Big Beautiful World 10 -- Dying Sunflower, Lewisburg, PA

I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating, and tell all your friends to pass it along: It’s a big, beautiful world out there. Let’s stop trying to screw it up. What do you say? Just because the flowers are dying and the leaves are turning and falling from the trees and there's less light and greater chill in a day, that doesn't mean there's a shortage of beauty in the world. Take, for example, this sunflower. Sure, its head is bowed and the petals are all gone, leaving only the tough, scaly leaves that make up the base of the flower's head to crown the sunflower's eye. But it's still beautiful. A little sad, maybe, I'll grant that, but beautiful nonetheless. Those modified leaves, BTW, are phyllaries. Or in the case of a sunflower, they're hairy phyllaries, which is a great name for a nerdy botanist rock band. But I digress.