Flowering Plants (16)
April 9, 2007
Nemophila menziesii
BPotD is in brief entry mode on weekends and holidays from April through September. – Daniel
Today's image is courtesy of Cliff aka The Marmot@Flickr (original | BPotD Flickr Group Pool). Thanks again, Cliff
Read more about baby blue eyes via Calflora.
Posted by Daniel Mosquin at 12:00 AM| Comments (4)
April 8, 2007
Pulsatilla vulgaris var. rubra
BPotD is in brief entry mode on weekends and holidays from April through September. – Daniel
A nod of gratitude to Meighan aka Meighan@Flickr for today's image (original | BPotD Flickr Group Pool). Much appreciated!
There seems to be some disagreement as to whether this should be considered a botanical or cultivated variety (i.e., variety rubra vs. 'Rubra'). I've opted to follow the Royal Horticultural Society convention.
Read more about the European pasque flower via the Kemper Center for Home Gardening. The RHS also has an article on the species.
Posted by Daniel Mosquin at 12:00 AM| Comments (0)
April 7, 2007
Sanguinaria canadensis
BPotD is in brief entry mode on weekends and holidays from April through September. – Daniel
Thank you to David Smith of Delaware for contributing today's photograph in this thread on the BPotD Submissions forum. We're grateful!
Read more about the eastern North American bloodroot via the Kemper Center for Home Gardening.
Posted by Daniel Mosquin at 12:00 AM| Comments (1)
April 6, 2007
Prunus ×yedoensis 'Akebono'
A one-day reprieve from starting to do brief entries on weekends and vacations. Today's entry (and photographs) are courtesy of Douglas Justice. – Daniel
Prunus ×yedoensis 'Akebono' (daybreak cherry) is a medium sized tree with a stiff, upright-spreading crown, eventually becoming umbrella shaped, flowering in March or April, immediately following the purple-leaf plums in the Vancouver area. Flowers are produced abundantly, shell pink fading to nearly white. This cultivar is a seedling of Prunus ×yedoensis (Somei-yoshino cherry) that was selected by a California nursery in 1925. 'Akebono' is noted for its essentially rainproof flowers (often with an extra petal, as pictured here), tough constitution and freedom from disease. Autumn leaf colour is yellow to pumpkin orange.
This spring has been good for cherry blossoms. Cool and humid conditions tend to promote flower longevity and we've had plenty of that. The first cherries to flower in Vancouver are always downtown and in the West End, where pavement and buildings create a significant heat island effect. 'Akebono' was in full bloom at the Burrard Street Skytrain Station on the Spring Equinox, nearly two weeks earlier than here at UBC. You could hear the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival organizers heaving a huge sigh of relief at their big opening ceremony, the Cherry Jam, there on the 22nd. (Note from Daniel – we've started a Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival discussion forum to discuss the trees and identifications plus share photographs and stories.)
Speaking of good timing, Ohanami, the annual cherry viewing festival held at Nitobe Memorial Garden is happening this Saturday, 3:00 pm to 7:00 pm. Most of the cherries on display at Nitobe are Somei-yoshino—the cherry made famous through Japanese cherry blossom viewing festivals, as well as the celebration held by the American National Parks Service in Washington, DC. [I think I overheard Dr. Peter Raven, who was visiting Nitobe Garden earlier this week, remark that our Somei-yoshino were more impressive than any he'd seen in Washington.] Nitobe and the surrounding area boasts an interesting selection of flowering cherries, including those already mentioned and (also in bloom) 'Ojochin' (the rare “lantern” cherry, so named for its plump buds), and 'Shirotae', the beautiful Mount Fuji cherry. Later in the season, 'Pink Perfection', 'Kanzan', 'Shogetsu', 'Shirofugen' and the wonderfully fragrant 'Jo-nioi' will captivate visitors.
Posted by Daniel Mosquin at 12:00 AM| Comments (8)
April 5, 2007
Ribes sanguineum
Ribes sanguineum, or red-flowered currant, was previously featured in fruit on Botany Photo of the Day. There have been a few recent plant identification requests on the forums that turned out to be this species, so I thought it timely to highlight it.
It seems like every popular account I read about this western North American native showers it with compliments, and deservedly so. I particularly like Sarah Gage's account of Ribes sanguineum for the Washington Native Plant Society's Plant of the Month series, which includes a tidbit on how popular this plant became when it was introduced into cultivation in London. A similarly entertaining article is shared by Ketzel Levine.
