Royal Poinciana, Fern-Like Leaves, Fiery Flowers . . . and Other Florida Flora.

One of the first flowers that fascinated me when I began to photograph plants in Florida.

I've been collecting photographs of plants, trees, bushes and flowers for the last ten years.  Brent gave me, first, a Sony camera with a simple zoom lens--after that, a Nikon D300s with (over the years) three different lenses.  Then, last year, I got a Nikon P600 zoom camera--essentially a zoom lens that can take photographs of the craters of the moon.

My intention (only sporatically carried through) has been to document all of the plants in our yard.  This is a fragment of my dream to compile an identification collection of photos and plant pressings of all the plants I find in our area.

One of the challenges in all of this is the seasonal changes--blooms come and go, even leaves on some plants dry up and fall off for a time each year.  There are flowers that grow from underground root systems or bulbs--they send up sprouts, grow, wither and die.

This is one of the young Royal Poinciana trees along Donald Ross, just east of I-95.

I have one entry for today, though:  Royal Poinciana.  It is a tree that spreads its branches over a huge circumference.  Even though it grows as high as a telephone pole, the branches of an older, mature tree, brush against the ground when the wind blows. The Palm Beach State College, PGA campus, has some gorgeous trees.  During the height of summer, standing under one of the trees' canopy, I am hidden from the sight of those walking on the sidewalks--just a half dozen yards away.  

Here we see the height compared to a light pole: young Royal Poinciana tree, family Fabaceae, Caesalpinioideae, Delonix regia.

From a great distance, the trees are easy to spot--blankets of flowers covering a wide dome.

Seed pods hang down low after the flowers have gone.

The blooms cluster at the ends of branches.  A relative of the pea, the leaves are described as "fern-like."

I took a close-up of a single flower, set at the base of a branch, to show the texture of the trees' bark.

One of the best things about living in Florida is that it is green all year long.  

In Iowa, I loved the fact that I could toss just about any seed on the ground and it would grow--especially "salad" plants: lettuce, tomatoes (those I started from small nursery stock), sweet peppers, carrots, radishes, spinach. 

The same miracle happened in Kansas City, Missouri.  There I was also able to get apple trees to survive--though we didn't live there long enough to see a harvest from them.  We left a terraced flower garden built around a waterfall.   An enclosed garden provided "salad" veggies as will as gooseberries, raspberries, and blackberries.  We were known as the "sunflower house" because of the few giant sunflowers that sprouted in odd places around the house.

Now we live in Florida--Palm Beach.  I've tried peach trees--died.  Fig trees--no figs.  Roses--mildewed.  Tomatoes--burnt by the "partial sun."  Lauren and her family are living with us for awhile and she has been able to get SURPRISE!!! WOW!!! BLACKBERRIES.  I have a starfruit tree that bears delicious fruit twice a year--as does our Barbados cherry tree.  My best success so far (aside from the wild roses I got from the Palm Beach State College nursery) has been a single mulberry bush that gives luscious, though few, berries every year.  I have three pomegranate bushes that have done nothing except not die yet--and a sap apple that also has not died yet--and two coconut palms that I think have not decided if they are going to die yet or not.

I don't have a Royal Poinciana in my yard; I just get to be in a place that is constantly green and growing and filled with plants that I can take photographs of.

It is a place that I like very much.   

Shells Are What's Left When Something Dies

As we were watching an old Netflix movie on TV,  my 26 yearly son Nate walked into the room and said, "I remember when you just popped in a tape or a DVD and then you sat back and WATCHED it!"

If it were "remember when", then I wouldn't be writing this; wouldn't be able to send letters and photos all around the earth in an instant--unless it's a video longer than 10 seconds long, in which case I would have to download it onto YouTube and email the link to everyone.

The photo is from my visit to Maryland during December 2015.  Old, empty phone stations.  Useless unless you count the memories it brings to those of us old enough to remember them when there were phones in them.

Late in the day photo.  

After So Long

Caleb, Robert, Lauren, Charlie. Palm Beach Gardens, FL.  2016.  Caleb is almost 1 and Charlie almost 4.

I have been away from writing for so long that it now feels strange to sit with my laptop and think thoughts that my fingers type out.  I feel as if I have just been reunited with a dear, old friend--but don't quite what to say.

I have been taking photographs--hundreds of them--plants, family, sky, patterns in the fabric that is my life.  Since Lauren, Rob, Caleb and Charlie have moved in with us--I have been obsessed with cleaning--NOT cleaning--purging my house.  Things that have been safely layered in boxes are now being inconsiderately ripped from their dim places and either been repackaged, scanned and abandoned, sent "en mass" to various relatives, or given away.  With two families now using the space that one family occupied for over 10 years--space was needed--stuff had to go.

It is interesting as I sit here now to think of the stuff that I have found and then let set adrift.  I had not thought of myself as a hoarder--but I have display cabinets (3) filled with useless, but very pretty, things.  The majority are Lladro figures.  Much space is occupied by Brent's bottle collection--odd and charming glass shapes--the most precious of which is the first one that he found.  He came across it on a beach years ago.  It's principle virtue is that (besides being old) he found it himself.  I have purchased bottles for him, through the years, as presents for birthdays and Christmases--but he most values the few that he himself came across. He considers them "his" finds.

I guess that is an attitude that I also have regarding the art pieces that decorate our home.  Almost all are done by close family members.  There is one that was done by a cousin of my mother's--a huge green painting of a path through one of her local, forested areas.  I do not know the place, or the artist, but I do feel a fondness for it because it hung in our home for many years.  When mom died 19 years ago, and dad divested himself of all their household belongings, I "got to have" this painting--which, as it turns out, neither mom or dad particularly cared for.  Funny the things that we keep just because we can't bring ourselves to throw them away.  

The wedding dress that mom made for me more than (2016 - 1982 = 34) 34 years ago still hangs at the back of my closet.  It has gone through numerous dry cleanings and survived a flood (that shrank it so that I can no longer wear it).  It is no longer white--but I cannot bring myself to throw it out.  I have vague plans to make a few throw pillows from bits of it, but (since it hangs invisible in my house) plans continue to remain incorporeal.   Someday I will make the pillows and send one to each of my children--along with a photo of me, wearing the dress, and a short story about how she made it for me on my wedding day.

This will be a short essay.  It is Sunday afternoon and Brent is sleeping beside me.  I think I will join him in a nap.

See you soon.