Pretty pictures: July roadside flowers, pink/orange

Took a back-roads route from Iowa City last Thursday, and found all these. Plus there's another post with more flowers coming up tomorrow Tuesday. As always, if you know the identity of the one NOID, let me know in comments.

All of these will be bigger, clearer, and more detailed if opened in a new window.

When I took this picture, I was pretty sure it was a Queen Anne's lace, Daucus carota. Then as I got to looking at it afterward, I was thinking that it seemed awfully full for Queen Anne's lace, and maybe it was some other, related plant. Now I'm kind of leaning toward the Daucus theory again, but I'm unsure. Open in a new window to see the odd insect sitting right in the middle of it all.

I've taken photos of fleabane (Erigeron sp.) before. It's not a big thrill, and this particular batch looks kinda ratty (it's been windy a lot lately) but I feel obliged to include it for the sake of completeness.

Hadn't ever really noticed these NOIDs before: they're pretty tiny, and the plants look like hell (which you can kind of see from the foliage I didn't crop out), but when you get up close enough, the flowers are very nearly attractive. Not quite, but very nearly.

I have yet to take a picture of milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) flowers that didn't also include a ton of bugs as well. I think the common name should be changed to "pink orgyflower" or something similar. Interesting greenish, non-metallic bee in the top right.

I think this is a Rosa arkansana, prairie rose, in which case it is the official state flower of Iowa. If I'm wrong, then it's most likely a multiflora rose, Rosa multiflora, in which case it is a noxious invasive weed. Thorny son of a bitch either way.

Red clover, Trifolium pratense. I can't imagine any readers not knowing this plant, but I've led a sheltered and exclusively North American life thus far, so maybe they're news to someone. These are everywhere here, all the time. I also really like them.

Michigan lily, Lilium michiganense. We have orange daylilies all over the place here -- in some spots they're lining both sides of the road for a couple hundred feet. I remembered my grandmother having Michigan lilies along a slope to one side of her house, but was beginning to think I must have confused them with daylilies, because I'd never seen any around here that weren't obviously cultivated: I was pretty sure that hers hadn't been deliberately planted.

Now that I've seen this bunch, though, which was just sitting in the middle of nowhere along a road, with no house or other structure nearby, I feel a little more confident in saying that no, what she had really were Michigan lilies (which she called tiger lilies). 'Cause apparently they are around if you look for them. Just not to the same degree as the orange Hemerocallis.

Asclepias tuberosa. OMG guys I love these. We had had them at work last year, but sold out before any flowered, so I never got to see.

I've been noticing little flashes of orange low in the grass along Highway 218 for a couple weeks now, but of course we're always going by too fast to get a good look, so I wasn't sure what they were. The batch I finally took a picture of happened to be conveniently located near a gravel/highway intersection near Lone Tree, where we had to stop anyway.

Blogroll addition

Just a quick note regarding an addition to the blogroll: I have added the delightful "Nature Assassin," a blog about a young woman in Chicago and the houseplants she kills. More or less. Sometimes they live. Check it out.

I'm particularly fond of "Aced, You Cottony Fuck," though I worry that victory over the mealybugs was declared prematurely. (Victory against mealybugs always seems to be declared prematurely.) I'm also interested in "Bow chicka' bow bow . . . ," because the wall color in the pothos pictures is almost exactly the color I used to have the office in the apartment painted. Though that really doesn't have much to do with anything, in terms of plant care. Anyway. Go say hi.

Random plant event: Impatiens bud

The volunteer Impatiens I asked about a while ago has flourished in Nina's terrarium, and is now one of the five biggest plants in there. Which I guess I'm okay with?

I would have been pretty sure about the ID by this point regardless, but the plant has decided to remove all doubt by flowering. So far, it looks like the flower is plain white: I've got my fingers crossed for a little bit of some other color.


I have helpfully labeled the bud in the above picture, as well as pointing out the anole poop, just in case anybody gets those mixed up.

Happy 4th of July to everyone who's inclined to have a happy 4th of July. We're expecting heavy rain and possibly thunderstorms here. It's supposed to last more or less all day long, with a high of 71F/22C, so I expect to enjoy myself.

