Here comes the sunflower

November 12, 2020 10:52 AM

It's a stressful time. Perhaps you'd like to watch a sunflower being born (83 days timelapsed into 2mins 20seconds)

The Boxlapse YouTube channel has several more high quality plant timelapse videos: Pea, Basil, Dandelion, Barley, Tomato...

posted by gwint (23 comments total)

01:45 - *jazz hands*
posted by sacrifix at 11:03 AM on November 12, 2020 [2 favorites]

Don't miss the special visitor in the "Barley" video :)
posted by cynical pinnacle at 11:27 AM on November 12, 2020 [2 favorites]

I could watch these all day long.

(Plus they reminded me of this: "The Sesame Street Little Theater takes pride in presenting A Flower Grows.")
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 11:41 AM on November 12, 2020 [1 favorite]

This channel is amazing. I am both fascinated and disgusted by the snail eating lettuce...
posted by EllaEm at 11:51 AM on November 12, 2020

It's kind of creepy before it opens, isn't it? The spiky bits (involucral bracts, I think), and then kind of turning to face the camera and looking like a green alien eye on days 67-68, and then unfolding more and making me think of the Demogorgon.

Then again, if sunflowers could think, they would probably think humans are pretty gross.
posted by Foosnark at 1:01 PM on November 12, 2020 [1 favorite]

This ends well.
posted by chavenet at 1:15 PM on November 12, 2020

Foosnark. Exactly!
posted by Splunge at 1:32 PM on November 12, 2020

i want endless loops of these things playing on the monitors bolted to the wall every 15 feet around the college. it'd serve a greater purpose than the scrolling announcements everyone ignores.

(when there were lulls during student groups' visits, i'd pull up sleight of hand videos by ricky jay, the great cardini, and other stuff like that. the kids would be all, whatever...at first. then they'd settle in and watch, and then ask for more.)

i really enjoyed the trembling effect of the stop motion, and the colors were so nice. and queued up next? a video of a parasitoid wasp, which was fun.
posted by Caxton1476 at 2:02 PM on November 12, 2020

I don’t know why, but I find sunflowers alternately pretty and creepy AF. Dunno why I have that second reaction. Maybe because they’re just a wee bit larger than a flower ought to be? (Yes, yes, I know...corpse flower. But it’s weird enough to be fun) Or that big, dark, empty face?
posted by Thorzdad at 3:45 PM on November 12, 2020

Well, there is a certain resemblance to Bob the Angry Flower (perhaps most well known for BtAF's Classic Literature sequels: Atlas Shrugged 2: One Hour Later)
posted by gwint at 3:49 PM on November 12, 2020 [1 favorite]

Thank you.
posted by brambleboy at 5:44 PM on November 12, 2020

The Sunflowers
by Mary Oliver

Come with me
into the field of sunflowers.
Their faces are burnished disks,
their dry spines
creak like ship masts,
their green leaves,
so heavy and many,
fill all day with the sticky
sugars of the sun.
Come with me
to visit the sunflowers,
they are shy
but want to be friends;
they have wonderful stories
of when they were young -
the important weather,
the wandering crows.
Don't be afraid
to ask them questions!
Their bright faces,
which follow the sun,
will listen, and all
those rows of seeds -
each one a new life!
hope for a deeper acquaintance;
each of them, though it stands
in a crowd of many,
like a separate universe,
is lonely, the long work
of turning their lives
into a celebration
is not easy. Come
and let us talk with those modest faces,
the simple garments of leaves,
the coarse roots in the earth
so uprightly burning.
posted by Caxton1476 at 5:52 PM on November 12, 2020 [12 favorites]

Wonderfull. Now do a redwood tree.
posted by cenoxo at 6:36 PM on November 12, 2020 [1 favorite]

Mmm I love timelapse video of plants, I used to do them back in college. We don't tend to think of plants as being mobile and it's a bit of a mind trip.

