Pic(k) of the Week: Piedmont sandwort

  Click on the image for a larger, hi-res version (on Flickr).

Looking down at tiny Piedmont sandwort wildflowers, blooming in a sandy, dessicated solution pit.

This is a close-up. These tiny blossoms — about 3 millimeters wide, on stems about 4 centimeters long— appear much larger in the photograph than they did in 'real' life!

Geocarpon is a genus of flowering plants in the carnation family (Caryophyllaceae). It includes seven species native to North America, including Geocarpon uniflorum — commonly known as Piedmont sandwort (or one-flower stitchwort).

Geocarpon uniflorum is native to the southeastern United States, where it is primarily found in the Piedmont. Its preferred habitat is sandy or granitic rock outcrops. Prior to 2022, the plant was known botanically as Minuartia uniflora.

— Wikipedia.
— Flora of North America.

On the summit of Arabia Mountain
DeKalb County, Georgia, USA.
3 April 2026.

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Jaco Pastorius: Donna Lee

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Pic(k) of the Week: Tiny cinquefoils

  Click on the image for a larger, hi-res version (on Flickr).

You're just too marvelous,

Too marvelous for words,

Like glorious, glamorous

And that old standby amorous.

It's all too wonderful,

I'll never find the words,

That say enough, tell enough,

I mean they just aren't swell enough.

You're much too much, and just too very, very,

To ever be in Webster's Dictionary.

And so I'm borrowing a love song from the birds,

To tell you that you're marvelous, too marvelous for words.

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Tiny onslaught of spring! Yellow cinquefoil wildflowers blooming near the headwaters (i.e., a municipal storm drain) of Cecilia Creek.

East Decatur Greenway: City of Decatur, Georgia, USA.
31 March 2026.

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Lester Young: Too Marvelous for Words
Album: Too Marvelous for Words
Label: Mercury (recorded: 1949 / released: 1950)

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Pic(k) of the Week: Ēostre

 

  Click on the image for a larger, hi-res version (on Flickr).

Ēostre was the name of a pagan Anglo-Saxon goddess of the dawn, mentioned by the English monastic scholar, the Venerable Bede in his 8th-century work, De temporum ratione (The Reckoning of Time).

The Old High German name for a goddess of the dawn was Ôstara. In Lithuanian mythology, the feminine deity of the morning star (Venus) was Aušrinė. All were derived from Austrō(n), the Proto-Indo-European name for goddess of 'dawn.'

In Anglo-Saxon England, the springtime festival in honor of Ēostre gave its name to a month (Northumbrian: Ēosturmōnaþ, West Saxon: Eastermonað), the rough equivalent of April, then to the Christian feast of Easter that eventually displaced it.

— Wikipedia.

That being said, the modern Lithuanian name for Easter, “Velykos” is NOT related to the name “Aušrinė,” but derived from the word “vėlės,” for “souls” (as in, the saving of human souls from eternal damnation).

Su Šventom Velykom!

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Photo:

The morning sun rises over wetlands of Burnt Fork Creek, as seen from an elevated boardwalk on the South Peachtree Creek PATH.

Image NOT taken on Easter (4 April 2026), but two months earlier, in winter, on 12 February 2026.

Mason Mill Park in DeKalb County, Georgia, USA.

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Pharoah Sanders: The Creator Has a Master Plan
Album: Karma
Label: Impulse! (recorded/released: 1969)

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Pic(k) of the Week: Hibernal narcissus

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An obligatory annual photo of a daffodil.
— or —
I can't resist taking a portrait of a narcissus in late winter!

The large daffodil — white with a central white 'trumpet'— is an Ice Follies cultivar; the smaller are Jetfire cultivars — yellow with orange 'trumpets' *. All, I admired and photographed in a private garden in DeKalb County, Georgia, USA, on 3 March 2026.

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Lee Morgan: Ceora
Album: Cornbread
Label: Bluenote (Recorded: 1965 | Released: 1967)

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Pic(k) of the Week: Trout lily ephemeral

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Ephemeral beauty on a winter forest floor: a native wildflower, the trout lily, blooms on Arabia Mountain.

After a 13-kilometer hike on the mountain, I was less than half a kilometer from my parked car when I stumbled upon this cluster of trout lilies blooming on the side of the Mile Rock Trail. To say that I was delighted AND surprised would be an understatement.

This is a close-up. The blossom appears larger in the image than it did in 'real life.'

DeKalb County, Georgia, USA.
28 February 2026.

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About the Dimpled Trout Lily

Erythronium umbilicatum — commonly known as the dimpled trout lily — is a species of perennial flowering plant in the lily family (Liliaceae), native to the southeastern United States, primarily in the piedmont and southern Appalachian areas. It is a spring ephemeral [i.e., short-lived] and its preferred habitat is forests.

Erythronium umbilicatum has green, mottled leaves that are up to 8 inches long (20 cm). The scape [i.e., long, leafless flowering stem] is up to 8 inches long (20 cm), bearing a single, nodding, lily-like flower on a 5 to 8-inch stalk (12-20 cm) with 6 petals, yellow on the inside and streaked brownish-purple on the outside, that recurve backward. The conspicuous stamens are brownish-purple in color. The flower blooms in late winter/early spring before the surrounding trees leaf out and cast shade.

— North Carolina Cooperative Extension.
— Wikipedia.

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Clifford Brown: Sandu
Album: Study in Brown (Label: EmArcy, 1955)

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