Banana Flowers (from Coombe Wood). Looking closer.

Sometimes my "little arty journey's" aren't a physical journey, they're a process of some sort, a journey of exploration and discovery. It could be making something or it could be looking closer at something, This is about looking closer, zooming in.

On Friday I was at Coombe Wood on the day that the gardener was cutting down the banana trees to protext the stumps with straw for the winter. 

The flowers were dripping wet. 

When I expressed interest in the flowers the gardener very kindly cut them down and gave me both of them. 

It was a while before I realised that the liquid soaking the bag I'd put them in to bring them home wasn't just the water droplets. Sticky amber fluid was oozing profusely from the cut ends of the stems.

Here they are with a 50p coin to show scale. 

Big fleshy petals - or whatever they are called (SO technical!) open to reveal clusters of pale yellow slender curly flowers which gradually darken and swell at the base. You can see the stamens and pollen.

The amber liquid continued to drip from the cut end of the stem.

On Saturday morning I cut one of the flowers in half to see what it looked like inside. It was a lot harder to cut than I expected. Clear liquid oozed everywhere.

It started to discolour quickly, As it darkened the layers became more distinguishable.

About 20 minutes later it had become much darker and the droplets of fluid were becoming much stickier.

5 hours later. Looking closer and it's much easier to see that those outer thick fleshy "petals" look like corrugated cardboard. What fabulous textures and patterns!

14 hours later and there's a lot more contrast between the layers.

The dark droplets were now amber coloured. 

This morning

Long slender flowers drying out. 

Looking closer at the baby bananas - the largest of these is 4cms.

One of the tiny bananas cut in half, on a big fleshy "petal". These petals have a fabulous waffle-like texture as they dry out.

These are some of the bits that had dropped off in my bag (my very sticky bag that had to be washed!) - assorted bits of the long slender flowers and some of the tiny bananas.

A small pool of amber fluid (approx 2cms) dried and curled up. Here it is lit from below.

Thank you very much for joining me.