore, the refracted image is upside-down when viewed through the drop. Somehow, bees, such as this bumblebee, figure out this hall of mirrors and are able to get to the daisies’ nectar. "
via epod.usra.edu