Dandelion seedhead

Today's the day ........................ for a natural wonder

A close look at the seedhead of a dandelion reveals it to be a thing of great beauty - and what looks like a very complicated wonder of the natural world. For some reason, it reminded me of the sort of structures we had to study in the Crystallography lectures that were part of the geology degree course that I did many, many moons ago.

I haven't yet found anyone who was ever subjected to such a course of lectures, to be anything other than completely baffled by its content. Week upon week, I would sit through the crystallography practicals to emerge at the end completely none the wiser as to what it was all about. I know that the dreaded Miller indices played a vital part - something about 010, 100 or some other such trio of digits - but it was all greek to me.

Thankfully, it's all now well in the past and I think that I can say that not knowing anything about crystallography, has not held me back in any way. I can just enjoy looking at the seedhead of a dandelion for the beauty of nature that it undoubtedly is ................