Black and grey botanical tattoo of gladioli on a stem running down the inner upper arm, drawn in fine linework with soft shading.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Gladiolus sprig on inner upper arm

Botanical · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A stem of gladiolus flowers runs diagonally down the inner upper arm, with buds at the top and three open blooms along the lower section. The linework is fine and dark, with soft grey shading inside the petals to give them volume. The design is shown in black ink and greys against a plain arm, with a workshop of hanging tools blurred in the background.

Botanical Fine line Upper arm Flower Stem Bud Floral

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Ada Pell had cut the last of the sword lilies before the men came up from the drains, and she carried the stem across the yard as if it might spill. Her brother Tom was already at the gate with the cart, swearing at the mare. "They'll not fetch a shilling at Spalding with rain on them," he said. She didn't answer. She was counting.

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Every gladiolus opens from the bottom of the spike upward, her grandmother had taught her, so the fattest flowers at the foot had already gone papery and freckled at the throat. The green buds at the tip stayed shut as fists. Ada had planted the bed the spring her mother died, and she knew the order of things the way she knew the order of the kitchen drawers. Three blooms were still open, sprawling sideways to the glare off the water.

Tom took the cart on to market. Ada stayed with the stem and a jam jar of creek water and sat on the chopping block, tilting the spike so the high buds caught the sun. Frost was forecast for the week. Nothing left in the yard would open after that. But the topmost bud had a seam of colour showing, the faintest pink, like a sentence that hadn't finished.

She set the jar on the sill facing east and went in to bake. By morning the bud had split, and she left it there, the last one, for whoever came up the lane and looked.