Wondering about a wild flowers life cycle.

Did you ever hear of a Coral Bean plant? I never have, and I always wondered what these beautiful plants with the red blooms were called. Today I searched the internet and found it. They grow up to 3 feet or more tall and the blooms start at the lowest buds and bloom upward. Here is a link to a lot of internet pictures:

http://www.google.com/search?q=coral+bean&hl=en&rlz=1W1ADRA_en&prmd=ivnso&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=okvNTeGALcbZ0QHAno3gDQ&sqi=2&ved=0CCAQsAQ&biw=937&bih=540

Now, as I told you before, this year has been extra, extra dry and the wild flowers have had a hard time. Therefore, the plant I took pictures of is not in its prime health, but stressed by the drought. This plant usually lives out in open fields, but this one was beside my driveway next to brush and trees. I decided to take pictures over the life of this plant. It had two stalks coming up and this first picture shows it when it first started to bloom and seemed in less stressed:

 

This next picture is a few days later and shows both stalks blooming and standing straight up:

Another picture of the blooms a day or so later:

This is probably at its best:

After that, it faded and one stalk leaned over and it finally lay down on the ground.  After awhile seed pods developed and they do look like bean pods.  Maybe that is how it got its name, you know, bright red coral color and bean pod shaped seeds.  Here is a picture of the pods on the standing stalk:

And on the stalk that was laying down:

Since the drought was so severe, this plant stopped blooming way before most of its buds were ready and went to seed. The plant shut down early to make sure that seeds would be provided for next year. It must have known that the drought would kill it if it tried to complete its blooming cycle. You know, sometimes dumb plants can be smarter than us humans. Isn’t Nature wonderful?

You all have a good day now, you hear?