Monday 22nd June 2020, 8.30am (day 3,224)
This squash plant is growing on the window sill of our room. Now I’m no expert on botany, and it is true that one rarely gets the chance to observe flowers in such controlled conditions. But I have never seen a plant that blooms in such an ephemeral way. This flower had not opened at all last night: here is what it looked like at 8.30am. But it was already withering. By 11am it was visibly drooping and by not later than 4pm it had shrivelled away to the state of the one visible behind it — which had done all this two days ago.
I hope it got what it wanted out of its few hours of glory, anyway. You have to hope that evolution still knows how to build things that are fit for purpose.
