Excuses

This is probably the first full week I've gone without blogging in quite some time.  Especially as far as unscheduled time off goes. 

I'm sorry to say my grandmother passed away yesterday, four months and four days shy of her 101st birthday.  I loved her very much and am fortunate to have so many wonderful memories of her.  She was born and raised in Philadelphia, the youngest of 7 older brothers and 1 older sister.  She had 11 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.  I blogged about her once before, on NYPAOS.

She had been in hospice care since Sunday so I had been spending as much time up in Philly as possible and thus, no blog.

 

Marian Gallagher, née Scannapieco, was a big contributor to the St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital.  Her refrigerator was covered with stickers of the young, ill children she wanted to help.  If you'd like to make a donation in her name, please do. St. Jude’s Children Research Hospital, Tribute Program P.O. Box 1000 Dept. 142, Memphis, TN 38148 or donations may be phoned in by calling 800-822-6344.  Please refer to Tribute # 27895177 when calling.  Mail in donations should include both the tribute # and Marian Gallagher’s name.  

We'll get back to plants starting Monday -- please come back to planted cloud then.  Thanks! 

Palm Decor

I couldn't have spent so much time lately blogging about palms, without including these shots of a shelter at Waimea Valley Botanical Garden.
 

Massive palm fronds (my guess is from the classic Cocos nucifera or coconut) were used to wrap the posts of this lovely but simple shelter.

It's hard not to look at this and begin fantasizing about my future home in one of the more remote corners of Oahu or the Big Island. Such a nice way to decorate and bring the palms inside.  

Pygmy Date Palm

My aunt (of the "Norwegian Maple") has been in Florida this week and has been sending me pics on her iPhone.  It's been fun to identify the plants, or if they are unfamiliar, to look them up.  I'll be posting most of them next week, wrapping up the last of these escapist, tropical themes before we move head-on into spring. 

I was delighted with the photo she sent me above, as it's a nicer pic of Phoenix roebelenii than any of my own.  The genus name should sound familiar since I blogged about its cousin, Pheonix dactylifera, just last week.   

Here's a shot of a pygmy date palm, growing in a lackluster spot in Jean Nouvel's Parc del Centre de Poublenou.  Pygmy dates, as the common name suggests, is a smaller version of the regular date palm.  It's often used in containers or in small areas.  It demands a regular supply of water but can handle both full sun and partial shade. You can eat the dates on this species, but they aren't as fleshy or sweet as the regular date palm.

 Those of you New Yorkers may remember the June we had two years ago where it rained 25 days of the month.  I had a desperate rant about it on NYPAOS and posted this photo of a rooftop bar.  At the time, I was focusing more on this band of people, happily drinking a magnum of champagne, ignoring the deluge.  I had failed to point out the Phoenix roebelenii.

Schefflera

Since I've somehow stumbled on the topic of "mall plants" (yikes), here's some Schefflera, growing in Puerto Rico.  My students already know how I feel about variegated plants, in general (double yikes), but the white and green variegation isn't all THAT bad.  It does brighten up an otherwise dark corner. 

The yellow and green however...Not so much.

Schefflera is an easy genus to make a guess on its etymology -- it's named for a German botanist, Jacob Christian Scheffler. 

Spathiphyllum

Here's another shot from my Puerto Rico trip a two years ago.  Though the weather is warming up here in DC, these photos aren't helping, as even a touch of spring weather can't compare with the thought of being on a tropical island.  I'm suffering withdrawal!

Anyhoo, you don't need to go to Vieques to see this plant.  Chances are it's growing in your nearby shopping mall, or you can spot it in a building's atrium.  It's Spathiphyllum, or the peace lily.  It's a very, very shade tolerant plant so it's often used in interiorscaping. 

But they rarely look this good in a mall.  The leaves here are large and lusciously jade green.  The flowers, which are a spathe-and-spadix structure.  The white part is the spathe, which is a bract, or modified leaf.  The yellow spike in the center is the spadix, which is an inflorescence, consisting of many small flowers.  The plant is called peace lily, evidently due to the white color of the spadix. 

