Pink Lady Butterfly on Sweetpea blossom
Terri Webster Schrandt

The Flower Hour #16: The Shapes of Flowers

Partially inspired this week by the Lens-Artists Challenge: Looking Back to Shapes and Designs, I’m sharing a variety of flowers from my archives that resemble distinct geometric shapes.

For example, these beautiful pink cabbage roses are round, or radially symmetrical.

Pink Cabbage Roses
Pink Cabbage Roses

According to this SOURCE, “The natural world, from the smallest organisms to the largest cosmic structures, displays an astonishing array of organized shapes and patterns. These visible designs, often intricate and beautiful, are not simply random occurrences. Instead, they hint at a deeper, underlying order that influences how everything forms and functions. This pervasive presence of organized forms invites a closer look at the geometry hidden in plain sight.”

Here are a few more that mimic geometric shapes.

The Perennial Sweet Pea, shown below and in the featured image, is an example of a bilateral, symmetrical shape and is Papilionaceous, or butterfly-like. No wonder butterflies are drawn to them.

Pink Lady Butterfly on Sweetpea blossom
Pink Lady Butterfly on Sweetpea blossom

This pink flower is a red yucca, with a tubular shape, a characteristic known as tubulate.

Pink flower, bee and lines
Red Yucca

This beautiful plumeria, one I grew in Sacramento years ago, sports a radially symmetrical star shape.

Drops on Top

This Dogwood blossom, which blooms in May, has a cross-like form, known as “cruciform.”

Dogwood Tree Blossom
Dogwood Tree Blossom
Dogwood Tree Blossoms

The tulips are cup or bowl-shaped, or “cyanthiform.”

tulip
Pink Tulip

Lastly, these Maple leaves exhibit a fractal pattern found in nature in their autumn colors.

Pink and red Maple Leaves

I hope you enjoyed discovering the amazing shapes that exist in flowers and leaves.

For the Flower Hour, share your images of flowers, gardens, fields of flowers, seasonal leaves and plants, cacti, blossoms, berries, and wildflowers. Bouquets and silk/faux flowers are welcome.

Remember, there are no specific themes for the Flower Hour, but please use your own photography. And you have all week to link to this post.

New to The Flower Hour photo challenge? Please check out my page for more information! I encourage “double-dipping” with other blog challenges if you do not want to create a separate post.

“If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.” – Buddha

floral signature

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107 comments

  3. These are lovely flowers for the hour of flower power. I love all the learning that goes into this post. You need quizes sprinkled throughout the post. Such great vocabulary: “cyanthiform,”  “cruciform,” “tubulate,” and so many more. DELIGHTFUL, my friend. Hope you have a glorious Superbowl Sunday. 🙂 xxxxxxxx

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    • Thank you, Marsha! I looked up the various shapes and a PDF popped up with pictures and explanations. I learned a lot! Hans is grilling a tri-tip for an early feast. We’re excited to live in the home team’ state. Seahawks Fandom is everywhere today, even at church! Wishing you a great day too!

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  30. These are beautiful blooms Terri – I love all the pinky shades you features here. I have never seen a Plumeria or a Sweetpea before. I do look forward to seeing the Dogwood Trees bloom in the ‘hood and at Heritage Park in the Botanical Gardens. We had a few Yuccas but they were white. I will have a flower tomorrow for Wordless Wednesday, red-pink too, complete with two bees. 🙂

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  42. The pink cabbage roses are beautiful! My granny had wallpaper in her bedroom that had them in the design and I loved looking at them. So interesting to know what the different shapes are called. Now I’m off to find some to post!~ 🙂

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