This year I took part in a course in botany. At least we tried to make it a real course, but with all the restrictions because of Covid we couldn’t do it as planned. But: we went outside in small groups and had a close look at plants and learned some interesting things.
So, I really wanted to look at- and take pictures of – as many plants as possible. But one day last summer – when I went out for a walk with my camera to take some macro photos – I had some problems because the wind was blowing so hard my camera couldn’t focus on the small details of most of the plants as they were moving too much.
So I decided to have a closer look at the broadleaf plantain (Plantago major).
You might know them (depending on where you live). They grow low and have thick leaves and robust stems, so they are hardly swaying in the wind. Here there are lots of them and at first sight they don’t look interesting at all.

But when I took a closer look at the flowers, I started to find them fascinating! 🙂
You can see how the pistils appear first:

Then the stamina appear – and I think they look beautiful, because of the colours of the anthers…..

Later they turn brown….

I also saw this little visitor – a Tachyporus obtusus 🙂

I took these pictures end of July. And then kind of forgot them. But last week I had another close look at the broadleaf plantain beside the footpath and saw that they had developed fruits.

And this is how they looked inside…..

I think I enjoy these things more than the obvious beautiful things – these little hidden joys! 🙂