The most photogenic flower in recent years

Black grass is probably the most photogenic plant I've photographed in years. In addition to the beautiful flowers, it is also due to his fine, smoky leaves, which allow us to get a soft, illusory background when shooting black grass flowers.

[Nigella damascena] Ranunculaceae >> Nigella

Black grass is native to the Mediterranean and Western Asia [1] and is a member of the Ranunculaceae family. Introduced into China is mainly as fresh cut flowers ornamental, or as medicinal, economic plant cultivation.

So far, every time I see black grass, it's either in the flower shop or in the herb garden of the botanical garden... If black grass could be developed into a garden plant, it would be a very magical scene to plant a large area according to the popular flower sea pattern.

Yes, magic, this is probably a term that can describe black grass flowers more appropriately. His flowers and leaves do not seem to exist on earth, so that his English common name is "Devil in the Bush", that is, the devil in the bush. In the recent sci-fi film Annihilation, black grass is also used to represent genetically distorted mutant plants.

Taken from the movie Annihilation.

Most of the black grass we see is double-petaled, with blue, rose red, white and other colors. His petals (perianth) overlap and vary in shape, either spoon-shaped, fringed, or antler-like. Central part of petals, ovary with stamens and clown-capped and 5 stigmas.

Black grass's spiky leaves are also an important component of its magic color, especially the ring of bracts below the flower. If you look closely, it is not difficult to find that there are only five bracts under the flower, but these five leaves split, split and split again, forming such a complicated fog.

After the flowers wither, the ovary of Nigella swells, and five bracts gather inward to wrap the fruit. The fruit of black grass is green at first, and then gradually appears five purple-black stripes.

When fully ripe, the seeds in the black seed fruit are black, which is the origin of his Chinese name. The oil extracted from seeds can be used as spices and has certain medicinal value.

By Roger Culos, source [2]

According to other data, Nigella has a long history of cultivation in Xinjiang and is a kind of traditional medicine of Uygur nationality.

[1]A dictionary of families and genera of seed plants in china. Digital Herbarium of China

[2]by Roger Culos

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nigella_damascena_MHNT.BOT.2007.40.38.jpg#/media/File:Nigella_damascena_MHNT.BOT.2007.40.38.jpg

Author: Jiang someone

Photo: Jiang Mou (except description)

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