Flora

One of a series of images distributed via a self-promotional marketing program to prospective clients to promote the artist’s creativity, artistry and storytelling. The illustration is a fantasy dramatization of the flowering of gastrointestinal microbiota fertilized by the churning gastric environment. The flowering is depicted by petals of Bacteroidetes, Bifidobacteriam, and Enterococcus faecalis, pistils of Lactobacillus and stamens of Enterococcus faecalis perched on stalks of Escherichia coli. The flower itself emerges on stalks of Clostridium difficile. Free-chaining Streptococcus mutans floats by under the flower. Bacillus cereus, long rod-shaped bacteria in their arthomitus stage attach by fibers to the intestinal epithelium, grow filamentously, and sporulate from their distal ends.