Thursday, October 21, 2010

Purple wall

I'm pretty sure this wall was beige and boring the last time we saw it. Now look at it!


Hollyhocks, live and dead.

The wall faces a pass-through from Beach Grove, Tsawwassen to Boundary Bay beach. What little landscaping there is has been swallowed up by weeds and grasses. But a few flowers soldier bravely on.



Unidentified, so far. (Acanthus. Thanks, Earl Cootie!)

This plant looks familiar, but I can't put a name to it. The flowers bloomed along a tall stem, like foxgloves. Now each dried flower holds a seed pod about the size and shape of an acorn, but with the texture and colour of a horse chestnut. I brought two home as an aid to identification, and left them on the kitchen table while I busied myself with supper preparation. I was alone, so I was startled to hear a loud click behind me. One of the seed pods had popped itself open and thrown a seed halfway across the room.

The seed was the same glossy brown, but otherwise like a misshapen, hard, dried pea. A couple of hours later, the second pod went. Pop! and the seed ended up in the living room.


The leaves are long, with many irregular, alternate, sharp lobes.

Back to the purples:


All the remaining hollyhocks were in deep reds and royal purples.


Crayola colours; Cerise to Amethyst to Grape.*


Grove snail with distant purple wall.

*For Clytie; there's a purple heart here.

5 comments:

  1. I'm intrigued by your exploding seeds - do let us know if you figure out what they were.

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  2. Acanthus? We've got some here all around our house, but I've never been fortunate enough to witness the projectile seed pods.

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  3. Acanthus! That's it; that's what I was thinking of, without knowing the name.

    Thanks, Earl

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  4. wow--that first shot is a STUNNER! I really admire people who are brave with paint color, and have an eye for such things.

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  5. I see the purple heart(s)! I see a couple of other ones too.

    I love the tale of the exploding seeds, aren't they fun?

    If I haven't told you lately, I truly admire you and how you see the world ... and how you share the tiny wonders of life with us who would usually step over such beauty without ever looking. I thank you.

    :=}

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I'm having to moderate all comments because Blogger seems to have a problem notifying me. Sorry about that. I will review them several times daily, though, until this issue is fixed.

Also, I have word verification on, because I found out that not only do I get spam without it, but it gets passed on to anyone commenting in that thread. Not cool!

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