What's Neat about Ground Pink

My good friend Len Gardner was kind enough to point out some particularities on Ground Pink, one of our canyon's wildflowers in bloom right now (can be seen, for example, on South Stagecoach right up the hill from the Nix Nature Center's Parking lot). Len writes,

There is something neat about the Ground Pink [...]. The petals are twirled when in bud. Botanists call this convolute buds. They unroll as the flower opens. This is a family characteristic for the Polemoniaceae, which includes Phlox and related species. Also, the pink of the young flower fades as it ages. This is very noticeable. When you look at a group of plants with flowers of different ages you might think at first that they were of two types.

The petal margins are lightly toothed. In all, a very lovely flower.

Take a look at these three photos I took on the 14th of March, showing these very particularities - the fading color and the darker color of the two different Ground Pinks, the twirled nature of the petals when the flower is closed up, and the toothed ends of the petals. Fun!