January 11, 2011 -- brown things

Two brown things grabbed my attention this morning. The first was the seed pods of pearl bush (Exochorda racemosa), which are a dark, almost mahogany brown and held on the shrub's twigs like little jacks. Here I've put them in a brown vase with an opened okra pod.

I've also been enjoying the lacy stems of purple lovegrass (Eragrostis spectablis), which blow around like tumbleweed when their stems detach from the ground. (No other native grasses in my neighborhood do this, but it's a great strategy for dispersing seeds.) I picked up a few of these stems on my walk and put them in a dressing jar. When I tried to photograph them in the windowsill, they showed up not at all (too airy), so I shifted them to a position where they'd have a brown piece of furniture behind them. NOW you can see how gorgeous they are.