Hepatica Bouquet

Following two more warmish days, I returned to the Skidmore woods to see if the Hepatica buds I'd found there on Wednesday had opened into full blooms.  And indeed they had!  Unfortunately, somebody must have poached the plant with lavender flowers, because I could find no sign of it today, even though I knew exactly where I had found it.  At least the plant with pink flowers was still there, and its buds had opened wide:

Other Hepaticas with open flowers were far and few between as yet.  In a week or so, they should be blooming all over the woods.  At least, the few I found today were in rather interesting colors.  Here was a white flower with purple edges.

And here was a purple flower with whitish edges. Note the beautiful sharp-lobed leaf, mottled green and purple.  These leaves first opened a year ago, remained intact through the winter, and will fade as this spring's flowers go to seed and new leaves start to grow.

Oh, how lovely this one was, with radiant purple flowers and beautifully preserved leaves, some of them pure green and others in more mottled shades.

Here's a closer look at those beautiful purple flowers. They appeared almost luminous in the dappled shade of the woods.

And here was another beauty of a different kind:  a gorgeous Mourning Cloak Butterfly, remarkably unscathed for having spent the winter sheltering under the leaf litter.  This lovely creature can be difficult to photograph, flitting away whenever I approach within focussing distance.  But today, it must have been loathe to leave this sun-warmed rock and remained quite still, soaking up the rays.