Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM Fixed Lens – Michael Stephen Wills Photography

Monarch Emergence

Our Third Monarch this year

September 1, 2022September 1, 2022 MichaelStephenWills7 Comments

Clinging to my sleeve, this newly emerged Monarch wings dried. It is a process of excreting the fluids pumped into wings, crumpled from folding within the chrysalis, to expand them. The clear drips of water on my arm are this fluid.

Click photograph for a larger view and use Ctrl-x to zoom in closer.

Here is a video from this year, a Monarch emerging from the chrysalis, then expanding crumpled wings. Notice, this butterfly has a problem: once emerged the butterfly swings back and forth continually as it clings to the chrysalis. While interesting to us, the movement is caused from a missing front leg. Monarch butterflies have four legs, this butterfly is missing the right front leg, the imbalance causes the swinging movement. Freshly emerged, a large, distended with fluid abdomen is prominent between small, crumpled wings. With time, the abdomen pumps fluid, expanding the wings. Over several hours the fluid runs from the wings and is expelled from the abdomen, as seen in the above photograph.

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Copyright 2022 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Night Blooming Cereus VIII

reaction to cold temperature

August 21, 2021August 14, 2021 MichaelStephenWills6 Comments

Our “Night Blooming Cereus” is blooming earlier in 2021, blooms opened twice during nights of early August. I put the name in quotes because during the course of writing the first seven posts ( I through VII ) I learned this is NOT a member of the genus Cereus, it is actually an epiphyte of the Epiphyllum genus.

For those familiar with the early history of New York City and Hudson Valley it is easy to see why a common name of the plant is “Dutchman’s Pipe Cactus.”

Emerging flower buds of a Epiphyllum cactus.

Click me for another Night Blooming Cereus Cereus flower post.

References

Wikipedia, “Epiphyllum”, “Epiphyllum oxypetalum,”epiphyte.”

Yellow Hibiscus IV

anthers and stamens

August 7, 2021August 7, 2021 MichaelStephenWills10 Comments

Evening breezes brought to a halt my series of hibiscus bloom photographs, that bloom faded and shriveled, to be replaced by another. I captured the images of this post on a very quiet summer evening. This bloom was facing up closer to vertical that the previous.

A key identification for all 300 species of hibiscus is the long stamen tube. I have yet to see a local insect interacting with the stamen, always they are in the flower throat. In the tropics, pollination is thought to proceed from large butterflies and birds.

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Here are three macro photographs of this bloom, all from the Canon 100 “macro” lens. I learned by experience to tamp down the diaphragm to the smallest setting, f / 32 for this lens. The different aspects were achieved by moving the lens objective closer to the bloom. This is a “fixed” lens, it has one focal length.

References

Wikipedia – “hibiscus.”

Copyright 2021 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Yellow Hibiscus III

anthers and stamens

August 4, 2021July 31, 2021 MichaelStephenWills7 Comments

Nyctinasty (flower response to light: opening with or closing without light) in hibiscus plants is a mechanism to protect against adverse conditions such as cool temperatures that can be damaging. Through a lack of light stimulus and circadian rhythms the plant is able to trigger the molecular movement of ions to allow for the closing of the flower.

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Here are three macro photographs of this bloom, all from the Canon 100 “macro” lens. I start with the shutter diaphragm open at 4.0 (“F-stop”), a little narrower at 4.5 and a bit more at 9.0. For this lens the maximum opening is at 2.8, the narrowest is 32. As the opening narrows (F-stop increases) the exposure time needed to capture enough light lengthens and the range of the image in focus increases.

References

Wikipedia – “hibiscus.”

Copyright 2021 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Yellow Hibiscus II

flower and buds

August 1, 2021July 30, 2021 MichaelStephenWills2 Comments

This is a perennial, commonly known simply as “hibiscus”, or less widely known as rose mallow. Other names include hardy hibiscus, rose of sharon, and tropical hibiscus.

The hibiscus flower is traditionally worn by Tahitian and Hawaiian girls. If the flower is worn behind the left ear, the woman is married or has a boyfriend. If the flower is worn on the right, she is single or openly available for a relationship.

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Here are the three photographs of this bloom, all from the Canon 100 “macro” lens. Two with “sweat bees” and one without.

References

Wikipedia – “hibiscus.”

Copyright 2021 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Yellow Hibiscus I

flower, buds, bee

July 29, 2021July 28, 2021 MichaelStephenWills7 Comments

Yellow hibiscus, the state flower of Hawaii was recorded in ancient Greece. In the photograph is captured several unopened buds, behind the flower, and a bee in the flower throat, attracted by nectar there. It is a small bee, of the Halictidae family, that lives alone in a ground nest and also called a “sweat bee,” from being attracted to perspiration.

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References

Wikipedia – “sweat bee” and “hibiscus.”

Night Blooming Cereus VII

reaction to cold temperature

November 19, 2020October 28, 2020 MichaelStephenWills2 Comments

For the final post of this series on Cereus blooms, of the four buds two failed to fully open after the weather turned cold in late September/Early October. Here is the failed bloom from the same opening bud featured in the last Cereus posting.

Click me for another Cereus flower post.

References

Wikipedia, “Epiphyllum, “Epiphyllum oxypetalum,”epiphyte.”

Night Blooming Cereus VI

soon to open

November 17, 2020October 26, 2020 MichaelStephenWills16 Comments

Here is a continuation of the previous Cereus posting, the ultimate macros of a bloom on the edge of opening.

Click me for another Cereus flower post.

References

Wikipedia, “Epiphyllum, “Epiphyllum oxypetalum,”epiphyte.”

Night Blooming Cereus V

evening preparation

November 15, 2020October 24, 2020 MichaelStephenWills11 Comments

Almost bursting open, the third of four flower buds of our Night Blooming Cereus caught one October evening just before opening. The black background is repurposed anit-weed ground cover material.

Here is a series of flash photographs at varying apertures and angles. The white rods are emerging anthers, the pollen-containing tips of long stamens seen in my previous postings of the open flowers.

Click me for another Cereus flower post.

References

Wikipedia, “Epiphyllum, “Epiphyllum oxypetalum,”epiphyte.”

Night Blooming Cereus III

Source of popular name?

November 3, 2020October 30, 2020 MichaelStephenWills6 Comments

In an earlier posts the popular name of this plant, “Night Blooming Cereus” was introduced as incorrect, still there must be some truth in the name, I believe it is found in the developing flower stalk and bud.

“Cereus” is from the Greek word for candle. Don’t these developing flower stalks, resemble a candle and the bud a flame?

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Here’s the flower from an earlier bloom this season.

Click me for another flower post, “Another Woody Peony.”

References

Wikipedia, “Epiphyllum, “Epiphyllum oxypetalum,”epiphyte.”