African Violet (Saintpaulia ionantha)

It’s nice, in the colder months when nothing is blooming outside, to have a few houseplants that provide color in a more-monochrome time of year. African violets (generally cultivars derived from Saintpaulia ionantha) are a good choice. They are quite easy to grow, you can have a bunch in a relatively small space, and they produce beautiful, if small, flowers of white, pink, purple, and blue. This one, with a mottled purple flower, is a good example. Watered once or twice a week, it’s quite happy in our kitchen with a west-facing window.

Bok Choy

Our youth group met in an international market this evening before returning to our regular location for pizza and the bulk of the meeting. At the store, we looked at seafood. I took a few pictures (I know, can you believe it?) including this one of bok choy or Chinese cabbage, Brassica rapa subsp. chinensis). I bought a Spanish mackerel, filleted (my post for tomorrow will feature that, actually) and some oyster mushrooms. There was also a bin with turtles in it. I thought of posting a picture of them, but too many people would have thought of them as pets and we were in a grocery store.

Yellow Crab Apples

It was a dreary, rainy day today but it wasn’t actually raining when I had to walk over to another building for a meeting. As I often do, I took my camera with me and took some pictures of crab apples on a tree between the parking lot and pond below my building. I love crab apples and in general would probably favor them over flowering cherries as ornamental trees. If nothing else, they provide two seasons of interest although many of them may be fairly susceptible to rust and black spot. If you are shopping for a crab apple, disease resistance my be the first thing you want to look into. In terms of fruit, smaller might be better unless you don’t mind them dropping onto your lawn. I am personally partial to yellow fruit, as seen here.

Nutmeg

Most people are at least aware of nutmeg as a spice. It is the seed of Myristica fragrans, an evergreen tree indigenous to the Moluccas (or Spice Islands) of Indonesia and grown throughout the tropics of Asia and South America. Like all herbs and spices, it’s an aromatic that loses it’s aroma over time so you don’t want to buy more than you will use in a relatively short time. With nutmeg, buying whole seeds and grating it as needed extends its useful life considerably. The seed on top here has been grated down, showing a cross section of the internal structure of the seed.

Beech Forest

I love a good forest. I guess I’m particularly partial to temperate hardwood forests because that’s what I know best, although the southeast Alaska’s rain forest is pretty amazing, too. But we don’t have to look far to find small pockets of forest, even in our almost entirely suburban county. As the crow flies, this is about two thirds of a mile from our house. It’s not actually a deep, dark forest, certainly not a Mirkwood of Fangorn but it’s at the very least a ‘wood.’ I love the color of beech leaves in winter, particular in contrast to the pale grey of their bark.

Sycamore Leaf

I went for a short walk today, going through the woods and across the street to a small pond and back. I took some pictures of grass seeds and then stopped when I saw the light shining through this sycamore leaf. I love the bright yellow of the leaf and the dark brown of the veins. Sycamores are not really known for their spectacular fall color as their leaves often are brown by the time they fall but the leaves do often pass though yellow on their way to brown, as you can see.

Bradford Pear

The fall color continues to fade, but there are still some good instances here and there. The Bradford pears are notable for their fall color and in this picture I think you can see why. The Bradford pear is a cultivar of Pyrus calleryana, native to China and Vietnam. When they were beginning to be used, they were the only pear variety around so they didn’t set fruit but now there is enough variation in them that they pretty much all do. They do make a good show but I wouldn’t really recommend them in most situations. There are much better choices, anyway.