This is the slowly opening tip of a flower of the plant Dracunculus vulgaris, which will, in a few days, look something like this.

1. 
   Harry 2007 05 04 at 5:33:00 pm

   Hah! I’ve just come back from Crete and those things were all over the place. They are the most extraordinary looking things.

2. 
   JP Stormcrow 2007 05 04 at 6:31:47 pm

   Not my blood! Not my blood!

3. 
   Amanda Marcotte 2007 05 04 at 11:42:10 pm

   Pervert.

4. 
   DAR 2007 05 05 at 11:20:31 am

   I don’t think so!

5. 
   Chris Clarke 2007 05 05 at 12:53:37 pm

   Amanda, a request for clarification: are you referring to the photo or to yesterday’s email conversation?

6. 
   Fred Levitan 2007 05 07 at 4:47:33 pm

   William Tell has stretched his bow till it won’t stretch
   No furthermore and/or it may require a change that hasn’t come before.

   No more time to tell how, this is the season of what,
   Now is the time of returning with our thought
   Jewels polished and gleaming.
   Now is the time past believing the child has relinquished the rein,
   Now is the test of the boomerang tossed in the night of redeeming.

   Seven faced marble eyed transitory dream doll,
   Six proud walkers on the jingle bell rainbow,
   Five men writing with fingers of gold,
   Four men tracking down the great white sperm whale,
   Three girls waiting in a foreign dominion
   Riding in the whalebelly, fade away in moonlight,
   Sink beneath the waters to the coral sands below.