Whenever I visit my friends in the greater Pasadena area, I walk around their garden, yard, and neighborhood, collecting vast quantities of photos of flora. Here are some I took this Thanksgiving.

In the suburbs, I often get out the macro lens, because I don’t care for parked cars in my backgrounds. Back-lighting is great for studying leaves (Collard, in this case).

Close upo view of a Collard leaf, dark green, crinkly, with bright veins running through it.

Any sort of back-lit greenery fascinates me, really. These Spear Lilies tend to have a fan of leaves that are easy to line up.

A Spear Lily, glowing with backlight.

Wanted: Ivy. Dead or Alive.

Ivy on a tree trunk, half is alive, half dead.

The Collards did well this year, as did the Mexican Sage (I think) in the background.

Collard leaves in the foreground, the purple flowers of Mexican Sage blurred in the background.

An odd combination, but the geometries always catches my eye.

Spear Lily leaves close up, just the tips in silhouette, with a pumpkin as the background.

The oranges looked so juicy, but were not ripe yet, so all I could do was drool and shoot.

Oranges growing on a tree.

My friends have pepper trees, and it is always bemusing to see the peppercorns in their natural state, rather than in a jar.

Red peppercorns growing on a tree.

This pepper tree has magnificent bones. I photograph them every time I visit.

A large tree limb is seen from below, its silhouette dark amidst leaves, some bright,m some dark.