Frog on a lily pad

Dr. Sun Yat Sen Gardens, Chinatown

It's been another long, busy day; when things calm down, I'll have stories to tell. Yesterday (Wednesday), there was a crab rebuilding missing parts in Delta, antiquing and people watching in Chinatown, MacLean Park in Strathcona at dusk, and an epic struggle between a miniature moth and an even smaller spider. Tomorrow, who can tell?

Old familiar mystery

This small tree was growing beside one of the ponds in the Dr. Sun Yat Sen Gardens. The fruits, about the size of cherries, attracted our attention:

Branches over our heads.

Oddly-shaped clumps.

A single fruit, splitting its spotted husk, and the pink growth cone.

I couldn't recognize this, and I've been Googling "Chinese tree fruits", plugging in names of fruit as they occurred to me. I've looked at kumquats, loquats, goji berry, quince, longans, pomegranates, persimmon, strawberry tree, litchi, and so on; anything smallish that I couldn't remember the growth pattern of.

Now I'm hungry.

I found nothing like this, until I examined the twigs and those fuzzy knobs on the tips of some branches. Aha! Magnolia! Google that!

It's the Star magnolia, Magnolia stellata, a familiar tree in Vancouver parks, named for its white flowers. Not all trees produce fruit exactly like this, but the general pattern is the same. At the end of the season, the husks dry out, and the fruit splits open to reveal hard orange seeds. I've seen those before.

There's a good photo on Flickr, here.

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Oasis in Chinatown

A summer afternoon in Strathcona, with rain threatening. What to do? Shopping in Chinatown, of course. Laurie visited his favourite bakery, then we went antiquing and spent more money than planned. As usual.

Next: across the street to the Dr. Sun Yat Sen park, a walled hideaway, like the adjacent SYS Garden,

"... almost monochromatic after the dazzle of Chinatown: all contemplative muted greens and stony grays ..."

Stone lion guarding the entrance.

A constant stream of visitors, tourists and locals alike.

Bust of Dr. Sun Yat Sen in front of the circular door.

Detail of the wall.

Stone finial.

View of the main pond from the entrance.

Rock border. Look at it for a while, and faces emerge, shift, blend, disappear.

Roof of the pavilion peeks over the treetops.

I thought this was mist in the distance. It turned out to be a white wall.

Mossy rock and tree reflections.

Rainwater in one of the rock depressions.

A colour accent; Japanese carp swim lazily among reflectons of weeping trees.

And then we went back out into the rush and rattle of traffic, the reds and golds and noisy greens of merchandise. Tea and coffee in a four-table teashop, then home, well content.

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