Wildflower Photos: Dutchman's-Breeches

This photograph of the wildflower Dutchman's-Breeches (Dicentra cucullaria) was made in the Taylorsville MetroPark unit of Five Rivers MetroParks in the Dayton, Ohio area on April 13, 2003.

A member of the Bleeding-Heart Subfamily of the Poppy Family, Dutchman's-Breeches has a delicately arched row of white flowers with yellow tips underneath. These flowers hang above its layer of green leaves, like white-lanterned towers soaring far above the canopy of a miniature forest.

An early spring wildflower found in rich woodland habitats, Dutchman's-Breeches have the pointy, upturned "pantaloon" shape, although it could be a molar tooth as well...since who knows what a pantaloon is anymore! At any rate, its shape differs from the similar (and often adjacent or even intermixed) Squirrel-Corn, which has a more heart-shaped white flower.

This image was made with a 100mm macro lens on a 35mm film SLR camera. I like to use it for wildflowers instead of a 50mm macro lens, because I don't have to get as close to the subject as with the 50mm lens. In this way, I avoid crushing some of the very wildflowers I seek to portray.

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