Now imagine the struggle of Charles Darwin, who made an extensive study of plant motion without the benefit of time lapse cameras!
posted by muddgirl at 10:55 PM on November 12, 2020 [1 favorite]

WP > Nutation (botany):

...Circumnutation [diagram] refers specifically to the circular movements often exhibited by the tips of growing plant stems, caused by repeating cycles of differences in growth around the sides of the elongating stem.
...
Circumnutational movements are most obvious in growing seedlings, where the combination of circular movement and upward growth causes the tip to move up in a spiral path. The first detailed analysis of circumnutation was Charles Darwin's The Power of Movement in Plants; he concluded that most plant movements were modifications of circumnutation, but many counterexamples are now known. Circumnutation is not a direct response to gravity or the direction of illumination, but these factors and many physiological processes can influence its direction, timing and amplitude....

I am Groot!
posted by cenoxo at 3:46 AM on November 13, 2020

Thank you for this. As you may know I love everything time lapse.
posted by terrapin at 7:48 AM on November 13, 2020

Project Gutenberg > The Power of Movement in Plants by Charles Darwin and Sir Francis Darwin:

Introduction.

Methods of Observation.—The movements, sometimes very small and sometimes considerable in extent, of the various organs observed by us, were traced in the manner which after many trials we found to be best, and which must be described.

Plants growing in pots were protected wholly from the light, or had light admitted from above, or on one side as the case might require, and were covered above by a large horizontal sheet of glass, and with another vertical sheet on one side.

A glass filament, not thicker than a horsehair, and from a quarter to three-quarters of an inch in length, was affixed to the part to be observed by means of shellac dissolved in alcohol. The solution was allowed to evaporate, until it became so thick that it set hard in two or three seconds, and it never injured the tissues, even the tips of tender radicles, to which it was applied.

To the end of the glass filament an excessively minute bead of black sealing-wax was cemented, below or behind which a bit of card with a black dot was fixed to a stick driven into the ground. The weight of the filament was so slight that even small leaves were not perceptibly pressed down. another method of observation, when much magnification of the movement was not required, will presently be described.

The bead and the dot on the card were viewed through the horizontal or vertical glass-plate (according to the position of the object), and when one exactly covered the other, a dot was made on the glass-plate with a sharply pointed stick dipped in thick Indian-ink. Other dots were made at short intervals of time and these were afterwards joined by straight lines....

A tribute to the power of observation.
posted by cenoxo at 8:06 AM on November 13, 2020 [4 favorites]

Ahh that was unexpectedly wonderful, thank you.

I love the little movements it makes - the first few days, you can practically hear it straining with the effort. Then it looks like it's stretching, like someone getting up from a nap. And then when it finally comes into flower it's a real "Ooh, look at me, look how lovely I am!" sparkle.

And I love how the days lapsing seems to slow right down - it does so much on day 69!

Isn't nature incredible?
posted by penguin pie at 9:43 AM on November 13, 2020 [3 favorites]

Indeed. Even plant death and resurrection evokes their own sadness and hope.
posted by cenoxo at 11:16 AM on November 13, 2020

Cool. I think this means the ones I have (from donated seedlings) are around 60-odd days. Mine don't look as healthy but, to be fair, I'm a shithouse gardener.
posted by pompomtom at 11:53 PM on November 13, 2020

So we’re surrounded by world of plants moving incrementally under their own power, but we’re living too fast to notice: perhaps we need to slow down a bit. When the wind blows through grass, shrubs, and trees, I like to think their movement is fanning the wind.
posted by cenoxo at 6:10 PM on November 15, 2020 [1 favorite]

My friends:
We are standing at the dawn of a new era.
The united league of vegetation
has just unanimously approved the new legislation
which places complete restriction on all forms of human migration.

Anyone caught moving faster than a turnip WILL BE SHOT.

Now, I know what you're all thinking. What am I going to do with myself?
I've gotta go pick up the kids. There's a turkey in the oven!

Relax. Don't panic!
This isn't so bad. You've just got to calm down.

posted by vibratory manner of working at 7:20 PM on November 15, 2020 [1 favorite]

Do not watch the skies!, but beware of comets bearing the seeds of destruction: The Day of the Triffids.
posted by cenoxo at 5:44 AM on November 17, 2020