The Strangest Roots ...

Taken in Hanoi, Vietnam. These roots are like a community of strange-looking swamp inhabitants! What do they look like to you?

Linking to:

MISSION QUITE POSSIBLE

WATERY WEDNESDAY

WEEKEND REFLECTION

A Foxy Tale

Since I have begun to feature palm trees, I find that there are actually so many interesting varieties here in my town itself. This one is a Foxtail Palm. There are many tales about the Fox Tail...

The trunk is self-cleaning and has a smooth appearance.

Tale # 1
The botanical world didn't know about the foxtail palm until 1978 when a man named Wodyeti brought it to the attention of Australian botanists.


Tale # 2
The palm was given the genus name Wodyetia after Wodyeti, an Aboriginal man.

It got its common name, Foxtail Palm, from the shape of the foliage.

Tale # 3
It was classed as a rare palm in Queensland.

Tale # 4

After it became known to the world, these palms became so sought after that a blackmarket trade formed for selling the seeds of the foxtail palm. Today. it is the world's most popular palm.

The flowers are produced when the palms are mature at 12 years of age!

Stalks of white flowers grow from the base of the crownshaft.

If you look close enough, you can see a yellow bird taking cover from my prying eyes. Too bad it didn't peek out at me...that would have been the perfect shot! This particular tree is about 20 feet high; Foxtails can grow up to a height of 30 feet.

The large, oval-shaped, green fruits turn orange-red when ripe.

Linked to:

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day

Macro Monday

Mosaic Monday

Purity and Elegance Combined...my white hibiscus

Dressed in a simple white ball gown and adorned with a simple yellow ornament, she steps out into the limelight...a radiant tropical bride.



She pirouettes and looks up coyly at her groom.



"Take my heart, but please don't break it", she whispers.




Linking to Fertilizer Friday and Macro Friday.

What brings me joy...a tranquil garden.

This is a repost from one of my earlier posts last year that I transferred 

from another blog to this one. 

Whilst  searching for what brings me joy for Travel-i-Tales' meme, 

MISSION QUITE POSSIBLE, I kept thinking of the time I was enthralled 

by one particular garden...a tranquil, joyful garden.

I found joy in this place we happened upon, in Ashburton, New Zealand. 

It is a privately owned country garden belonging to Alan & Catherine Trott. 

This award winning garden is open to the public. I can imagine it being a 

favourite venue for weddings. As we walked along the woodland garden, the 

birds were singing more joyfully than I've heard birds chirping elsewhere in 

the other gardens we've visited. You just cannot help but be happy there. I 

was telling Alan Trott as we were leaving that I could spend the whole day 

there just reading or dreaming. It has that kind of peaceful serenity you don't 

easily get to experience. Idyllic.

I love the woodland garden. Of course I couldn't identify all the plants there;

 so it was all the more exciting discovering strange " new" species.  Among 

those which are familiar to me are the rhododendrons and azaleas and maples. 

The colours were brilliant.

The formal garden is attractive in its own right. I would love to have that 

blue garden bench between two topiary plants in my own garden! Will be working 

on making that materialise one day. 

I wouldn't be able to have a knot garden like Trott's though. It is just too huge a 

 project!

My congratulations to the Trotts for producing a living, breathing 

masterpiece!

Linking to MISSION QUITE POSSIBLE, Mission # 2

Nutty Over Palm Nuts

These are the biggest palm nuts I've ever seen. They are not coconuts, but a certain kind of palm nut. This palm is very popular as landscape plants in tropical countries. I think it is commonly known as Silver Palm. I've seen them just about everywhere, in parks and botanic gardens, but had never seen the nuts before.


Here's the palm tree, I'm sure many of you know it.

 

                                                          








Linking to Macro Monday, Mosaic Monday and SOOC Sunday