I'm no botanist

I went over to the Conservatory Garden this morning because we've had a week of "won't spring ever come?" weather. The sun was wonderful. The garden, unfortunately was being prepared for a new planting but it still had it's beautiful parts. So I spent a wonderful hour there partly working on the Times Sunday crossword puzzle and wondering if they're going through an especially hard phase or I'm entering an especially dumb phase ... although I've got to say a lot of clues have to do with both pop music and James Bond movies and I'm a fan of neither therefore 90% ignorant [the 10 percent I've sort of picked up from ambient ads and such].

Anyway, I saw this flower there, probably a year ago, and here it is again -- unlike any flower whose name I know or that is at all familiar to me. From the stem lots of little stem-lets [pardon my unscientific description] radiate into a ball shape, each with a star-like flower on it, It looks like a globe of stars. It's amazing. There was no sign with a name as sometimes there is. If any of my handful of readers knows what this is, I hope you'll leave a comment and tell me. If you click the picture it will enlarge considerably.

On the comment subject, I want to tell God's Rock Angel, who I know is a considerate and interesting young woman from England with whom I've corresponded, that I appreciate her comments and couldn't find a way to respond to her directly [via email] as I wanted. She's not a Mozart fan, as her moniker would suggest. I'm sure the music she likes has good qualities but I hope if she ever breaks a bone or needs hospital care, that she'll try out some Mozart while recovering. There are specific qualities to his music, says, the good doctor in the Times article, that spur the healing hormones' development. The doctor says that he listens to Mozart when he's operating [he's a brain surgeon, I believe] because it makes him calm; but at other times he listens to more contemporary music.