Bycatch, take two.

 Second installment of unlooked-for treats.

Shadowy, mossy, almost gloomy forest. With trillium.

There are bees, and there are bee mimics, like the syrphid flies. And there are beeflies, too. Not a bee. Bombylius sp.

I opened the car door and almost stepped on this baby bracken fern.

Two more ferns, starting to unfold themselves.

Checking to see if the cherry trees were in bloom. Not yet, but there was a robin.

Sapsucker holes. Usually, they make parallel rows of holes; in this tree, there was one row, but the holes were deep. The sapsuckers drink the sugary sap that wells up here, and also eat the insects that come to feed on it.

Testing, testing ... Checking out a new camera, I aimed it at my African violet. Love the texture.

At the edge of a parking lot/turnaround for heavy machinery, these brave yellow violets take their chances.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sigo con fotos de hallazgos accidentales.

1. En la oscuridad de un bosque lleno de musgos, un trillium atrae la vista.
2. Hay abejas, y hay insectos que imitan a las abejas, como por ejemplo, las moscas sírfidas. Y las moscas abejorro, como este. Bombylius sp.
3. Saliendo del coche, casi pisaba este helecho nuevecito. Pteridium aquilinum.
4. Dos helechos nuevos, un poco más desenvueltos.
5. Fui a ver si los cerezos ya estaban floreciendo. No, pero hubo un petirrojo en el cerezo.
6. Pozuelos de los pájaros chupasavias. Generalmente veo troncos enteros llenos de los pozuelos, todos ordenados en filas paralelas. En este árbol solo había una linea de pozuelos, pero más hondos de lo regular. Los chupasavias beben el líquido que llena estos pocitos, y además comen los insectos atraídos por la savia.
7. Haciendo pruebas con una cámara de bolsillo nuevo, saqué esta foto de las hojas de mi violeta africana. Me sorprendió la textura capturada.
8. A un lado de un estacionamiento/sitio para dar vuelta para maquinaria pesada, estas valientes florecitas de violeta silvestre, Viola sempervirens, desafían la suerte.

So purple, so yellow!

Waiting for a bee. My African violets are all optimistic. And purple.

Flower centre.

They made us learn the names of all the flower parts when I was in elementary school. They never told us it was all about sex; hey, it was the 1950s, and the topic was off-limits for kids. But I do like knowing the names.

The yellow balls are the anthers; they are the male part of the flower, and produce pollen. Their stalk is called a filament, and the whole thing makes up the stamen.

The fuzzy green bulb is the ovary, where the seeds will be produced. Pollen enters through the long purple tube,  the style; its open end is called the stigma. And the whole female unit is the pistil.

African violets can self-pollinate occasionally, when the pistil grows too close to the anthers, but their main pollinators are bees. Mine, living inside on a windowsill, will probably not manage to produce seeds.

Another flower, showing the stigma.

I love the rich colours!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Con gran optimismo mis Saintpaulias esperan que aparezca una abeja.

Fotos: las flores de violetas africanas, vistas de cerca.

Nos enseñaron los nombres de las partes de una flor cuando estaba en la escuela primaria. No nos dijeron que todo servía para la reproducción sexual: pues eran los años 50 del siglo pasado, y de eso no se hablaba en frente de los niños. Pero me gustó saber los nombres.

Las pelotitas amarillas son las anteras; estas son la parte masculina de la flor y producen el polen. Las sostiene un tallo, llamado el filamento; el aparato entero se llama el estambre.

El bulbo peludo verde es el órgano femenino, el ovario, donde se formarán las semillas. El polen le llega por medio del tubo color violeta, llamado el estilo. La boca del estilo se llama la estigma, y todo junto constituye el pistillo.

La violeta africana es capaz de autopolinarse, si el pistillo queda doblado, con la estigma cerca de las anteras. Pero generalmente son las abejas que llevan el polen de una flor a otra. Las mias, que viven en la repisa de mi ventana, dentro de la casa, probablemente no llegarán a producir semilla.

Snow day!

It started to snow in the middle of the night yesterday, and kept it up for almost 24 hours. I stayed home (my road was never plowed) and took photos at my kitchen window.

Forsythia, with ridiculous "bobbles" on the ends of some branches.

I love snow light; it's as if something had erased all the red from the sunlight, leaving only cool blues. Everything looks different, somehow.

Baby monkey tree, with snow-laden spider web.

Chia didn't appreciate the snow. She sat on the windowsill, staring out, thrashing her tail angrily.

"What have you done? Where's all my nice, green grass?"

I went out to the driveway to assess the driving conditions. Chia followed me, tiptoeing across the cement floor of the carport, lifting each foot quickly as if she'd been burned, then retreated to the welcome mat and sat staring sadly at the awful whiteness out there. I opened the door and she hurried in to the warmth.

But I love the snow. Even through a window. It softens and enhances everything, even everyday eyesores.

Power pole and wires.

Zooming in on the contraptions at the top.

Stair rail. With snow pom-poms all down the sides.

African violets on my windowsill, in snow light.

Trees across the street. Each tree has its own way of collecting snow. And those forsythia bobbles, again.

The snow has stopped. The temperature has gone above freezing. And the weather people are promising us rain in the morning, with more snow in the evening, but it will be too warm for it to stay put. BC weather; it's always going to rain again.

Aging beautifully

The African violets on my windowsill have stopped setting out new flowers and are concentrating on making seed pods, leaving their petals to corrode and fade. And even the age spots turned out to be beautiful, when I stopped to really look at them.

A hint of yellow in a cave of purple petals.

The green hairy bulbs, with their tall brown stalks, are the growing seed pods.

Deep purple, fading to baby pink.

Good morning!

Morning sun on the African violet on my windowsill.

It may be freezing on the other side of the glass, but here, it's summer!

Glittery petals