On my way to Big Meadows to pick wild blueberries, I passed a riotous patch of sunflowers, mixed with virgin’s bower. Unprepared for the translucent blast of pale yellow against a jungle of Henri green, I waited four or five turns around the bend before stopping.
In the photograph, the leaves and the petals of the flowers are turned every which way in an orgy of unrestrained physical contact. Each flower is composed of eight yellow petals marked with parallel groves. The center of each flower contains numerous darker yellow ray and disk florets. The leaves are ovate.
In a later water color rendering, the petals of the sunflowers float face forward, one atop another, indeterminate in number, while their ovate leaves fade into a pool of green.
This photograph of wild sunflowers was taken along Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park in Virginia on August 26, 2008.