Ribes is the only genus in the Grossulariaceae. It has an interesting distribution: much of Europe, Asia, and North America, mountainous regions of Central and South America and a small area in northern Africa. If you scroll down on that page, you can compare the Grossulariaceae distribution range with its closest familial relative, the Saxifragaceae. The similarities are very curious, and suggest that the families share limitations that prevent them from becoming cosmopolitan in distribution.
In BPotD news, today is the second anniversary of this weblog. The past year has been a mix of successes and disappointments. What I am most pleased about is the continued generosity of the folks from around the world who kindly share their photographs for use in BPotD. To those who do, thank you very much! I wish there was the time and space to be able to use all of them on BPotD. Since there isn't, I'd also like to thank all of those who contribute for their understanding that the one-a-day process means I can't use every image.
I'm also pleased that between the forums and BPotD, the garden's web site has as much “reach” (as determined by Alexa.com) as any of three of the largest botanical gardens in the world, Missouri, New York and Kew (here's the comparison graph) – on roughly 1/50th of the institutional budget. Again, though, that is in large part thanks to the hundreds of people who contribute freely of their time on the forums, for which we at the garden are very grateful.
And now for a bit of bad news: starting with tomorrow's entry, and continuing through to the end of September, BPotD will be image + the-briefest-of-text on weekends, holiday weekdays and (my) vacation days. I've done this in the past, so it's nothing too new, but it will occur more frequently. Since I've failed to secure help with summertime relief for the web site, pulling back a little is the only available option. I curtail my weekend travelling come October, so BPotD will likely return to the more typical 7 days-a-week image+text format then.
Photography resource link: Flower Photography: Art and Techniques by Heather Angel, an article written for Nature Photographers Online – a lot of information packed into one essay!
Posted by Daniel Mosquin at 2:13 AM| Comments (13)
April 4, 2007
Tussilago farfara
Today's image is courtesy of marcella2@Flickr (original image | BPotD Flickr Group Pool). Thank you!
Coltsfoot is native to much of Europe and neighbouring Asia and Africa. It is no surprise that historic medicinal and food uses caused it to be introduced to Canada, USA and New Zealand (Wikipedia also cites South America, but that doesn't match this list). Unfortunately, Tussilago farfara has qualities that make it somewhat invasive in the introduced countries: “Namura-Ochalska-Anna (1993) reports that the success of Tussilago farfara L. in colonizing disturbed environments, after its seeds reach the site and germinate, is a function of several of the important traits of this species: 1) tolerance of seedlings and juveniles to a wide range of changeable external conditions, 2) fast growth and development of individuals, 3) a high degree of adaptability in reaching successive stages of development, 4) guerilla type growth, 5) intense spreading and renewal of individuals of generative and vegetative origin, 6) high effectiveness of vegetative reproduction, 7) adaptable allocation of resources to above-, and underground shoots.” (quoted from the Global Invasive Species Database).
Fortunately, its preference for colonizing disturbed environments suggests it has relatively low impact on natural areas that haven't been degraded. Instead, it seems to be a problem in agricultural areas.
Invasive.org provides more photographs of the plant, including the leaves which emerge post-flowering. Kurt Stüber's botanical images library contains this illustration, as well.
Science / conservation resource link: In case you don't follow the garden's plant news weblog, here's a recent entry: A Blooming Crisis about the risk of extinction for over half of the world's magnolia species.
Posted by Daniel Mosquin at 5:53 AM| Comments (3)
April 3, 2007
Strelitzia sp.
Thank you to Josh, aka joshbailey@Flickr for today's photograph (submitted via the Flickr group pool – do check out the original image at maximum resolution). Much appreciated!
The family Strelitziaceae (Strelitzia reginae shown in flower here) is native to South America, southern Africa and Madagascar. The stem-group for the Strelitziaceae is dated to 78 million years before present. South America, Africa and Madagascar, at 78mybp, were already separated by bodies of water (though not so distant from one another as present day), so either there remains older fossils to be found or the present-day distribution requires some dispersal events in its history (or a combination of the two!). If dispersal events were part of the history, they'd be relatively ancient: each of the three continents / subcontinents have their own genera (Strelitzia in Africa, Ravenala in Madagascar and Phenakospermum in South America).
In local news, Dr. Peter Raven of Missouri Botanical Garden is giving two public lectures today. The first is scheduled for 2pm at VanDusen Botanical Garden: How Many Plant Species Will Survive the 21st Century?. This will be followed by a 7:30 pm UBC Biodiversity series lecture, The Future of Plant Survival.
Art resource link: Living plant ephemeral sculptures, or Weedrobes, by Vancouver artist Nicole Dextras (also see this Flickr set) was brought to my attention via this thread on the forums.
Posted by Daniel Mosquin at 5:53 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.