Botanical tattoo of a sprig with red and pink flowers, black leaves and small dots on the upper arm.

Red flower sprig on an upper arm

Botanical · Upper arm · Mixed · Photo

A sprig of stylised flowers runs up the skin, with a large red bloom at the top, a smaller pink flower to the left and a bud on the right. Bold black leaves, fine black stems and small black dots fill the spaces between the flowers. The pink and red areas are shaded with soft gradients, while the black linework and leaves are solid and crisp, and the design is centred on a pale background.

Botanical Upper arm Flower Sprig Leaf Stem Bud Dot Bird

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The hatch sighs open on the third ring of the Marrow, and the air carries the wet clay smell that means the bees have finally found the hydroponic dust. You kneel at the planting trough with your sleeve pushed up and your grandmother's brush between your teeth, painting the sprig onto the bulkhead the way she taught you. One red bloom at the top. A pink flower hanging to the left like a lantern. A bud leaning right, where a small black bird is about to land.

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The council wants the old patterns gone. Since the Dimming, every wall on the ring has been scrubbed to grey steel, and the inspectors walk past blank panels without a glance. Down in the lower decks, though, people still remember what a painted flower means. Its stem points to the seed vault, its black leaves mark the valves that still run water, and the dots are the seeds themselves, counted each quarter by anyone patient enough to look. You have spent eleven seasons thinning your lines until a scanner's eye slides straight over them.

Tonight the inspection lamp swings your way, and Ila Mron, the ten-year-old who has been holding the paint pot for you since spring, goes rigid beside you. "The bird has one dot for an eye," she whispers. "Birds have two." You tell her this one is counting, and that it will keep counting until somebody comes back to plant what it is counting. She nods as though that is the most sensible thing she has ever heard.

The lamp moves on to the next panel. You wait until the footsteps fade, then lean in and blow the dust off the red petals, which are still wet enough to shine.