Flowering Plants (11)
August 5, 2006
Guzmania sanguinea
Updated November 6, 2007 at 3:00pm local time: Thanks to the comment from Harry Luther below, I've updated this entry to the proper name. This entry was originally posted as Neoregelia 'Maya'. – Daniel
Kind thanks to Van in NYC@Flickr for sharing today's image (original image), photographed at the Montréal Botanic Garden.
It's a holiday long weekend here in British Columbia, so only a selection of links about this pineapple relative today! The genus Guzmania via Wikipedia gives a brief overview of this group of tropical plants. For more photographs, the Florida Council of Bromeliad Societies has a photo database. Lastly, the Mount Holyoke College Botanic Garden has an excellent page showing some of the diversity within the Bromeliaceae.
Posted by Daniel Mosquin at 5:21 AM| Comments (4)
August 4, 2006
Syngonanthus nitens
The textile in this scan is courtesy of the garden's new education coordinator, Nadine Diner, who purchased the item during a recent trip to the Jalapão region of Brazil. The object is woven from the scapes of capim dourado – golden grass (Syngonanthus nitens) – and bound with fibres of buriti palm (Mauritia flexuosa).
Despite its common name, it isn't a true grass – it belongs to the family Eriocaulaceae, not the grass-encompassing Poaceae.
Instead of rewriting what already exists online, I'll direct you to the best resources: a short summary of capim dourado with photographs; some of the textile products made with capim dourado; two galleries of photographs from the Jalapão region (gallery 1 accompanied by a written blurb and gallery 2); “O brilho do Capim Dourado” (in Portuguese, accompanied by photographs) and the dissertation of Isabel Schmidt (PDF), who studied the optimal time to harvest Syngonanthus nitens (again, mostly in Portuguese).
Posted by Daniel Mosquin at 12:00 AM| Comments (0)
August 3, 2006
Origanum 'Barbara Tingey'
I hope it's okay to feature an ornamental herb from the same plant family two days in a row! Yesterday's sage is joined by this ornamental oregano, 'Barbara Tingey'. Today's photograph was taken in the UBC Alpine Garden two years ago.
Some of the alpine plant enthusiasts who read BPotD will doubtless know the origin of the cultivar's name. I noted that one of the alpine garden society's has an award named for Barbara Tingey, so I am supposing that's the connection.
A few good places to visit online to learn more about ornamental oreganos: Pacific Northwest Magazine has an article, “Beauty With Virtue”; Denver Botanic Gardens is currently featuring 'Barbara Tingey' oregano on its What's Blooming web page (this link won't last forever!); and sagellyn@Flickr, who often submits images to BPotD, has a photograph of Origanum 'Barbara Tingey' to share as well.
Photography resource link: A few months ago, I suggested visiting the photography web site of Mike Mander, Sublime Photography. It's worth visiting Mike's site again. In the time since it was last featured on here, Mike had a digital camera converted to take infrared photographs only. These new shots are absolutely otherworldly, including these photographs from UBC and UBC Botanical Garden. I should note that I met Mike on Tuesday and had the pleasure of seeing some of these photographs in print.
Posted by Daniel Mosquin at 5:07 AM| Comments (4)
August 2, 2006
Salvia patens 'Blue Angel'
The genus name Salvia is derived from the Latin salvere, meaning “to be saved” i.e., to heal. Unsurprisingly, some species of sage were historically used as healing herbs. Salvia patens, however, does not seem to have a history as one of the healing species. It is instead an ornamental sage, cultivated since 1838 in Western gardens.
Wayne Armstrong has a page on the genus Salvia that is well-worth reading if you've the time.
Posted by Daniel Mosquin at 2:10 AM| Comments (1)
August 1, 2006
Danaus plexippus and Asclepias tuberosa
Today's image is courtesy of Janet Davis, garden writer extraordinaire and author of the Beautiful Botany web site (previously featured as a resource link). Janet used this image of butterfly milkweed and a monarch butterfly to illustrate her article on butterfly plants. Please keep in mind that the usual copyright terms apply to this image since it is from someone not employed by UBC Botanical Garden. Thank you, Janet!
As mentioned in a previous entry, milkweeds are the exclusive food of monarch butterfly caterpillars. Toxins in the milkweed sap accumulate in the tissue of the caterpillar, rendering it (and the subsequent adult) poisonous and inedible to birds.
Asclepias tuberosa has two features that distinguish it from other milkweeds: 1) its sap is not milky, and 2) its leaves are alternately arranged, instead of opposite. The Shenandoah National Park in the US has an excellent factsheet on Asclepias tuberosa for more information.
On a final note, monarchs have been in the news and editorials recently regarding an international agreement to conserve monarch habitat. “Is the mighty monarch butterfly on its last wings?” is an editorial questioning the utility of the agreement in the face of other dangers to the monarch.
Photography resource link: The Making of a Fine Art Photograph, an article by Pete Myers for The Luminous Landscape web site. It examines the process and time spent in “digitally developing” an image for fine art after pressing the shutter.
Posted by Daniel Mosquin at 12:00 AM| Comments (4)
July 31, 2006
Mimulus guttatus
Common monkeyflower or seep monkeyflower (implying it grows where water seeps) is a native of western North America – if you accept a narrow definition of the species, i.e., sensu stricto. You would also then accept the existence of twenty or thirty closely related taxa. If, however, you view the species sensu lato (in the broad sense) like the USDA PLANTS database, the distribution changes to include northeastern North America and the 20-30 closely related taxa “disappear” by being lumped into the now monolithic Mimulus guttatus species complex.
Posted by Daniel Mosquin at 12:00 AM| Comments (1)
July 30, 2006
Lobelia excelsa
Written by Daniel: Eric in San Francisco (Eric in SF@Flickr) shared today's image via the BPotD Flickr Group Pool | original image). Eric is very fortunate in being able to frequently visit the San Francisco Botanical Garden at Strybing Arboretum where he takes these great photos. Thanks yet again, Eric.
Written by Douglas Justice: Lobelias nearly always provoke interesting conversations amongst botanists and horticulturists. Many of the larger lobelia flowers (such as in Lobelia excelsa) are red, tubular, and bird-pollinated. In all lobelias, the flowers are upside down (i.e., twisted through 180 degrees as they develop), although this is hardly apparent to the casual observer. Lobelias are protandrous (compare protogynous), which helps prevent self pollination. The anthers form a tube through which the piston-like style picks up pollen. The protruding style is not receptive at the time the pollen is ripe and thusly presented to pollinators at the tip of the closed styles (as seen in Eric's excellent photo). Eventually (presumably after the self pollen is removed or no longer viable), the style branches split open and expose their pollen-receptive surfaces.
Posted by Daniel Mosquin at 12:00 AM| Comments (3)
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Botany Photo of the Day is a project of the UBC Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research, located in Vancouver, British Columbia Canada. UBC BGCPR is a department of the Faculty of Land and Food Systems within The University of British Columbia.