That time of the year has arrived - lots of close-ups of weird, inconspicuous plants in, on, or under water. Brings in good money, though, wish there was less work involved ...-.
This is Callitriche cophocarpa, aptly named Long-styled Water-wort. The tiny female flowers have excessively long styles, up to 5mm long, jutting out of the water. Pollination is in air wich demands some delicate juggling with placement of its sexual organs, but the plant does its best to achieve the desired outcome.
Taken with Nikon Z7 and the Laowa 25mm f/2. 8, which is my to-go lens for magnificatlons up to 5X. Shooting through the actual surface film demands very careful lighting of the scene so as to avoid reflectiions. The plants wilt quickly even when placed in water, so I had to shot a shorter stack (71 frames) than the optimum 150. Scale bar is 1mm.
(in case any one wonders about the bright 'specks' on the foliage, these are pollen grains of Norway spruce Picea abies. This conifer releases massive amounts of pollen nowadays so every surface is dotted with them. I washed the plants carefully before photographing them, but could not get rid of all pollen. The 100% crop shows pollen structural details as the lens is very sharp, but of course with image reduced here for web viewing, the finest details are lost)
