Spring is still dragging her feet around here and letting Jack Frost hang around days too long. But next week, warmer air is supposed to show up and maybe that will mean flowers start showing up too. Are you ready for flowers?
I hope you're ready for a new flower to guess. Or to name if you don't know the name already. Or even if you do, you can say the name you think might fit the flower better. So, give it a try and enter my Name the Flower contest. You might win a couple of books, one of mine and one of a different Christian author.
BUT FIRST, LAST WEEK'S FLOWER NAME
Several of you named last week's beautiful flower. A few guesses were Adder's Tongue, Dog-tooth Violet, Dutchman's Britches, but nobody came up with the flower's actual name or at least not the name for the flower in my Wildflowers & Ferns of Kentucky book. However, some of you came up with great new names for the flower. Dewdrop, Teardrops, Grandmother's Dancing Bells, Green Whisper, Job's Arrow or Flying Geese. Now those are some good names. The Flying Geese and Grandmother's Dancing Bells really caught my fancy. Karen's name of Job's Arrow showed some great thinking too.
But the flower's actual name is Shooting Star. Here's what the wildflower book says about this flower. "The rocket-like flowers of this strikingly beautiful plant appear designed for space flight. It is frequent from Central Kentucky westward but rare in eastern Kentucky."
It's not rare in my wildflower woods area, but it's a flower that always makes me want to take one more photo.
NOW CAN YOU NAME THE NEW FLOWER
The flower up top is the new flower to name. It's one of my favorites to find. Let's see if you know its name. You can post that or you can still use your imagination and give it another name if you wish. You can even simply say you haven't a clue about a name. Any of those will get you a new entry into my Name the Flower Contest. Remember, each time you name a new flower posted here, you get a new entry into the giveaway.
I'll pick three winners from the entries by random drawing on April 19, 2015. So April 18, 2015 at midnight EST is the deadline for entering. You must be 18 to enter and if the winner chosen lives across the ocean, the prizes will be in e-book form. If you haven't guessed on one of the other flowers and left your contact information, be sure to leave it with your comment. If you've already left it on a different guess for this contest, then I'll have it.
Thanks for playing my Name the Flower game.
You all are always such fun whenever I have a contest here on One Writer's Journal. You jump right in and give whatever I suggest a try. Some of you knew your wildflowers and guessed right on my flower picture. It was a poppy. A celandine poppy or wood poppy, to be exact. But for those of you who called it a buttercup, I was right there with you on that for years. That was what we always called them and it's a name that fits well.
Making Up Names
I'm glad some of you who didn't know the name had fun with my suggestion to pretend you were the first person to discover the flower and thus were able to name it whatever you wanted. A couple of you came up with interesting names. Yellow or butter ruffles. Fluffypants. Not sure about that last one, but the petals do look fluffy.
Coming up with the absolute perfect name for a character in a book or story is one of the fun parts of writing for me. I get to name my main characters (the good ones and the bad ones) and dozens of minor characters in each book. I get to name where they live and the pets they have. I sometimes even name their vehicles. So why not name some wildflowers?
But the Real Name is...
A Guide to the Wildflowers and Ferns of Kentucky by Mary E. Whatron & Roger W. Barbour says. "The celandine poppy has yellow juice as well as yellow flowers. There are 4 petals...buds are covered with 2 hairy sepals and the fruit is bristly hairy. ...The species, which grows 10-18 inches high, is widely distributed in the state and is frequent in rich mesophytic woods, especially on slopes where leaf mold is deep."
From this new picture of the wood poppy this week, looks like it will grow in the middle of rocks too. But I do find my wildflowers on those kind of leaf covered slopes the book mentioned.
Okay, flower number two is up top. Remember, a new guess on this flower gets you another entry into my giveaway. But if you do guess, please leave a way to contact you or if you don't want to leave your e-mail here or have trouble leaving a comment (I know some of you do but I can't seem to fix that) then e-mail me your entry at annhgabhart at yahoo dot com.
Basic Giveaway Scoop
Here's the basic scoop on the contest in case you didn't see it on Sunday's post. The winners will get their choice of one of my books and a grab bag book by a different Christian author. The contest is open to USA and Canada for print books and e-books for international entries. You must be 18 to enter. Deadline for entries is April 18, 2015 at 12 midnight EST. I'll announce the winners here on April 19.
And remember, if you don't know the actual flower name, just think about what you might name it and tell me that.
Spring is Here
Hey, did you notice? It's SPRING! The calendar says so. Now if some of us can get Mother Nature to go along with the calendar, we'll be happy. Here things are beginning to look and sound like spring. The spring peepers are in full voice at night and in the morning, the birds are singing their spring songs. I haven't heard a mockingbird yet, but he'll show up soon. Maybe the mockingbirds are scouting out a new nest location and building their new home.
A First Wildflower
I did actually see my first wildflower today. The flower up above wasn't it, but I did post its picture on my Facebook page. Usually that first flower is a dandelion, but so far I haven't spotted one of those. If you've read my book, The Blessed, you might remember how my character Lacey did a spring dance every year when she saw her first dandelion. Some springs it was harder for her to do that happy dance than other springs.
Name the Flower Contest
But seeing the first little wildflower of spring gave me an idea for a new giveaway contest. This one won't be very hard, but I hope you'll have fun with it. Name the flower. As always, you don't have to be right. You just have to give it a try (and leave your e-mail so I can contact you should you be a winner.) That said, I know all of you will get all the flower names. Still, even if it isn't a hard to guess contest like some of my mystery puzzles, (well, some of them were hard to guess) maybe it will still be fun.
Prizes
The prizes are guess what? Aww, you did guess. Books!! I'll draw three winners. And every time you name a new flower, you'll get a new entry. So be sure to come back and check on the next flower every new blog post. That's usually Wednesdays and Sundays if I don't forget what day it is. That has happened. :) The winners will get their choice of one of my books and a grab bag book by a different Christian author. I have several autographed books that I need to give away and some others that aren't signed but the story is still good. I'll figure out which ones are up for grabs and let you know in one of my posts. That's besides my books. You can check out which of mine you might like to read by checking the titles out on my website. There are sample chapters and more there on all my inspirational fiction books.
The contest is open to USA and Canada for print books and e-books for international entries. That international postage is prohibitive. You must be 18 to enter. Deadline for entries is April 18, 2015 at 12 midnight EST. I'll announce the winners here on April 19.
Get Ready, Set, Go
So I'm ready to hear what you know about this flower. For years I called it the wrong thing. Oh, and if you don't know the real name or even if you do, another fun thing to do is pretend you were the first person to ever see this flower and that you got to name it. So what would you have called it?
Remember to leave a way to contact you if you want to be in the running to win a book. I can't respond directly to your comments.
