It shouldn’t have happened, but I think a few of you received a duplicate of the last post. Sorry ’bout that. Even after 5 years, Mailpress blogging software is something of a mystery to me.

This is my sketchbook page for  the August issue of 48 North magazine. I hatched this idea a few months ago while painting plumose anemones for an interpretive panel at Glacier Bay National Park and the more I learned about them, the crazier they seemed. We have these critters here in the Salish Sea and Puget Sound too, and they just seemed ripe for another few paintings. I think they’re a most amazing animal and really sensational to paint. That an animal is built like a beautiful flower is tantalizing for a painter of nature.

Here’s the story that goes with with sketchbook.

Next time you’re down on the docks at low tide take a peek down a piling into the water below. See any big white flowers attached to it that are waving in the current? Those are plumose anemones, and flowers they are definitely not! They’re actually animals, predators on the prowl for small larvae and other tasty organisms that pass by.

 While they look permanently attached to the piling or rock, if attacked by a sea star or nudibranch anemones can instantly leap for safety in an ungainly jump. In fact, large solitary anemones can be found far away from the vast gardens of larger family groups, showing they really can do a ‘walk about.’ Anemones begin life when a fragment from the base of a large anemone breaks off and grows into a tiny but genetically-identical new one. These clones start life as one sex but changes to the other when it is older. Quite a critter, don’t you think?

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

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