The alien-looking plant in the first photo is a seedpod of ‘Love in a mist’ (Nigella damascena), one of my favorite flowers, that I spotted during a short visit last Monday to Green Spring Gardens with my friend and photography mentor Cindy Dyer. It was a little late in the season, but I managed to spot a few flowers still in bloom, as shown in the second image. This flower is typically blue, but love-in-a-mist also comes in shades of white, pink, and lavender.
When I did a little research on-line, I learned that the striped, balloon-shaped object that I call a seedpod, is actually an inflated capsule composed of five fused true seedpods, according to an article by Wisconsin Horticulture. I also learned that the thorny-looking spikes that make up the “mist,” which are not sharp, despite their appearance, are technically bracts, a specialized kind of leaves.
This is one of the few local places where I know I can find this exotically beautiful flower. If you want to see love-in-a-mist yourself, you should probably go to a large garden. Otherwise you could waste a lot of your time looking for love in all the wrong places.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
Thank you for the great information and photo. 🙏❤
Beautiful.
A great plant with a lovely flower and interesting seed pods that can be dried for indoor arrangements. Mine self-sow every year, so all I have to do is thin them to a foot apart in spring. I fell in love with another species that is white and black, Nigella papillosa ‘African Bride.’ I have to order some seed online.
That is so cool, Eliza, that you are not only familiar with this plant–you actually grow them. I checked out Nigella papillosa on-line and it is stunning.
They are very easy to grow!
I grew some a few years ago partly because it has ‘Nigel’ in its name and partly because the flower looks so interesting. I got a packet of mixed-colour seeds, curious as to what the different colours would look like. They were great and as you’ve shown in your photo the seedpods were a bonus feature too!
What a great reason to grow them, Liz. As I poked about on the internet, I learned that there are some other cool members of the Nigella family, like Nigella orientailis, known as ‘Transformer.’
That sounds fun.. will have to take a look later!
From your title, this was not at all what I expected–but then again, that’s what clever titling is all about. This is yet another that is totally new to me. How great it is to live and still learn!
Someone famous once said that if we are not learning, we are dying. As you have probably notices, Gary, I am by nature a curious person and I rather consciously look at the world with a childlike sense of wonder. As for the title, it’s fun to be playful sometimes rather than always having a purely descriptive title. 🙂
Stunning shots, Mike! The details really pop when the images are expanded.
Lol with your ending. 😄 Beautiful flower and name.