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Frogfruit (Phyla nodiflora), a Florida native

Member-only story

Tiny Flowers

Noticing small wonders

2 min readOct 10, 2025

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The tiniest flowers creep against the ground, spreading tendrils and establishing roots in free soil, weaving between grasses and weeds and anything else. They don’t discern. They don’t clump or gather into bunches for your dining room table.

They keep heads low below the lawnmower, quietly growing outward, surviving drought and flood and foot traffic, impossible to kill having so elaborately orchestrated their own survival.

You don’t even see them unless you are truly looking.

They are everywhere, and they are nowhere. They are a pause. Because to see them is to require a change of perspective, which takes effort and time.

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Press enter or click to view image in full size
Florida pursley (Richardia scabra), Prostrate globe amaranth (Gomphrena serrata), Paraguayan purslane (Portulaca amilis)

A person has to arch over their back and bend their knees and lean in close enough to smell the earth. Question their age and agility and eyesight and ask themselves whether what they are seeing isn’t actually a flower with little petals and a stem and leaves.

And if that isn’t a bee, collecting pollen from it. I’ll be damned.

And when we see that it is, that they are, in fact tiny flowers with tiny insects attending to them, what other conclusion is there but that even the smallest expressions of beauty and resilience still matter.

Maybe even more than we can properly appreciate. Given our obscene human scale, you know.

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Cassie McDaniel
Cassie McDaniel

Written by Cassie McDaniel

VP of Design at Medium. Words, design, community. Leading w/ kindness. Prev. @ Lattice, Webflow, Glitch, Mozilla, etc. cassiemcdaniel.com