Larkspur

One of the things that struck me with the Palmer Lake, Larkspur photos is how set the monolithic outcroppings appear with their plant variety grouping in mid winter, so the sticks show. I always thought the Takashi Amano style aquariums with their increased light and CO2 seemed a little too pat, a bit too trite, twee, insufficiently random. They all have a central piece of interest, as a large rock, or driftwood, usually a few supportive pieces, then plants in large number, cost not being thought of, and clustered in clumps varying in height, texture, and color to establish background midground and foreground. The detritus eroded from one outcropping and heaped at its base would be perfect for such rock collecting. The whole thing could be recreated in miniature using its own rubble. Then some branch jabbed into the sand upside down in a corner and sticking out as if it fell into the river, fell into the little area of the river, the aquarium, as if from outside and from above, and provided an armature of sorts in there, a kind of protection. Just so. So much like hair done up to a tossed and tumbled carefree exuberance that takes hours to achieve. And then here they are, bam, one after another, the rock outcroppings with exactly that staid stoic contrived exceedingly traditional Japanese formula. 

This is where you would find arrowheads, you know.

It is where you find dinosaur bones and impressions, leafs, trilobites, what have you.