Botanical Pornography
bushwells | June 6, 2008Courtesy of S.T., intrepid Chimp Refuge photographer on assignment, I offer a cast member of the V Monologues for your consideration.
That would be a macrolicious close-up of a common vetch flower.
Ms. Vetch has also posed as a model for Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party.
bushwells | April 18, 2008Now what pollinator could resist this fine beard?
The rest of the flower and a little Darwinism (of the Erasmus variety) follow.
The freckled IRIS owns a fiercer flame,
And three unjealous husbands wed the dame.
[Iris. 1. 71. Flower de Luce. Three males, one female. Some of the species have a beautifully freckled flower, the large stigma or head of the female covers the three males, counterfeiting a petal with its divisions.]
The stamens can't be seen in the photographs but the theme of three is evident in the flower with its three falls (the floppy parts) and the three standards (the erect…
bushwells | April 2, 2008So. It's National Poetry Month. Type that key phrase into the "search" query field on the main page of SB, and you'll find that April brings forth a veritable poetry slam among Science Bloggers. In this fine tradition, I will don my black trousers, turtleneck, jaunty (but dirty) beret, take a drag from my half-smoked Gauloise ciggie and go Boho here with a selection from the original Botanical Pornographer, Erasmus Darwin, Charles' grandfather. Today, I have chosen his ode to digitalis. Cue bongo drums.
Bolster'd with down, amid a thousand wants,
Pale Dropsy rears his bloated form, and…
bushwells | February 8, 2008Cue boom-chukka-chukka soundtrack.
First, hat tip to loyal reader Suesquatch for calling my attention to the photos that have been making the rounds. In a vain attempt to find credits for the work, I stumbled across a video by LukaIsntLuka (that link is rated SI for extreme self-indulgence but with a certain appealing eccentric banality) on the ubiquitous YouTube.
The film is below the cut. I would say "not safe for work" but these are plants fer Chrissakes. Well, some are rocks, but there you go. The images are also subject to interpretation. For example, I'm not sure whether that's a…
bushwells | January 11, 2008Finally, the much anticipated return of Friday Flower Porn! For you debauched botanical voyeurs, I have two offerings for you today: a purple posy and turgid Darwinian prose.
Here's a violet blooming in Princeton's Marchand Park where a fair number of specimen trees and shrubs hang out. Just look at those ticklers. Any red-blooded hymenopteran would make a bee-line toward those babies.
And here's the prose in which our violet is mentioned in passing - Canto I as sung by the Goddess of Botany:
Descend, ye hovering Sylphs! aerial Quires,
And sweep with little hands your silver lyres;
With…
bushwells | September 28, 2007Er, make that just pumpkin. This little critter was caught crimson fisted packing her saddle bags with pumpkin pollen recently. I wonder if they fly around looking for some nutmeg and cinnamon, too?
In any case, in spite of the numerous pumpkin blossoms that have been produced in the garden over the past couple of months, not a single pumpkin has emerged. Of course, this particular pumpkin patch was a bit of a lark, coming from the seeds of last year's jack-o-lantern. My guess is that this particular variety isn't particularly fertile, in spite of the bee's knees.
Note: This was originally…
bushwells | September 14, 2007The deck plantings looked innocent enough. Trite flowers and greenery were stuffed into cheap plastic containers, crammed together like so many commuters in a suburban horticultural subway car. Those frilly purple dames though. If he could only get a closer gander at them. They were so coy. Were they as virtuous as they seemed? He buzzed in for a closer look.
Then it hit him. These were not chaste flowers. Not at all. These were turgid violet temptresses. He knew he was taking his chances. If he flew too close, he would be sucked into the gaping purple...gaaaah!
I'm not sure of…
jfiore | August 10, 2007...coneflower Echinacea purpurea. Double your pleasure, double your fun; two heads, as they say, are better than one:
This rascal popped up along the border of our driveway. It appears to be two stems that just didn't separate, with the heads sort of mashed up against each other. Upon closer inspection though, it is apparent that the backs of the flower heads are fused. Here is a better view from directly overhead:
In spite of what the Garden Guides link above says about "Seeds collected from the garden often do not come true", we have several clusters of these, all of which were propagated…
bushwells | July 13, 2007
This spicy babe doesn't need a thong to look good. The plant is colloquially known as Brazilian Jasmine and more formally as Mandevilla sanderi. Its original habitat was in the hills above Rio de Janeiro, but it no longer grows in a native state there. Here it struts its stuff to a bossa nova beat on my front stoop in Einsteinville.
