Charlatan

Well. It seems that Amy is right. Ahem:

"I have absolutely no idea what that flower is...if it's even a flower."

I returned down the path with my camera, today; Sara in tow, lugging her oversized bright yellow plastic bat and bright blue plastic ball. (I promised her we'd play ball to her heart's content, after this little mission.) I hunted down that odd flower with the woody stem that caused us geeks consternation and much puzzlement, at least on my part. Turns out, those things that looked for all the world like fading tulip or lily or whatever petals? They were some sort of leaf casing. Huh. Awfully pretty red-orange petal shaped leaf casings, but leaf casings the proved to be, as the picture below shows:

















Not content with this, I kept my eyes open for any other specimen, and found one, right by our wind-free ball playing area:
















Leaves, Mr Frodo. Clearly leaves unfurling. Egg on my face and all that. Guess that's why I didn't see any foliage, or rather I was seeing foliage, it just looked like odd bloated stamens, to quote Rozanne.

So. All bow to Amy. Case solved. Pity. I was hoping for some really cool wild lily or something. I did get some really great links out of all this, though, my dearest darlings, all with no effort on my part, thanks to all your diligence.


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And, finally, here is something you can always do with those dandelions, especially if you have an eager 3-year-old giving you flower presents as you both walk along. The little arcing blue wild flowers, I think, are my very favorite of what grows along our road.