When all is grey outside, there's colour here.

Still puttering around the house, staying out of the rain, after a local severe weather alert this morning.

My African violet knows nothing of rain, or wind. The weather's always good on my windowsill.

Deep blue, shading to purple.

The tall purple spike is the pistil, the female reproductive structure, with the green ovary at the base. The stamen includes the 4 yellow anthers, containing the pollen.

Vein structure of the leaves.

Tomorrow, I'll look for mushrooms in the rain.

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Sigo encerrada en casa, después de un aviso de lluvia y viento fuertes esta mañana. Mi Saintpaulia (violeta africana) no se preocupa; el clima es siempre benigno en mi ventana.

1. Colores fuertes, azul, morado.
2. La estructura en forma de tubo violeta es la parte reproductiva femenina de la planta, el pistilo, y tiene a su base el ovario, que es verde. El estambre incluye las 4 anteras amarillas, que son las que producen el polen.
3. Las hojas con sus venas.

Y mañana, si todo va bien, voy a buscar hongos en la lluvia.

Flowers within flowers

A new word (to me, anyhow): pseudanthium. "False flower": an inflorescence that resembles a flower. And an inflorescence is a cluster of flowers. Which may be pseudanthia themselves, clusters of smaller flowers. With the true flowers down at the third level.

Confusing?

The pseudanthium or inflorescence of Queen Anne's Lace, Daucus carota.

Ok, not so confusing. We see these everywhere, on parsley, on cow parsnip, angelica, Pacific ninebark, yarrow ... But then, look at the individual "flowers".

Yarrow, Achillea millefolium. This is a pseudanthium.

Each one is actually a cluster of flowers. Two types of flowers. What looks like petals are the ray flowers; on yarrow, there are from 3 to 8. The ray flowers are "imperfect" flowers, with anthers but no stamens. If you look closely, in the ray flower in the centre of the photo, you can see the tiny anther.

The flowers in the centre, the disk flowers, have both male and female parts. And those ever-so-tiny white petals.

 

Ma Nature; the more you look ...

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Encontré otra palabra nueva, nueva para mi, por lo menos: seudantio. Se define como "un grupo de flores pequeñas (una inflorescencia) que parecen ser una flor". Y esas flores pequeñas pueden también ser seudantios. Y por fin, en el tercer nivel, encontramos las verdaderas flores.

Foto #1: Una inflorescencia de Daucus carota, la zanahoria silvestre. Es un seudantio.

Vemos este tipo de seudantio en todas partes: en el perejil, en las angélicas, en la pastinaca de vaca, en la milenrama ... Pero hay que examinar las "flores" individuales; que resultan ser también seudantios.

Foto #2: "Flores" de milenrama, Achillea millefolium.

Cada "flor" es en realidad un grupo de flores, una inflorescencia. Hay dos tipos de flores incluidas. Las que parecen ser pétalos son flores imperfectas, llevando unicamente las partes femeninas, las anteras. No tienen estambres. Si miras la foto, se ve una de las anteras a la base de una de estas flores.

Las flores del centro son flores perfectas; tienen tanto anteras como estambres. Y cada flor tiene 5 pétalos diminutos.

Unkempt

 ♫... maybe we're ragged and funny ...♫

It's called Bee Balm, or Wild Bergamot, a flower in the mint family. The flower is a bit messy; one description calls it an "unkempt mop-head". But then the petals drop ...

Monarda spp.

Zooming in.

Each individual flower is a little tube, sitting on the rounded mound of seed containers.

Monarda fistulosa. Photo from Wikipedia.

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Flores harapientas.

Las flores de Monarda spp., a las que llamamos bálsamo para abejas, o thé de bergamot, son algo desaliñados, como cabezas despeinadas. Pero una vez caídas estos pétalos, se ve la estructura organizada de tubitos donde se forman las semillas.

Es una planta de la familia de los Lamiaceae, las mentas.

Fotos: Una flor que ha perdido ya la mayoría de sus pétalos, y un zoom de la misma. Y una Monarda fistulosa, de Wikipedia, mostrando la estructura.

Carpe diem, or "Why everything takes longer than we planned."

Tuesday was warm and bright, with portents of coming rain in the high clouds. A perfect day for working outdoors,  flavoured with a hint of urgency; it could be the last for a while. In the afternoon, while Laurie planted onion sets and transplanted a row of leeks, I took the car down to the car wash for its spring cleaning, a job I love on a warm day. I took my time getting every cranny scrubbed and vacuumed, so it was near supper time when I headed home. My route took me past a housing development where we've been keeping an eye on a magnolia that promised a good crop of flowers this year. And there it was, in the first flush of full bloom.

At home, I found Laurie still in the garden, muddy and looking a little weary. "Grab your camera and come with me," I told him. After a feeble protest, and a change of boots, he did.