The not so hirsute blossoms declined to comment on their preferred waxing procedures.
jfiore | June 29, 2007Today, small, simple, pale white, and dare I say it, almost virginal. But soon, red, swollen and sweet on the tongue.
Yes, we're talking Rosaceae fragaria, strawberries. This particular cultivar is an everbearing variety called Berry Basket. About a half dozen plants sit in two long window boxes on our elevated deck. The berries are fairly small but sweet. They're no match for the Cabot and Cavendish June bearers in the garden, but then there's nothing quite like a little late season fruit to perk you up.
jfiore | June 22, 2007The common foxglove Digitalis purpurea is certainly one to affect your heart. Literally.
Foxglove is, of course, the source of the cardiac drug digitalin. Ingestion of foxglove can be fatal, so no munching, no matter how much you may be attracted to it. Symptoms may include nausea, hallucinations, and bradycardia (slowing of heart rate).
A much less toxic avenue to bradycardia (usually taken as a heart rate less than 60 bpm) is copious application of aeorbic exercise. Accompanying nausea is infrequent except at the end of particularly grueling races and any hallucinations tend to be…
jfiore | June 15, 2007Lily fair, lily fair, around the house, everywhere! Yes, we've got all types: Oriental lilies , Tiger llilies, Daylilies, and the ever-so-shy but pungent Lily of the Valley.
Interestingly, most of those mentioned above aren't true lilies (the exception being the Asian or Oriental types). I can sort of understand the confusion with the Tiger and Daylily due to the blossom, but the the Lily of the Valley? If a true lily is a horse, a Tiger lily might be a zebra, but a Lily of the Valley would be a hyrax.
Not ones to "do it in the road", these Lilies of the Valley like to cluster-flock by the…
bushwells | June 8, 2007Today's offering is a departure from the usual floral genitalia.
I found this specimen at Marquand Park in Princeton. This park sports a variety of ornamental trees. I believe this is a leaf of Fagus sylvatica, the European beech, likely the atropunicea variety, the same species as the "copper beech" shown in todays Orgasmic sparklers and single cask malt Scotch entry. Carotenoids and anthocyanins contribute to the coloration.
The Wellesley College Web of Species has a good description of Fagus sylvatica.
Beeches of both European and American origin have smooth grey bark, and have…
bushwells | June 1, 2007
What's that hanging out of the Dutchman's trousers?
A Dicentra spectabilis specimen displays its cash and prizes near the Princeton campus.
bushwells | May 18, 2007Aching, congested and heavy, but not a bee of relief in sight.
Fortunately, there were no blue laws prohibiting this porn shoot near the Princeton campus.
bushwells | April 20, 2007...until Movable Type will allow me to embed one of my own images, and that nasty Forbidden message stops taunting me.
Or I'll take that as one more hint that this Friday feature's entertainment value is minimal at best.
bushwells | March 16, 2007C'mon, Mr. Wasp. You know you want it. You know you do.
Many thanks to my longtime (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) Internet friend for getting this past the porn filters on my computer. This lovely orchid resides at the Krohn Convervatory in Cincinnati, OH.
bushwells | February 14, 2007I took a pretty circuitous path to becoming a biochemist.
When I was six, I wanted to be a paleontologist, influenced by the "dinosaurs are cool" factor and my older (much older) sister's college textbooks which I attempted to read, trying to get a grasp of evolution. Then, I wanted to be a zoologist, specializing in mammology. Next, I imagined that I would be an astrophysicist (my brother's a physicist...not an astro- kind but a solid state physicist), and by the time I was in high school, I thought I'd be a good psychiatrist what with all my angst-ridden teenaged friends coming to me for…
bushwells | December 29, 2006All this needs is a wakka chikka wakka chikka soundtrack...
This Paphiopedilum lowii was filmed by sameoldmike.
bushwells | December 22, 2006Jingle my bells, baby!
Figuring out what plant this floral naughty bit belongs to should be about as difficult as knocking back a hot steaming cup of solstice glog.
Here's the full photo of the showy bracts of the Euphorbia pulcherrima which surround small central flowers. The history and diseases of poinsettia cultivars are reviewed here. These euphorbs have ethnobotany going for them since they were used for medicinal purposes by traditional healers in Central and South America.
Here's one of my favorite mutant poinsettias.
(Photos from my little Nikon CoolPix S9)