Pink and purple

This past month, everywhere I've  gone, I've found flowers. I take their photos, of course, but then they get set aside while I look at other things. And now I've got a whole folder full of them.

So: flowers. Pink and purple today.

Nootka rose, Rosa nutkana.

This rose is named for the Nootka tribe, more properly called the Nuu-chah-nulth, who lived on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Only about 300 speakers of the language remain today. But the roses are everywhere.

My neighbours' camelia.

And another.

French lavendar, Lavandula stoechas

Purple columbine, Aquilegia vulgaris. This is an introduced species; the local one is red or orange.

A tiny bluebell found beside a gravel pit. With fly and buttercup. Common harebell?

Does a poppy count as purple? Definitely not pink! With a foraging bee.

Unless you look under the 16-legged critter on the seed factory.

Tomorrow, the yellows.

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

 Este mes recién pasado, en dondequiera que haya ido, me he encontrado con flores. Les saco fotos, claro está, pero luego me ocupo de otras cosas, y las flores se quedan en el archivo. Y ya el archivo está repleto.

Así que, aquí subo unas flores. Por hoy, color de rosa, color lila y morado.

1. La rosa nativa de estas costa, Rosa nutkana, llamado así por la tribu de los Nutka, o como se nombran ahora, los Nuu-chah-nulth, quienes viven el la costa del oeste de esta, la isla Vancouver. En estos dias solo quedan unos 300 personas que hablen su idioma. Pero las rosas están en todas partes.
2. Una camelia en el jardín de mi vecina.
3. Otra del mismo arbusto.
4. Flores de lavanda francesa, Lavandula stoechas.
5. Aquilegia vulgaris. Es una especie introducida; las nativas vienen en colores de rosa y anaranjado.
6. Una campanita miniatura que crece a solas al lado de una gravera. Puede ser, tal vez, la Campanula rotundifolia. Con su mosca y un ranúnculo.
7. Las amapolas cuentan como flor morada ¿no? Ya sé que no son color de rosa. Este trae una abeja buscando polen.
8. Pero sí, hay algo color de rosa. Abajo de esa criatura con 16 patas en el centro.

Bee magnet

Lavender flowers, seen from close up, are a messy bunch, opening randomly along the stalk, dying in no particular order.

Flowers, buds, dead petals, seed pods on the way.

But bees love them.

And crushed, making them even more of a mess, they smell like grandma's closet.

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

Las flores de lavanda, vistas de cerca, son desaliñadas. Se abren como sea, sin esperar su turno; las flores acabadas retienen su pétalos muertos, Pero a las abejas les encantan.

Y aplastadas, huelen a la casa de mi abuelita.

Wayside flowers

It's been a good summer for flowers this year; in gardens and on roadsides everywhere we go, we find some that beg to be photographed. These are a few of my favourites.

Bellflowers. A trailing plant, creeping along a wall in Beach Grove. The spot on the wall above is a pretty jumping spider.

More bellflowers, falling out of a round-bellied pot.

Cardoon.

We were driving back from the beach, when I saw these towering over a fence. From the street, they looked like thistles, but what thistles!

We parked and went over. Up close, they are even more impressive; these lowest blooms were well over my head. The highest ones would be beyond my reach, even with a box to stand on.

(Wikipedia says the largest cultivars reach to 2 meters. These were quite a bit more than that.)

The owner was working in the garage, and came out to talk about his plants. They're cardoons, he said. I remembered the name. Long ago, I had been given some seeds and planted them in my garden. Nothing came of them, though, so I had never seen the actual plant.

Cardoon leaves.

It is a relative of the artichoke, and the buds can be eaten like artichokes. The stems and leaf stalks are also edible. The leaves of the wild plant are spiny, but they have been bred out in the domesticated plant.

Lavender flower head, Beach Grove roadside.

One nasturtium, growing through a rock pile.

Nasturtiums by our usual parking spot at the beach.

These lilies in the shade of a garage looked completely black. The flash brought out the deep red tones.

Red and yellow California poppies

A glorious smoke tree. So impressive, that we promptly went out and bought a small one for our own garden.

Pale yellow roses in our neighbour's yard.