B is for Bracts

Lavender photographed at Christianson's Garden Center in the Skagit Valley. The plant parts at the top of the flower head are not flowers but bracts. The flowers are the tiny reddish-purple blooms on the sides of the flower head. This plant is a variety of Lavandula stoechas, referred to as Spanish or French lavender.

"The night is fresh-washed & fair & there is a whiff of flowers in the air.
Wrap me close, sheets of lavender.
Pour your blue & purple dreams into my ears."
-Amy Lowell,
1874-1925