MOONBIRD

This post is part of the Skywatch Friday meme,
and also part of the Saturday Silhouettes meme,
and also part of the Weekend in Black and White meme.

FRIDAY GREENS #26 - OXALIS

Oxalis pes-caprae (Bermuda buttercup, African wood-sorrel, Bermuda sorrel, Buttercup oxalis, Cape sorrel, English weed, Goat's-foot, Sourgrass, Soursob and Soursop; (Afrikaans: Suring)) is a species of tristylous flowering plant in the wood sorrel family Oxalidaceae. Oxalis cernua is a less common synonym for this species.

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NARCISSUS

Narcissus is a genus of predominantly spring perennial plants in the Amaryllidaceae family. Various common names including daffodil, daffadowndilly, narcissus, and jonquil are used to describe all or some members of the genus. Narcissus has conspicuous flowers with six petal-like tepals surmounted by a cup- or trumpet-shaped corona. The flowers are generally white or yellow (orange or pink in garden varieties), with either uniform or contrasting coloured tepals and corona.

Narcissus were well known in ancient civilisation, both medicinally and botanically, but formally described by Linnaeus' in his Species Plantarum (1753). The genus is generally considered to have about ten sections with approximately 50 species. The number of species has varied, depending on how they are classified, due to similarity between species and hybridisation. The genus arose some time in the Late Oligocene to Early Miocene epochs, in the Iberian peninsula and adjacent areas of southwest Europe. The exact origin of the name Narcissus is unknown, but it is often linked to a Greek word for intoxicated (narcotic) and the myth of the youth of that name who fell in love with his own reflection. The English word 'daffodil' appears to be derived from "asphodel", with which it was commonly compared.

The species are native to meadows and woods in southwest Europe and North Africa with a centre of diversity in the Western Mediterranean, particularly the Iberian peninsula. Both wild and cultivated plants have naturalised widely, and were introduced into the Far East prior to the tenth century. Narcissi tend to be long-lived bulbs, which propagate by division, but are also insect-pollinated. Known pests, diseases and disorders include viruses, fungi, the larvae of flies, mites and nematodes. Some Narcissus species have become extinct, while others are threatened by increasing urbanisation and tourism.

Dafffodil breeding has introduced a wide range of colours, in both the outer perianth tepal segment and the inner corona. In the registry, daffodils are coded by the colours of each of these two parts. Thus in the photo below of Narcissus 'Geranium', Tazetta (Division 8) has a white outer perianth and orange corona and is classified as 8 W-O.

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.

RAIN GENTLY FALLING

This post is part of the Wednesday Waters meme,
and also part of the Waterworld Wednesday meme,
and also part of the Outdoor Wednesday meme,
and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme,
and also part of the Nature Footstep Digital Art Meme.

AT THE GALLERY

Admiring the Old Masters in the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia.

This post is part of the Weekend in Black and White meme.

FRIDAY GREENS #25 - ECLECTUS PARROT

The eclectus parrot (Eclectus roratus) is a parrot native to the Solomon Islands, Sumba, New Guinea and nearby islands, northeastern Australia and the Maluku Islands (Moluccas). It is unusual in the parrot family for its extreme sexual dimorphism of the colours of the plumage; the male having a mostly bright emerald green plumage and the female a mostly bright red and purple/blue plumage. Joseph Forshaw, in his book Parrots of the World, noted that the first European ornithologists to see eclectus parrots thought they were of two distinct species.

Large populations of this parrot remain, and they are sometimes considered pests for eating fruit off trees. Some populations restricted to relatively small islands are comparably rare. Their bright feathers are also used by native tribes people in New Guinea as decorations.

Eclectus parrots are one of the more popular birds kept in captivity, as either parent or hand reared. Unlike many other species of parrot they are relatively easy to breed yet difficult to hand feed. Eclectus in captivity require vegetables high in beta-carotene, such as lightly cooked sweet potato, fresh broccoli clumps, and fresh corn on the cob. Fresh greens such as endive or commercial dandelion are a very important in providing calcium and other nutrients.

I appreciate your comments, and please add a link back to this page from your own Friday Greens blog post. The meme is only as successful as you make it be!

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GARDEN PARTY

Pippa has a very interesting blog with all sorts of creative things happening. I suggest you go and visit it. She hosts some memes that are quite creative. Here is my entry for one of her creative "cut-and-paste" memes. Pippa has given an image of a 1910s couple sitting and conversing and has requested participants in the meme to "place" the couple somewhere appropriate. My take is that they have been invited to a garden party at Downton Abbey! :-)

This post is part of Pippa's Have Fun meme.

THE LAST ROSE

We had a grey, cold and showery day today in Melbourne, typical of the season as we are in the first month of Winter. The rosebushes in the garden are nearly all asleep, all thorny stem and leafless twiggy branches. One only was brave enough to expend some energy and manage to get that one last rose to bloom in the Winter!

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.

CROW

This post is part of the Weekend in Black and White meme.

FRIDAY GREENS #24 - SMERALDINE

This is an image I created in a program called "Mojoworld", where one may use an interface to make different planets and image views of the surface. Here is my planet "Smeraldine".

I appreciate your comments, and please add a link back to this page from your own Friday Greens blog post. The meme is only as successful as you make it be!

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ALGERIAN IRIS

Iris unguicularis (also commonly known as the Algerian iris or Winter iris) is a rhizomatous flowering plant in the genus Iris, native to Greece, Turkey, Western Syria, and Tunisia. It grows to 30 centimetres, with grassy evergreen leaves, producing pale lilac or purple flowers with a central band of yellow on the falls.

The flowers appear in winter and early spring. They are fragrant, with pronounced perianth tubes up to 20 cm long. This plant is widely cultivated in temperate regions, and numerous cultivars have been selected for garden use, including a slightly more tender white form 'Alba', and a dwarf variety I. unguicularis subsp. cretensis. The cultivar 'Mary Barnard' has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme,
and also part of the Friday Greens meme.

FRIDAY GREENS #23 - LEAF

I'd like to thank all participants who join Friday Greens every week. It's a small meme, but it has some enthusiastic followers and there have been some wonderful photos posted every week. I'd like to encourage everyone to visit other participants' blogs and comment on their work. It really doesn't take that much time, it means a lot to the people you visit and you get to see some amazing photos!

I appreciate your comments, and please add a link back to this page from your own Friday Greens blog post.

The meme is only as successful as you make it be!

Please add your own GREEN post using the Linky tool below:

ROSEMARY SKY

This post is part of the Skywatch Friday meme.

GLADIOLUS DALENII

Gladiolus dalenii of the Iridaceae family, is one of the most widely distributed species of gladiolus, ranging from eastern South Africa and Madagascar throughout tropical Africa and into western Arabia. It is the main parental species of the large flowering grandiflora hybrids. This species is also unusual in its genus in including diploid, tetraploid and hexaploid races. The hybrids produced from it are often tetraploids.

It produces five tall flower spikes of yellow to scarlet flowers, often streaked red over a yellow ground colour, generally with a yellow throat. The genus name Gladiolus is derived from the Latin gladiolus, meaning a small sword, and refers to the narrow, sword-shaped leaves produced by many Gladiolus species. The species was named in 1828 after Cornelius Dalen, Director, Rotterdam Botanic Gardens who introduced the species into gardens in Europe.

The plant prefers a light sandy neutral to slightly acid soil with a pH between 6.5 and 7 in a sunny sheltered position. Gladiolus dalenii is a deciduous evergreen perennial. It grows up to 2 m tall. Leaves erect, 20 mm wide, grey-green, in a loose fan.

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.