Spike Weed Open

@Anthony: Thanks, but not technically a "macro" shot since the original image as captured in the camera was not greater than life size.

@Amir: I have no idea what that stuff is or what purpose it serves for the plant. I can only guess that it traps nutrients somehow --be they insects or other matter.

Well, others commented that it was Photoshopped, but I reserved the possibility that you had more than one dog, even if not four. Have you some technique besides cloning? Or some technique that is particularly fast? At the resolution on Animus the added dogs look pretty good. Can I assume you set your camera on a tripod and took four separate shots and then cloned the extra three dogs onto a single image --essentially combining four different shots? Or did you do something else?

@danthro: So, I should cancel that free plant shipment I was sending your way?

@Observing: Not that I tested it, but I believe those spikes were actually soft --not at all like, say, thorns on a rose bush.

@Margie: Well, I've never been to NZ, and haven't read or seen much about it either, excepting as it pertains to Peter Jackson and Peter Jackson movies, and movies like The Piano, and Whale Rider, etc. --and the many political blogs where NZ is one of the prime destinations for escaping Americans (and btw, know anyone who can help get me in?). But don't the Aussies have a lot of weird plants and animals?

@Alun Lambert: Thanks.

@Daroru: I have no idea.

@Rags: They're all over the place around here --or so it seems driving down the road, though I guess some of them may be different on closer inspection. You don't have these up your way?

@Melissa W.: These plants don't seem to last very long once they appear, but I see them all over along the road side.