Black-eyed Susan fireworks

With my wife still barely able to walk, I don't think we're going to be venturing out tonight for fireworks, something I love to see and photograph, even if the traffic's always beastly and we have to trek a fair distance to get to our usual observation point. And, given that it's currently raining, the annual display might have to be postponed. But nature also has its pyrotechnics, and if the fireflies are meager this year—perhaps this is due to the fall drought or the winter's chill; perhaps it's just a continuation of a depressingly long-term decline in lightning bug populations—the wildflowers are abundant and inspiring. This Black-eyed Susan, which recently started to bloom, looks like one of the aerial flowers that so delight the crowds. I wonder if the Oriental inventors of pyrotechnics had blossoms in mind when they designed the stunning payloads that their rockets delivered. I doubt the mimicry is coincidental.