Oh Glenn! This is my favorite of yours so far. It’s really beautifully drawn. You could tone down the highlights a bit more toward the top, bottom, and right side, and your could get a little darker on that right side in general (think cylinder) to bring out the 3D form some more. Awesome detail!!!
Thank you both. I think that Squawroot must be the most unglamorous flowering plant in our eastern hardwood forests. It seems that most people who see it for the first time don’t even realize that it is a wildflower and mistake it for some sort of mutant toadstool. But it is a true angiosperm, but one lacking chlorophyll, there is no green color anywhere on it. It has only vestigial leaves which are the brown scales that stick out all over. In early spring there are flowers but they are the same yellowish-brown color as the seed pods shown here. Since the plant can’t produce nutrients from sunlight it parasitizes the roots of oak trees. I like to think of Squawroot as the unsung hero of the forest understory.
Squawroot, Conopholis americana
Oh Glenn! This is my favorite of yours so far. It’s really beautifully drawn. You could tone down the highlights a bit more toward the top, bottom, and right side, and your could get a little darker on that right side in general (think cylinder) to bring out the 3D form some more. Awesome detail!!!
Wonderful drawing Glenn and it looks even more amazing on the colored paper! Bravo!
Thank you both. I think that Squawroot must be the most unglamorous flowering plant in our eastern hardwood forests. It seems that most people who see it for the first time don’t even realize that it is a wildflower and mistake it for some sort of mutant toadstool. But it is a true angiosperm, but one lacking chlorophyll, there is no green color anywhere on it. It has only vestigial leaves which are the brown scales that stick out all over. In early spring there are flowers but they are the same yellowish-brown color as the seed pods shown here. Since the plant can’t produce nutrients from sunlight it parasitizes the roots of oak trees. I like to think of Squawroot as the unsung hero of the forest understory.