Carica papaya

Perhaps one of my favorite fruits is the papaya.  One of the things I miss about New York is the ability to pick up a container of cut papaya at any bodega.  It's not quite as thrilling as having access to all that fresh pineapple in Hawaii (as I recently blogged about), but it's good nonetheless.   

The specimens above are growing in a food garden at the Honolulu Zoo.  You can see that the stalk is self-cleaning, dropping its large, lobed leaves as the plant grows upward.  The fruit are cauliflory, which means they grow directly attached the stem.  Papayas when unripe, like the ones above, are often used in cooking, particularly in Thai cuisine (though the plant is native to Mexico).  When ripe, the fruits turn yellow and have a deeply sweet (cloyingly so, to some) flavor.

Carissa macrocarpa

Carissa macrocarpa or natal plum is a plant you're likely to encounter in the tropics as it's unusual in fulfilling various purposes.  One, it's quite thorny and is often used as a barrier.  Two, it takes to pruning very well and can be trimmed into a hedge shape without much trouble.  Three, it's absolutely salt and wind proof.  If you've ever been to the Halekulani in Waikiki, or walked past the beachfront restaurant, you've passed a manicured hedge of  Carissa.

Finally, reason number four is the plant is quite attractive, as far as somewhat stiff hedge-like plants go.  The pinwheels of white flowers look almost like jasmine and are faintly faintly fragrant. 

All the time I spent walking past the specimen at the Halekulani, and damn if I can't find a photo of the plant's habit.  I only have these close-ups from Puerto Rico.  Next time, I promise.

Ruellia angustifolia

The plant below is Ruellia angustifolia, or Mexican petunia.  It's also known as R. brittoniana.  As you may guess, it's not related to the bedding plant Petunia at all, it just has similar tubular flowers.  

Ruellia is an upright, stalk-forming perennial that grows in almost any condition, in areas of the tropics, as far north as Texas and Florida.   Its hardiness accounts for why this is considered a top-ranking invasive in Florida. 

Bauhinia purpurea

Yesterday, we had temperatures in DC reaching 59° yesterday, which was downright heavenly.  I took some time away from work to go for a run along the mall, eying all the trees' buds, which are slowly fattening up to burst this spring.  Today, we're back to colder temperatures, so I've decided to commit this week to more tropicals and live in denial. 

This was a specimen I shot in March 2009 in San Juan, Puerto Rico.  I don't know how I failed to post about it at NYPAOS, but I didn't so I'm happily introducing it now: Bauhinia purpurea, AKA Hong Kong orchid tree, Hawaiian orchid tree or purple camel's foot. 

That last common name should be evident when considering the assymmetrical bilobed leaves which look similar enough to the footprints of a camel.

The flower, as the other common names suggest, is orchid-like, with long slender petals and showy, spurred stamens. Of course, the other huge clue to identify this plant appears in the photos above and below and that's the long, flattened fruits which clue us in that we're looking at a member of the Leguminosae family.

Bauhinia is a popular ornamental tree int he tropics and it native to Southeast Asia.  In the states, it's prevalent in Texas, Florida, Hawaii and Puerto Rico.  There's some debate about its invasive quality --the plant sets very successful seedlings which can be a management problem. 

Wilson Hall, Monmouth University...And Annie

Last Friday, I went to a conference at Monmouth University.  The topic was Building a Sustainable Future For New Jersey’s Coastal and Ocean Economy and was sponsored by the Jersey Shore Partnership and Monmouth's Urban Coast Institute.  Various presenters spoke about their research, whether it was about offshore windmills, fisheries or the impacts of climate change on the coastal environment and a panel discussion followed.

It was a great conference, but I'm actually not blogging about those topics today.  You see, the conference was held in Monmouth's historic Wilson Hall.  Upon entering the building, I swear I was hit with a sense of deja vu.  Of course, that could have also been plain awe at the majesty of the building.  It's an unassuming enough structure from the outside, much like other buildings on a college campus.  But the atrium space was beautiful.

