Lily and snake

water lily and snake at University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley

Here’s another in my series of photos of water lilies. This is from the University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley. With this one you get a bonus: a water snake on one of the pads.

Lily 1 (Getty Villa)
Lily 2 (San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers) (Illustrator artwork)
More to come …

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3 Comments

  1. Snakes! eeekkkk…flee. It might be a cotton mouth or some other deadly species. I never met a snake that I liked and once I saw that deadly viper on your photo, I just couldn’t look at it any more. I love waterlillies and your photos are gorgeous but Snakes! eeekkk…primal reaction. Run away! RUN AWAY!

  2. She was delighted to find that her neck would bend about easily in any direction, like a serpent. She had just succeeded in curving it down into a graceful zigzag and was going to dive in among the leaves, when a sharp hiss made her draw back in a hurry—a large pigeon had flown into her face and was beating her violently with its wings.

    “Serpent!” cried the Pigeon.

    “I’m not a serpent!” said Alice indignantly. “Let me alone!”

    “I’ve tried the roots of trees, and I’ve tried banks, and I’ve tried hedges,” the Pigeon went on, “but those serpents! There’s no pleasing them!”

    Alice was more and more puzzled.

    “As if it wasn’t trouble enough hatching the eggs,” said the Pigeon, “but I must be on the look-out for serpents, night and day! And just as I’d taken the highest tree in the wood,” continued the Pigeon, raising its voice to a shriek, “and just as I was thinking I should be free of them at last, they must needs come wriggling down from the sky! Ugh, Serpent!”

    “But I’m not a serpent, I tell you!” said Alice. “I’m a—I’m a—I’m a little girl,” she added rather doubtfully, as she remembered the number of changes she had gone through that day.

    “You’re looking for eggs, I know that well enough,” said the Pigeon; “and what does it matter to me whether you’re a little girl or a serpent?”

    “It matters a good deal to me,” said Alice hastily.