Lignin and cellulose.....

Woodgreen

I just read a post in the thread about 'Cleaning a pond', in which @pansyface gave a roughly scientific explanation (her words) of how leaves break down in ponds. How the cellulose breaks down more quickly than the lignin, leaving leaf skeletons.
I was reminded of a UFO I have upstairs (unfinished object) and I duly found these.....
So thank you @pansyface, for jogging my memory. I need to finish this, before they get damaged (they are of course magnolia leaves sprayed with gold paint.) 

Uff

There's something lovely about leaf skeletons. Are you going to frame them Woodgreen?

Woodgreen

The idea was to place them with some other little items onto the brown silk and frame them as a sort of collage. But different ideas come and go, you know how it is.
The idea came from seeing how lovely the netted remains of magnolia leaves are at the end of winter, but also from a book by Penny Black, 'The Complete Book of Pressed Flowers' in which she uses them to beautiful effect.

pansyface

Yes, even flower bracts do that. Very pretty.

These were something that came in a packet of wild flower seeds. Quite a tall plant. they looked much prettier a month ago before the rain.

If I’d been the sort of person who remembers to do stuff at the right time I could have sprayed them gold.

Woodgreen

Similar results as the magnolia leaves there @pansyface.
I look at the fallen leaves now and they look so tough, though they're deciduous, but they must break down easily.
Last year after mowing up a patch of magnolia leaves I mulched a small enclosed raised bed with them.
By spring it had turned into a fluffy covering that resembled cut-up net curtains, really weird stuff!

As for doing things at the right time -- I pressed those leaves in a notepad for a couple of years before remembering to spray them. 
What were the flowers in your photo? They remind me of clary, though I've not grown that myself.

pansyface

I have no idea, woodgreen. The packet didn't list the wild flower varieties. The flowers themselves were like rather weedy dandelions. Maybe safflower?

Too soggy now for anything other than the compost heap. 😊

Woodgreen

That's where the mown magnolia leaves are going this time too!