Figure 1 – The dried crown of Queen Anne’s lace, Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge, Sept. 12, 2020. (c) DE Wolf 2020

There is barely anything left of summer, but the days are still glorious and filled with September light. The Queen Anne’s Lace has begun to shrink into glorious, delicate, and complex puzzle crowns. The one in Figure 1 I photographed today with my iPhone X Max at the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge, my old and now renewed stomping ground. It was a cool, sunlit, and breezy day. I love these delightful twisted structures, and I love the fact that it is largely the physics of the drying process that creates.