Pretty picture: Pentas lanceolata

It is apparently true that not only will writer's block pass, given enough time, but that after it passes, you'll have more ideas than you know what to do with. All of a sudden, I have a whole mess of potential new material, when just last week I was worried I wouldn't be able to come up with anything ever again. So that's good, kinda.


Took this picture yesterday at Menards. The garden-center season is pretty close to being over, now that we're into July, but there are still plants to be had, for anybody who's interested. Annuals are 50% off now where I used to work, if I remember the e-mail newsletter properly. Probably no Pentas left, though.

Point of interest: Pentas is both plural and singular. I won't say where, but I have seen signs at a garden center in the area extolling the virtues of the "Penta," which made me die a little inside. The same place was also really pushing the "springrey" ferns (the correct version is sprengeri, meaning: named for Sprenger) which didn't make me die inside but did make the baby Jesus cry. The first step in pretending to be a garden center is being able to write down the names of the plants you're selling, y'all. (Or at least it oughta be the first step. Yes I know I am being a pedantic jerk.)

We didn't have Pentas where I used to work in 2008, but we did get some in for 2009. They were . . . okay. I never quite figured out the appeal -- big balls of flowers (Pentas, Hydrangea, Kalanchoe blossfeldiana) don't usually get me excited. I hear butterflies like Pentas, and I'm happy for the butterflies, though.

[Exceptionally] Pretty pictures: transmitted light -- Part XVI

I know I just did one of these, but I've burned most of my free time over the last two days working on something that looks like it's going to turn into a series of posts. I'm very pleased with the title -- it may in fact be my best title ever -- but the text is proving to be kind of difficult. It's one of those situations where I'm having trouble organizing my thoughts and figuring out what I want to say. My hope is that this was mostly caused by the relentless sawing and hammering coming from the living room over the same time period (the husband and his stepfather were doing carpentry-type stuff which I sort of understand now but couldn't explain concisely), which is distracting, even with earplugs. It might also just be that this is a complicated thing to write about. Time will tell.

And I could do a pretty picture of a flower or something, but I've pretty well taken pictures of everything I've got blooming at the moment (which was always fairly limited in the first place: I should go back to visit my ex-job for the blog fodder, except that we know I'd wind up buying plants, too), so we're left with another round of transmitted light photos. Which is fine with me. I just worry that it's tedious for y'all. In any case:

(The previous transmitted light posts can be found here.)

Kalanchoe blossfeldiana NOID. As usual with the thick leaves, even if you can get light to shine through, it doesn't necessarily show off any interesting structure. But sometimes the blurry, cloudy pictures are okay too.

Pilea nummularifolia. This one was hard to get, but it turned out okay eventually. There are a few plants that I like to give sunny windows less because they require sun than because they're pretty by transmitted light: this is one of them.

Ficus 'Green Island.' This plant and I have gone through some tough times back at the apartment, but boy has it taken off and done well since the move. I've been impressed. If I'd known how appreciative the Ficuses would be, I would have tried harder to get them sun before.

Ardisia crenata. The other plants tease it about its freckles.

Impatiens x hawkeri NOID. I should have waited until the variegated New Guinea impatiens at work grew bigger leaves: would have made for a better picture. But you go to war with the Impatiens you have, not the Impatiens you wish you had, am I right, Rumsfeld?

Chlorophytum 'Charlotte.' The plant itself is still just barely hanging in there; it gets too dry a lot, I think. I should probably repot. The leaf picture is better than I remembered it being.

Solenostemon scutellarioides 'Peter Wonder.' I'm fairly certain the plant is capable of better photos than this. Will keep trying.

Brunnera cv. 'Emerald Mist.' My favorite from this batch by a mile.

Caladium 'Gingerland.' I'm pretty sure I could do better on this one, too, though really this picture only needs to be lightened a little, maybe up the contrast slightly. Oh well. The things you decide too late.

Codiaeum variegatum NOID. Including crotons kind of feels like cheating. Dunno why.