And now for something completely different

You see a lot of different things wandering around college campuses, and a few enter into the area of strange, but you get used to different.  So it was this morning while wheeling along between the coffee shoppe and my office that the Phactor noticed a very short person under a very large head of red hair strolling, if that be the right term because it was not a standard gait, in a flouncy sort of skirt.  Nothing strange here, although the costume was a bit unusual for summer when t-shirt, gym shorts, and flip-flops are the norm.  But how often do you see a red-headed hobbit playing a blue ukelele?  Now we got major different and maybe border line strange.  So some four hours later, the Phactor hears the unmistakable sound of a ukelele outside his office door, and then a knock.  A red-headed, ukelele-playing hobbit wants to visit the greenhouse, and with the normal student and faculty traffic down to a trickle, the door was locked.  At least she didn't ask to play for the plants.  Apparently red-headed, ukelele-playing hobbits like greenhouses filled with plants, especially the hibiscus, the frangipani ("smells fantastic"), and a mimosa sensitive plant ("did I kill it?").  "Are you like the herbalist professor at Hogworts?"  No, the Phactor is just a botanist.  "What's this?"  It's a sweet acacia.  "It smells like lemon fresh Joy."  Yes, that's pretty accurate description of the floral fragrance.  "And if you listen to it closely will you hear Whos?"  It takes a few seconds for the Phactor to realize that this is not a reference to a musical group, but a literary reference (Horton hears a Who).  Well, yes, this is in the same plant family as Horton's clover.  Well, have a nice look around, and make sure the door is locked when you leave.  "You trust me?"  Sure, red-headed ukelele players are notoriously honest.  "That's right! This is even my real hair color."  Ah, an almost certain untruth, but no one is perfect.  She picks an hibiscus for her hair.  "Oh, was that OK?"  It will grow more.  Every day needs a little bit of a different for an interlude, a musical interlude, in this case.   

Avoiding SAD - Visit a Greenhouse

Seasonal Affective Disorder, the winter blues, has never gotten me down, although winter simply goes on too long. But one certain remedy is to spend some time in the nearest greenhouse. All that organic material, the humidity, the smells of plants and earth, have a very salutory effect upon your brain. Maybe this is why botanists are not too prone to depression?

So while curing my SAD today this beauty caught my attention - Thunbergia mysorensis. Sorry if it has a common name, it isn't known to me (anyone?). The inflorescences hang down nearly 2 feet and the colorful flowers open bottom (which is at the top) to top, but this poses a problem for such flowers because usually their stamens and stigma are on the dorsal side of the flower. This is solved by having the flowers rotate on their stalks 180 degrees. This is not uncommon and other plants with dangly inflorescences do the same thing (e.g. Wisteria). Note also how the red calyx contributes to the overall display. You can grow this outside in warm climates.

Relief from winter doldrums: 2. Visit the greenhouse

Lincolnland is still in the grips of cold and snow, although it does look pretty right now. Usually the midwest is just sort of snowlessly bleak. But for the second in my series on seeking relief from the winter doldrums, let's visit the greenhouse and see what's going on that isn't monochromatic.

This is a pretty spectacular flower, Thunbergia mysorensis. As the specific epithet suggests, this vine is native to southern India. A pair of reddish bracteoles encloses the base of each flower providing a constant display as the flowers open sequentially bottom to top. Morphologically; the inflorescence is pendent so the bottom is at the top and each flower twists 180 degrees to attain the correct orientation. The flowers produce copious nectar, often enough to drip over the bottom lip of the corolla, and are bird pollinated. The stigma and stamens occupy the top of the corolla tube where depending upon the stage of flowering (pollen accepting or pollen dispersing) one or the other makes contact with the visiting bird's head. Enjoy.