Grape flower

My Concord grape vine began to flower early yesterday morning. I was able to find an area with several bunches under the canopy where only one flower on one bunch had bloomed. I used a touch of very low power fill to add some ambient background light as a shaft of early morning sunlight just happened to be lighting this freshly popped flower.

For scale, maybe five or six of the buds will cover one of your fingernails. The cap (carapace) begins to split in several places top to bottom. There are usually five, sometimes six, splits in the cap. The anthers are curled inward exerting pressure on the cap like little springs. The slices begin to separate from the base of the flower and curl upward, exposing the anthers and letting them spread out a bit while their tops are still contained inside the top of the cap resulting in more pressure. The anthers continue to  exert outward pressure pushing the cap up and off. Sometimes this process takes several minutes, sometimes a a few seconds. The cap may be pushed off completely but usually stays attached by one "hinge" as shown here. Once they have pushed the cap aside, the anthers spread out wide (about halfway to that point here). No petals, just the anthers with pollen, and the Hershey kiss shaped ovum which changes over to the more grape-like globe shape soon after pollination. I have a season-long study on my site if you want to see more, including video of this process.