Over?

The spring and early summer flowers along the coast are over now, the shimmer of the bluebells long gone and the vivid spikes of the foxglove turned to beige. For the plants is not over though: the next stage - setting and releasing seed - is well worth observing. You have to get close but if you do you can see the marvellous structures and mechanisms that plants have evolved to disseminate.

The foxglove seed capsule on the left (looking a bit like a turtle's beak) has yet to split apart while the bluebell pods on the right have opened and the remaining seeds are waiting for a breeze or a passing animal to shuck them out. 

The process by which the seed capsules split or explode is called dehiscence (from a Latin word meaning 'to gape') and  refers to "the splitting of a mature plant structure along a built-in line of weakness to release its contents". 


So, rather than regret that the flowers are 'over' observe their seed pods and capsules with their cunning strategies for reproduction.