I’ve been looking at some of the photos I took last year – and have never gotten around to editing or posting here on the blog. I found a fun set from last year’s Chrysanthemum Festival at Longwood Gardens. I figured I’d better start sharing these – before I start photographing chrysanthemums this year.

One of the major groups of chrysanthemums are the Spoon Mums (chrysanthemum x morifolium). They are closely related to the daisy mums. The difference is in the petals. In the spoon mums, the petals form a tube – and then open out into a spoon shape at the end. They are very distinctive looking.

I photographed three types of spoon mums at last year’s Chrysanthemum Festival.

The first is the Redwing Spoon Mum. I love the contrast of yellow, white and red in these flowers.

(c) 2010 Patty Hankins

(c) 2010 Patty Hankins

I had fun taking this final photo of the Redwing Spoon Mum – I loved the way the spoon ends of the petals look when one flower overlaps another.

(c) 2010 Patty Hankins

Next is the Yolaporte Spoon Mum – a wonderful purple, yellow and white chrysanthemum

(c) 2010 Patty Hankins

(c) 2010 Patty Hankins

And yet again – I had fun photographing the petals

(c) 2010 Patty Hankins

And finally the Trendy Time Spoon Mum – a wonderful flower in shades of yellow

(c) 2010 Patty Hankins

Now that I know how to identify a Spoon Mum – I’ll be keeping my out so I can photograph more varieties of them.