Musings

We’re moving past mid-summer, and I see post-flowering plant-ness (plantations? haha).

Here, cherry tomatoes and canna lily examples.

Posted at 6:59 PM | Comments Off on Beyond flowering

To avoid Delta exposure, we went to the drive-through at the pharmacy. Turned out to be a poor choice. It took on average ten (!!) minutes per vehicle ahead of us. Same to take care of us. May try a different pharmacy next time. We were in line long enough that a rain storm came up.

Unusual sprouting trunk. Effectively a natural form of coppicing.

Posted at 9:15 PM | Comments Off on Drive-up adventure

We got a bit of a temp/humidity reprieve during post-Fred, although I found it darned oppressive outside this morning. Cooler, yet the air seemed like it sat heavy on my skin.

All in a day’s…outdoor exercise.

Posted at 9:32 PM | Comments Off on Charging along

One (or more!) people at this house is seriously into gardening, with this and a large planting of white ginger flowering now. They smell lovely, and the scent cuts through the humidity.

In the UP, we were awash in the scent of blooming milkweeds. Too many, IMHO, as there were few monarchs feeding on the thousands of plants on our property. Thousands.

Posted at 7:22 PM | Comments Off on I am not exaggerating

Sunday morning early. Quiet. I’m passing by the Middle School, which opened last week. I see a ladder and a pair of legs, knees down, in a leaf-dense bush…shrub.

I keep walking, and I see it’s a woman. In a fig tree. It’s fig season, I think. This is my second picking, she says. Gleefully.

[Photos no relation to the story. Hibiscus and glinting sun. Today. No figs.]

Posted at 8:30 PM | Comments Off on Urban gathering

That would be floral and fungal.

Floral is prettier, but fungal has perhaps the more interesting story. My guess is it grows on wood, yet here it is emerging from a sidewalk crack. The universe is upside-down. Perhaps. Or I’m missing a few facts.

Posted at 8:53 PM | Comments Off on F x 2

Tis the season for crape myrtles to bloom. Scientifically, they’re Lagerstroemia spp., and in the loosestrife family. Didn’t know that. That family also includes pomegranate. Botanical taxonomy is complex, especially now genetic info is one type of evidence.

Crape myrtles also played a role in the day I met the Guru. But that’s for another day.

Posted at 7:37 PM | Comments Off on Flowering stories

We went to Athens, visited family, laughed, and ate. They kindly watched our pictures, and we got to see this lovely ginger bloom.

Posted at 7:02 PM | Comments Off on Wonderful day

The smoke-haze and the dawning sun made the buildings copper and gold. I’m in the city again.

Scale switch. Bumble bee on Joe-Pye weed. Capitalization of the plant name varies. Use of hyphens varies. Or just call it Eutrochium purpureum. Native to eastern North America, from Lousiana/Florida to Ontario.

Posted at 8:56 PM | Comments Off on Metropolizing

I saw this photo and thought I could identify funky cauliflower shapes in the unopened buds. I didn’t have that reaction to the actual flower (what does that say about me?). So, I checked out scientific names, and it turns out that they (Daucus carota and Brassica oleracea)are not closely related at all. Ancestral populations suggest origins in temperate Europe and southwest Asia vs very southern and western Europe, so no huge spatial overlap.

End economic botany discussion.

Posted at 7:55 PM | Comments Off on Visual crossover