We couldn't find parking close to our tree, and ended up under this cherry tree a couple of blocks away.

Deep pink magnolia on the far side of a wall

"Our" tree, in the corner of a yard, surrounded by various shrubs.

The blossoms were at their best, with few of the brown spots and broken petals that appear only a day or so later.

This one was a good 10 inches across; possibly the largest magnolia flower I've yet seen.

Bud, breaking through the "mouse fur" case. I love the textures of the stem and outer bud covers. (Click for full size.)

More texture. With petals this size, we get to notice how the colour is laid down; in little pink dots on the white background. (See full size.)

Center of the flower. Each stamen is white with a red line down one side. The central clump of pistils will remain when the rest of the flower drops and bright red seeds will burst through its walls.

Towering white magnolia, further down the block.

Another white-flowered tree.

Magnolias, like the horsetail, are ancient plants. They've been around since before there were bees, and are built sturdy, to be pollinated by beetles without too much damage.

Fossilised specimens of Magnolia acuminata have been found dating to 20 million years ago, and of plants identifiably belonging to the Magnoliaceae dating to 95 million years ago. (Wikipedia)

Supper was late, and Laurie had to finish up in the garden in the evening. No matter; schedules are made to be broken.

And the next day, it poured rain all day. When we passed the magnolia yesterday afternoon, it was already looking the worse for wear.

Exotics in the alley

Like some sort of flying saucer: the passion fruit flower, Passiflora caerulea.


It is a strange, mis-matched collection of flower parts: 10 sepals and petals, intermingled, a ring of 70 to more than 100 deep blue filaments, a lime-green, pentagonal central area, then a "crown" of smaller, purplish filaments. The pistil is topped with a contraption made up of 5 green and yellow male organs in a flat circle, the developing fruit, and on top, a purple "propeller" with only 3 blades (the female organs).


In Strathcona, it has often gone wild, and climbs up and over rickety alley fences. The less care it gets, the more it seems to thrive. We found this one clambering over a pile of abandoned lumber and mingling with the branches of an unpruned apple tree.
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Blooms within blooms

"Let's go look for flowers in Beach Grove," Laurie says. Well, it's warmer down there, one block north of the US border; maybe it was time.

Crocuses, palest mauve and yellow.

Yes, it was.

Snowdrops

Miniature daffodils


Primulas. The centers so bright the eye boggles.

Up close and personal:

Bergenia


Tulip. Tips of the early leaves. About 2 inches high.


A fly sips on crocus nectar.
Click on this, and notice the way the veins in the wings echo those in the crocus petals.


Zooming down. Yellow crocus.


Closer: almost like another flower at the centre of this crocus.


Blue crocus, yellow stigma (the central fan things) and anthers (lower stalks, with pollen).

Shameless!

Christmas cactus, in full bloom:


And excerpts from a book-length poem by Erasmus Darwin (Charles' grandfather), "The Botanic Garden":

THE ECONOMY OF VEGETATION.

CANTO I.

STAY YOUR RUDE STEPS! whose throbbing breasts infold
The legion-fiends of Glory, or of Gold!
Stay! whose false lips seductive simpers part,
While Cunning nestles in the harlot-heart!--
5 For you no Dryads dress the roseate bower,
For you no Nymphs their sparkling vases pour;
Unmark'd by you, light Graces swim the green,
And hovering Cupids aim their shafts, unseen.

"But THOU! whose mind the well-attemper'd ray
10 Of Taste and Virtue lights with purer day;
Whose finer sense each soft vibration owns
With sweet responsive sympathy of tones;
So the fair flower expands it's lucid form
To meet the sun, and shuts it to the storm;--
15 For thee my borders nurse the fragrant wreath,
My fountains murmur, and my zephyrs breathe;
Slow slides the painted snail, the gilded fly
Smooths his fine down, to charm thy curious eye;
On twinkling fins my pearly nations play,
20 Or win with sinuous train their trackless way;
My plumy pairs in gay embroidery dress'd
Form with ingenious bill the pensile nest,
To Love's sweet notes attune the listening dell,
And Echo sounds her soft symphonious shell.

XI. "Come, YE SOFT SYLPHS! who fan the Paphian groves,
And bear on sportive wings the callow Loves;
Call with sweet whisper, in each gale that blows,
The slumbering Snow-drop from her long repose;
445 Charm the pale Primrose from her clay-cold bed,
Unveil the bashful Violet's tremulous head;
While from her bud the playful Tulip breaks,
And young Carnations peep with blushing cheeks;
Bid the closed _Petals_ from nocturnal cold
450 The virgin _Style_ in silken curtains fold,
Shake into viewless air the morning dews,
And wave in light their iridescent hues;
While from on high the bursting _Anthers_ trust
To the mild breezes their prolific dust;
455 Or bend in rapture o'er the central Fair,
Love out their hour, and leave their lives in air.
So in his silken sepulchre the Worm,
Warm'd with new life, unfolds his larva-form;
Erewhile aloft in wanton circles moves,
460 And woos on Hymen-wings his velvet loves.

