Dead Hydrangeas

These hydrangeas are so delicate, in death as much as in life. It's a lacecap variety rather than the heavier mopheads. They always remind me of alien spacecraft the way the separate flowers float above the stalk on extended legs.

This one has even fewer flowers left. I guess those are little seed heads that remain after the petals have dropped.

I was going to post these images in colour because there are still traces of pink and blue left among the brown, but there was so much bright green in the background, from the evergreen leaves in the first one and in the lawn in the second, that it overwhelmed the delicate flowers. So I converted to black and white, compared them with the originals, and in both cases they look better like this.