FIFTEEN MINUTES WITH PULSATILLA PRATENSIS

I had to do some stuff in Zminj today, early in the morning. Zminj is a small town about fifty kilometers north of where I live. On the way back home, I stopped for fifteen minutes or so in the rural area ten to twenty kilometers from Zminj.

(Enlargeable)

It was raining most of the day in most parts of Istria. The fifteen minutes mentioned in the title is the time the weather allowed me to be outside and do a bit of photography on the wet meadow not far from the town of Zminj.
The plant that dominates this opening picture ...

(Enlargeable)

... and the rest of the post is Pulsatilla pratensis, commonly known as the Small Pasque Flower or Meadow Pasqueflower. In the above photograph,h you can see an interesting, well-developed flower with furry petals, while in the following tryptich made of three similar shots ...

(Enlargeable)

... you can take a good look at its hidden interior. A combination of the dark red, almost magenta gynoecium and the vivid yellow stamens creates a beautiful, alien-looking landscape when seen through the macro lens.
The flowers are hermaphrodite and are pollinated mainly by bees.

Here you can see a lovely, fluffy bud that will become a flower very soon. In the following photograph ...

(Enlargeable)

... I came closer to the same bud. Some furry plants, or at least some extremely furry parts of those plants, look almost like small pet mammals at first sight.

(Enlargeable)

An even more up-close look, especially if you enlarge the picture by clicking on it, reveals a multitude of tinny droplets caught on the hairs of the bud.

Here you can see a detached, fallen stamen lying on the hairy leaves under the flower.

(Enlargeable)

Fifteen minutes without the rain passed quickly, so this post isn't very long.

AS ALWAYS HERE ON HIVE, THE PHOTOGRAPHS ARE MY WORK.

The following link will take you to the site with more information about the protagonist of today's post. I found some stuff about it there.

https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/57393-Pulsatilla-pratensis