Chrysanthemum coronarium

Chrysanthemum coronarium – a meeting place

Chrysanthemum coronarium (family: Compositae; common names: Garland chrysanthemum; chrysanthemum greens; edible chrysanthemum) is one of the few annual plants in its genus. It is a leafy herb with yellow florets grouped in small rayed flower heads and aromatic, bipinnately lobed leaves. The vegetable grows very well in mild or slightly cold climates, but will go quickly into premature flowering in warm summer conditions. Seeds are sown in early spring and fall. Chrysanthemum species are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species. Linnaeus named it from the Greek word chrysous = "golden" (the colour of the original flowers), and -anthemon, meaning flower (1).

We were out in the field in a warm day of March, sun shining in the sky and a very nice breeze sweeping the dense “forest” of chrysanthema when we noticed that there was a whole world of insects paying visits to them. We chose one of them, focused our macro lens on the disk and waited to see which insects will pay it (or the ones close to it) a visit. To our surprise, these flowers are of particular interest to a large range of insects. Starting with the tiny shinning green beetle, which spent a lot of time there, a bee came to the flower and left only when its whole body was full of pollen; a young ladybug also visited looking for food. While taking pictures of the red coloured beetle on the yellow disk, a hungry Grizzled skipper (Pyrgus malvae) landed on the flower paying no attention to us, our photo gear (mind you the macro lens was a mere 30 cm from the disk of the flower) or – naturally - the ladybug. It sat there, used its proboscis to feed at ease, and then left, leaving behind a surprised if not frightened beetle and two amazed humans. The lens in use (Tamron 180 mm macro) has been known to be hunting a lot; the lens is much quicker when it is used on the Nikon D700 – which was luckily the case. Since there was a good amount of light we didn’t make use of the excellent performance of this camera in high ISO settings and used a modest setting of ISO 400 and a pre-set shutter speed of 1/640 sec, which proved more than adequate to get sharp pictures of the flower and the insects. The SB800 Speedlight was used in “balanced” and “high speed synchronization” modes to add some light although due to the high speed and small apertures, its effect was minimal.

Thanks to Matt Rawlings for identifying the butterfly.

Photos by Marina Parha and George J. Reclos

Shooting Data:

Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: AF Tamron 180 mm f/3.5 SP Di Macro 1:1
Sensitivity: ISO 400

2. Shutter speed - aperture: 1/640 sec - f/10, Shutter priority mode
Flash: Nikon SB-800 in TTL/BL/FP – high synchronization speed mode
Image: NEF edited in Photoshop CS4 for sharpness and light levels, JPEG watermarked and resized.

3. Shutter speed - aperture: 1/640 sec - f/11, Shutter priority mode
Flash: Nikon SB-800 in TTL/BL/FP – high synchronization speed mode
Image: NEF edited in Photoshop CS4 for sharpness and light levels, JPEG watermarked and resized.

4.Shutter speed - aperture: 1/640 sec - f/11, Shutter priority mode
Flash: Nikon SB-800 in TTL/BL/FP – high synchronization speed mode
Image: NEF edited in Photoshop CS4 for sharpness and light levels, JPEG watermarked and resized.

5. Shutter speed - aperture: 1/640 sec - f/11, Shutter priority mode
Flash: Nikon SB-800 in TTL/BL/FP – high synchronization speed mode
Image: NEF edited in Photoshop CS4 for sharpness and light levels, JPEG watermarked and resized.

 

(1) Wikipedia