Thursday, August 14, 2008

Cardinal Flower??

Have you ever wondered why they call the cardinal flower, cardinal flower? Oh you have not, and neither have I until this morning. Wandering around outside drinking coffee (again), I looked over to the clump of flowers and it struck me that they (whoever they are that decide which names are assigned to which flowers) picked a funny name for that particular flower.


Sure it's red, but there are a zillion other red flowers so it couldn't be that, and it doesn't attract cardinals such as a butterfly bush attracts butterflies, bee balm attracts bees, etc, etc. So what were they thinking?? I decided to take a closer look.


And then a closer look

And finally a really close look
Ah ha!! Problem solved!!

5 comments:

Roses and Lilacs said...

Aren't they the most gorgeous shade of red? That is my Dad's favorite flower.
Marnie

flydragon said...

Hi Marnie,
It is such a vibrant red!! And that flower does resemble a cardinal on the wing. Well, maybe not a lot but at least a little bit.

Anonymous said...

Such beautiful photos! I love the color red and those are so vibrant.
I do see why they care called the Cardinal Flower, especially as you zoomed in.

Thanks for the kind and supportive words on my blog. It means a lot.

Susie said...

Isn't that a beautiful color? We sold a particular variety of Cardinal flower at work that had dark, reddish colored foliage. It was pretty too!

flydragon said...

Hi Eileen,
You seem to have a lot of great support from people you do know but sometimes it also helps a little to get some from those you don't know.

Hi susie,
I had one of those dark red foliage plants a couple of years ago, but for some reason it didn't make it through the first winter. I was very disappointed because I liked that one too.