Commenting on the building to a companion, I was told this building was used for filming the movie version of Annie.  That explains why it was so familiar.  In 1981, shortly before my family moved to Kuala Lumpur, my dad took me to see the stage production in Philly.  It was probably - at that point - the most exciting night of my relatively short life.  For years afterwards, while we endured long car trips to distant vacation spots on the Malay peninsula, my family had to endure repeated playings of the original broadway soundtrack.

I was bitterly disappointed when the film came out.  I mean, I was pretty young, but I remember being indignant (!!) at the liberties they took with the original story and changes they made to the songlist.  Still, it could be watched on VHS, again repeatedly, so I made due with what I had and watched the movie often enough.

In any event, recently my family was discussing the musical and we played the soundtrack.  It was hilarious to see my brother, now a grown man, remember lyrics to songs he hadn't heard since 1981.  Some things just get imprinted on your brain, I suppose.

Tilework in the ladies' room - note the mosque design with minarets topped with crescent moons.

In any case, it was a delight to see Wilson Hall.  It's called such because Woodrow Wilson stayed there in 1916 during his campaign. It was designed by Horace Trumbauer of Philadelphia, who also employed Julian Abele on the project, who was the first professional African-American architect.  Abele also worked on another building that's fairly iconic in the movie world: the Philadelphia Museum of Art.   If that previous link isn't enough youtube on your Monday morning, here's the scene in Annie where she first visits Wilson Hall (or Daddy Warbucks' home).

Bottle Palm

Below, a specimen of Hyophorbe lagenicaulis, in Waimea Valley Botanical Garden, Oahu.  Bottle palms are named such for its trunk, which suddenly enlarges at the base, looking much like a bottle.  This specimen, is quite old and is reaching its species height limit of 30-35'.  Most bottle palms have a more obviously bottle-like trunk, because they are usually found in shorter sizes.

Bottles rarely have more than 5-7 leaves on them and they are self-cleaning.  That means that when the frond senesces, it simply falls off, unlike today's earlier royal palm, which has persistent leaves.  The leaf texture is much more coarse, with thicker leaflets.  This does make it easier to appreciate the clear, jade green color of the leaves.
 

A younger specimen of bottle palm is below.  Bottles are endemic to Mauritius Island, where wild stands of this tree are very rare and diminishing. Bottles are however, very popular as container plants due to their small size and striking silhouette.

Roystonea regia, or Royal Palm

Below, royal palms, Roystonea regia, formerly R. elata, line a street in Oahu.  That's a bit of Diamond Head you see in the left background.

After you start to see the differences among palm species, you begin to understand the subtle choices you can make in plant selection.  Royal palms, with their stout upright trunks, create a much more formal setting than a looser, arching coconut palm.  The austerity of this look is enhanced when you consider the regularly-occurring smooth rings that line the trunk.

In most cases, palms like this are maintained and the dead fronds and fruits are removed.  The plant has a close association with bats in its native range of Cuba/northern Caribbean, Florida and Mexico.  The pinnately compound leaves have fine, thin leaflets which create a softer texture than say, the foxtail palm. 

Pritchardia Palms

When I first started working on projects in the tropics, I was intimidated by all that I didn't know about palms.  For a while there, they all looked the same.  But eventually with enough exposure you begin to notice the finer details separating one species from another.  

The very first step in that direction is by noticed whether or not the leaves are fans or fronds.  The way that here on the east coast, when encountering a tree, the first thing we note is leaf orientation (opposite or altnerate?) with palms, noting if it's a fan leaf like the tree in this post, or a compound frond like this morning's date palm, narrows down the possibilities.

The genus in this post is Pritchardia or Pritchard palm, named so after William Thomas Pritchard, a British consul at Fiji during the turn of the last century.  If you pressed a gun to my head (please don't), I would speculate that this is Pritchardia affinis or loulu palm, which can become quite tall (many species stay shorter) and is more common than the other 28 species.

P. affinis is endemic to Hawaii and is registered as an endangered species. There are another 18 species of Pritchardia that are also endemic and all are in decline.  The genus is unusual in that the flowers and fruits occur on the same stalks.  Note the bright yellow flower buds above and the unripe fruit below.