From Project Gutenberg.

Update on rhododendron pollination

In my musings on rhododendron anatomy, yesterday, a few questions about their pollination presented themselves.

Today, I fired up "the Google".

First, why didn't I see pollen on the anthers?

From a discussion of hand-pollination of rhododendrons, I learn the following:

"The stamen consists of the anther, which has two chambers, each with a hole through which the pollen is dispensed. The chambers are called lobes or pollen sacs and contain masses of pollen grains."

Here's that photo, again:
So the pollen is inside those little purple tubes. But there's more:

"Pollen is not a dust as in many plants, but rather long, irregular (tacky) stringy masses. The pollen ripens before the flower opens. After the flower opens, the pollen may soon be lost."

The flowers that I examined had been open for several days. The pollen was long gone. In an anther containing pollen, I should be able to see those stringy masses protruding from the holes. If not, I may be able to shake the pollen out, which is what the bee would do.

The second question was whether the pollen would come from the same flower, or from another.

The stigma (the female receptor, that red tip above) is ready for pollen about three days after the flower has opened. In other words, it will be receiving pollen from another flower, freshly opened. (Pollen can be dried and frozen for later use, but the rhodos aren't up to those tricks. Only human hybridizers do that.)

Rhododendrons and their relatives, the azaleas, hybridize quite easily, as we can see quite easily here in the Vancouver area; there are as many varieties of rhodies as there are backyards, I think.

And I found this fascinating:

"Once the stigma ripens, a critical process must take place whereby the stigma excretes a thin syrup and furnishes nourishment to the pollen which then forms a sprout-like process called a pollen tube. The style (stem) portion of the pistil has a channel running down its center from the stigma to the ovary configured with loosely formed cells through which materials easily pass. The pollen tube grows, heading down this canal. The pollen tube develops into a long slender thread-like structure as it grows down the style canal toward the ovary. At its lower end, the pollen tube contains the male cells and vegetative nucleus. In the ovary, the female (egg) cells are present. After a minimum of 24 hours at approximately 68°F, the pollen tube enters the ovule; the male nucleus is discharge and fuses with the egg nucleus to form a new seed. A separate ovule and a separate pollen cell are required to produce each seed. Dr. Bowers further writes that "up to several hundred pollen tubes may pass down the style at any one time and these may not be of the same variety or species. " Therefore, it is entirely possible in open pollinated flowers for one rhododendron flower to be successfully pollinated by several different sources of pollen at once."

And after all that effort, I come along and deadhead every single stem.

Shameless!

When you come to think of it, flowering plants are blatantly sexual beings, showing off their reproductive organs for the world to see. And be tempted by, of course. That's the point.

Not only do the wasps and the bees fall for this, but even we humans harvest plant sexual structures to decorate our homes and our own selves.

My rhododendrons: no false modesty.A brief review, for those of us (like me) who forget the terminology too easily; the female part of the flower is the pistil, a tube (the style) which connects the stigma at the tip to the ovary at the bottom. The stigma has features which enable it to collect the pollen, whether from the same flower, another on the same plant or from a more distant plant.The stigma of a rhododendron. Somewhat suggestive of a lipsticked mouth.
I took a flower apart. This is the pistil, with the ovary (green) at the bottom. The style feels silky, like the petals, but the stigma and the ovary are sticky, and the ovary tastes sweet and a bit spicy.

The male organs are the stamens. These have a stalk (a filament) which supports a pollen-producing anther.
Rhododendron anthers, on their pale stalks. I don't see any pollen on them, like I do on other flowers; that may be because the pollen is so tiny. Or it may be that it is contained in those two tiny tubes, and shakes or shoots out when the flower is disturbed.*These rhododendrons, a separate variety, are much smaller. Some of the flowers on the plant are singles, others, like this one, are doubles. The stamen here is a deep pink all the way down, whereas the anthers are so pale that they are almost invisible in this photo.

The pistils and stamen of a rhododendron form a pathway for insects, leading into the centre of the flower, where I see the bees collecting that sticky, sweet nectar. I have noticed that they (the bees) go quickly from one flower to the next; they do not spend more than a few seconds on each. On other flower species, they sometimes spend quite a while in one place. It all has to do with the precise mechanism that the plant uses to get pollen from the anthers into the stigma, and whether or not the pollen must come from another blossom. I would guess that this is the case for these rhododendrons.**

One other thing to note about the flowering plants; it is no accident that we find them attractive. We are related, after all, to the birds and the bees that pollinate them, lured by seductive scents and brilliant colour.

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* and ** See next post.