Life Cycle

I have written about this bush and its flower before.
On our walk yesterday we spotted several of the "finger" stage of the blossom.
The tassels will come soon.

There were still quite a few seedpods, but most of them had burst and were black and empty.

The things that you see

When we went for our walk at the lake this morning we remembered to take a camera with us. We could see this blue spot from quite a distance. I wondered if it were a flower that had grown up through the old stump. The reality was more amusing.
Isn't this seedpod marvellous? I have been thinking of a way to suggest it in fabric or fibre and I have an idea . . .
I don't know what the bush is called, but the sequence it follows in its flowering is amazing. Before the flowers come it has protruding fat fingers (where the spikes are now) like an outspread hand. Then they split and the flower emerges. The long fine flower filaments look like a bunch of tassels. The flowers die and the seedpods dry out and lose their colour and eventually fall to the ground.
I look for the bush every time we walk this way, just so I can see what stage it is at. This is what it had to offer today.