Date Palm

Yesterday, I posted about Datura with some hesitation.  Not because the plant is not worthy of a post, but because it's a summer annual and here we are in the middle of February.  I try to keep this post relevant to the seasons, but this is a tough time of year to find much inspiration outdoors (though now that some of our snow has melted, I have spied some daffodil foliage!).  I'll keep looking for remarkable flora for February, but for the rest of this week, we're going to focus on palms.

Above, Phoenix dactylifera is growing in a Versailles box at Luxembourg Gardens in Paris.  Date palms are easy to spot, as they almost look like a Chrysanthemum firework that is slowly drifting back to earth.  The leaves (or fronds) are long and pinnate, with leaflets reaching up to 14".

The shots above and below are at Park Guell in Barcelona.  The texture of date palms are so fine - almost furry looking -- it's hard to miss them.  Date palms have been cultivated since at least 6000 BC and they are thought to be native to the middle east.  Though it's hard to know for sure since they are now found in any tropical or Mediterranean climate.

The plants are dioecious, which means there are males and females.  Obviously, only the females have the wonderful edible dates.  I must have had dates on the brain this week, since just yesterday I had a terrific salad -- arugula, dates, ricotta salata and walnuts.  Delicious.

 

Above, date palms in Oahu, Hawaii. As you can see the crown or head of the palm works its way up, leaving dying and dessicated leaves further down the trunk.  Often these are removed manually as part of the tree's maintenance.

Datura metel, and Botticelli

Posting yesterday's pic of the stone bench in Giverny made me a bit wistful for Paris and so I began browsing some of my photos.  I realized I had not yet blogged about Datura metel, an annual I photographed at the Jardin du Plantes. 

 Datura is a lovely annual, reaching about 3' high and at the gardens here it's mixed with Verbena bonariensis.  However, it is dreadfully toxic when ingested.

Most species of Datura are toxic and recently when art historian David Bellingham hypothesized that  D. stramonium is featured in Botticelli's Venus and Mars.   He noted a strange fruit in the hands of an imp surrounding Mars and had it identified by a botanist at Kew Gardens as Datura.
 

The story at NPR on this is terrific - as it elaborates on the plants toxicology and touches on the debate about whether or not Datura stramonium could have possibly been cultivated in Italy during Botticelli's time (there's some speculation on whether or not the plant is native to the new world and India, or only the new world). 

Water Lily

 It occurred to me this morning, after posting a photo of the bench in Giverny, that although I've posted about the wonderful gardens there before, I've never shared more than one measly photo of the famous pond with its very famous waterlilies.

  

Monet's pond is largely populated with Nymphaea odorata, a fragrant, summer-blooming waterlily that is actually an invasive species in the west, where it can become weedy with an absence of cold winters.

The wide flat leaves (the petioles are at the center and reach to the bottom of the pond where they root) help keep the leaves afloat. 

The sepals on the flowers are thick and leathery, which also helps keep the flowers (fragrant, as the species name implies) afloat.

Nymphaea of course means nymph and refers to the ancient Greek belief in feminine free spirits that were often found at springs or water bodies.

Bench Siting

When I worked at the Bronx Zoo, I drew up a lot of quick little construction drawings for the installation of benches throughout the park's campus.  In a million years, a sketch indicating this would never be approved. Anyone know why?

We always had to incorporate some kind of paving (ideally a porous one) underneath the bench.  The arrangement above (though lovely with the pink granite pedestals underneath each bench foot) would require to much maintenance.   Mulch would have to be re-applied and weeds would need to be combated (particularly in a sunny location like this).  Granted, the operating budget for the Sculpture Garden may very well exceed that of the Bronx Zoo's, but this detail just looks unfinished to me.

Above, at the Bronx Zoo, benches are sitting away from the main traffic path and elevated above Astor Court's historic granite curb.

At Longwood Gardens, the benches are sitting on platforms and pulled back from the path, so your knees aren't in traffic.

The detail above, at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, is even more elaborate.

 In Teardrop Park, the bench sits on a continuation of the sidewalk paving.

As it does at this church courtyard in Paris.

At the High Line,  the bench sits above a drain grate.

Finally, the bench I'd most want to sit on: a stone bench at Monet's home in Giverny, France has cobble paving to distinguish this from the main thoroughfare.