Pi day greetings

Pi day (3.14) snuck up on TPP, as did St. Patrick's day.  But while TPP was messing around making chicken-tortilla soup, Mrs. Phactor was making a bourbon-pecan pie, and while it took forever to bake, the result was pleasing to both eye and palate.  This is especially good for breakfast maybe because the bitterness of coffee helps offset the slightly cloying sweetness.  Happy Pi day everyone!

Friday Fabulous Flower

Things are just a bit crazy right now, so seeing an old friend emerge from winter dormancy is rather comforting.  This week is the University's official spring break, and having got most of the students off campus, the powers that be decided to keep them away by extending spring break a week, during which time everyone is supposed to somehow switch to online education.  The advocates of this are certainly not familiar with either hands-on labs or field type courses.  Oh, "if we want students to see something, we show them a picture".  The failure to know the difference between "see" and "observe" has never been more obvious.  There are times it's good to be retired.  
Ah well, back to old friends, out in the woodland portion of our gardens the first real wildflower to appear is the snow Trillium (Trillium nivale), the smallest trillium perhaps in North America.  The flower at about 1 inch in diameter is huge in comparison to the tiny whorl of three leaves.  It would be easy to miss this plant if you were just walking around, but TPP knows where it was planted.  March flowering (the 8th) is nothing new to this plant, having flowered earlier 4 times since it was planted in the fall of 2011. Once it even flowered in late February.  It doesn't like being buried under a thick layer of leaves since it is a pretty small shoot.  In the wild this species tends to grow on slopes.  

Harbingers of spring

TPP had the opportunity to have a walk around the gardens.  Signs of spring are everywhere.  The witch-hazel are flowering, as are the snowdrops.  Winter aconite is lifting its flowers and showing the bright yellow perianth, although it appears to be growing in a new location, so it seeded in or some new corms were planted and TPP doesn't remember.  Now let's check the date: Feb. 25th.  Yes, that's early, but witch-hazel has flowered earlier by a week or so on several occasions; this would set a new record for the winter aconite which has never flowered before March 5 before.  This is only about 3 days earlier for snowdrops.  No idea which of these harbingers is most reliable.  The buds are swelling on the silver maple trees, and the filbert pollen catkins have elongated.  Got a bit of snowy rain but nothing to really discourage these real early flowers.  Picked a couple of forsythia branches to see it we can force some early flowers.

Return to winter requires something very tropical

Our return to the upper Midwest took us from shirt sleeve weather to severely cold weather rather suddenly; the car's temperature gauge just kept going down.  On a few occasions TPP has returned from the full-fledged tropics to mid winter and it is a very unnice transition.  At any rate here is a very tropical thing a Ylang Ylang tree (there is also a vine with the same common name)(Caranga odorata) in the custard apple family. This is a very tropical scent, sort of a heavy, strongly floral odor, and indeed the flowers are used in perfumery.  This is a family that TPP rather likes, and it just smells tropical. The flowers have rather thick curled tepals probably 3 whorls of 3 if remembered correctly, and in full bloom their odor is almost intoxicating and their odor is strongest at night, which you notice immediately if you walk under one.  It was very green in the Florida keys and very tropical; the contrast with local conditions is stark.  

Friday Fabulous Frond - Wax Palm

One of the better nature areas in Key West is the KW Tropical Forest and Botanical Garden.  Now based on a considerable experience, TPP recognizes that the most impressive specimen at this particular garden are 4 wax palm.  They are large stout palm (Copernicus fallaensis).  This is a native to Cuba where it is considered an endangered species with less than a 100 remain.  They are slow growing and become huge with time, presumably a couple of centuries.  The fronds are large as well and well armed with spines along the petiole.  The waxy coating on the leaves makes the fronds look sort of bluish white.

The Phactors have gone south to avoid some winter.  Cuba can almost be seen from a tall bar stool; it's only 90 miles away.  This crazy looking pylon is the southern most place in the continental USA.  A place on the big Island of Hawaii is actually further south.  A lot of the people here seem to be Cuban and not sure why that should be the case.  The drive out from the mainland reminds you how much of this land is only a little above sea level, a lot of the keys will be submerged before anything else gets flooded.  Saw a Pine Key deer today; probably only 30" tall at the shoulder.  Although they have increased in numbers there still are not very many of these small deer around.

Alternate Reality

TPP thinks that maybe just maybe he and his travelling companions have slipped into an alternate reality.  Three-wheeled bicycles, most of them electric assisted, suddenly out number cars, and the bike riders either have on white bonnets or broad-rimmed hats and beards.  Palm trees abound, and everything is quite green.  Silly as this sounds it is apparently the local reality.  This alternate reality seems to be normal for Sarasota Florida and it is all the result of celery.  Hey, TPP does not make this stuff up. One thing TPP knows for certain, you will not catch him moving to this area, no way, no how.  Although the "we survived the 60s twice" Phactors actually fit the local demographic (gray hairs abound) this is not our idea of a life.  The break from winter is a nice thing, although the F1 thinks, a mink or wolverine is making tracks in the snow on our patio back in Lincolnland winter, this is not our thing.  And raccoon or fox is a lot more likely on the patio. Water the bonsai trees, kid.  Thanks.

photographic field guide to roadside prairie plants

BrianO, a long time and valued correspondent, asked TPP to review this field guide, but no time to do it right now (getting ready for a road trip)(but wrong season and wrong place to try this out).  But I know that a lot of impressive plant people lurk in the back ground of this blog.  So here's the link BrianO provided, have a look see and report back.  TPP will let you know about his initial reaction in a bit, when time permits.  

Friday Fabulous Flower - Cactus

OK in an effort to get a day/date disconnect resolved, TPP thought why not do something unusual like do a FFF on an actual Friday.  People won't expect that.  One of our favorite house plants is in full bloom and it is so very cheerful,  Hatiora salicornioides.  This is a epiphytic or orchid cactus that used to be in the genus Rhipsalis.   The specific epithet is sort of interesting because it means it looks like a well-known halophyte Salicornia.  This particular plant has gotten big, probably 50 lbs big and the largest and oldest stems are quite woody.  At any rate there are hundreds of drooping stems and each one bears a golden yellow flower at its terminus.  Each segment has a slender portion and then a thick succulent portion.  

Now here's an image of some Salicornia growing in a salt marsh at low-tide.  It doesn't look like this very much except for the many segments and the succulence.