Exotic Onion

by Posted in Nature, Things Leave a comment
Boweia volubilis

You’ve heard of ‘Spanish Onions’, well this is a ‘South African Onion’. I took this picture some time ago at Stonecrop Gardens, and although I posted a number of pictures I didn’t post this one. I have a vague memory that this was because I couldn’t remember what the small sign on it had said and I didn’t want to post it without having this information.

I was back at Stonecrop with some friends about two weeks ago and this time I remembered to take a picture of the sign. It reads:

Boweia volubilis, otherwise known as the Climbing Onion, is a curiosity from South Africa. This unusual bulb is a member of the Lily family and will produce green and white flowers later in the Spring.

For more information see: Bowiea Sea Onion Info: Tips For Growing Climbing Onion Plants

So it’s not even an onion, and I’m guessing that it’s decorative rather than edible.

Taken with a Sony NEX 5N and Carl Zeiss Jena, 50mm f2 Biotar.

Roses by the light of the eclipse

by Posted in Flowers, Nature Leave a comment
eclipseroses-1

During the recent eclipse I didn’t even attempt to take any pictures. Where we live it would have only been a partial eclipse and I don’t have the right equipment. To be honest I wasn’t much afflicted by ‘eclipse mania’. Frankly, I didn’t find it all that interesting.

However, my wife wanted to watch it and we hadn’t planned well enough to have the appropriate glasses. Understanding that you should not look directly at it I made a home made pinhole projector out of a cereal box. When you looked through the hole in the top you could see a bright dot projected onto a piece of paper on the bottom of the box. As the eclipse progressed you could make a dark chunk eating into the bright dot. It worked, but it was hardly spectacular.

The light during the eclipse was quite special though and I took advantage of it to take these pictures of some of my wife’s roses.

eclipseroses-2
eclipseroses-3

Taken with a Sony Alpha A77II and Minolta 50mm f1.7 lens.

By the roadside 30: Monotropa uniflora

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indianpipes-1

I had just about given up on this one. I had no idea what it was and I couldn’t think how I could find out. I didn’t want to post it without some additional information, so I was just going to leave it when, as I was browsing around on Facebook I came across this comment: “Indian Pipes in my woods.” and there was a picture accompanying it. There it was, my mysterious plant. And apparently it is a plant, not a fungus as I had supposed.

According to Wikipedia:

Monotropa uniflora, also known as ghost plant (or ghost pipe), Indian pipe or corpse plant, is a herbaceous perennial plant native to temperate regions of Udmurtiya in European Russia, Asia, North America and northern South America, but with large gaps between areas. It was formerly classified in the family Monotropaceae; however, it has now been included within the Ericaceae. It is generally scarce or rare in occurrence.

Unlike most plants, it is white and does not contain chlorophyll. Instead of generating energy from sunlight, it is parasitic, more specifically a myco-heterotroph. Its hosts are certain fungi that are mycorrhizal with trees, meaning it ultimately gets its energy from photosynthetic trees. Since it is not dependent on sunlight to grow, it can grow in very dark environments as in the understory of dense forest. It is often associated with beech trees. The complex relationship that allows this plant to grow also makes propagation difficult.

The plant is sometimes completely white but commonly has black flecks and a pale pink coloration. Rare variants may have a deep red color.

The stems reach heights of 10–30 cm, clothed with small scale-leaves 5–10 mm long. As its scientific name suggests, and unlike the related Monotropa hypopitys (but like the closely related Monotropastrum humile), the stems bear only a single flower, 10–15 mm long with 3-8 petals. It flowers from early summer to early autumn, often a few days after rainfall.

Like most mycoheterotrophic plants, M. uniflora associates with a small range of fungal hosts, all of them members of Russulaceae.