I blogged about the castor oil plant in our neighbourhood a few months ago; it’s all now flowering and setting seed, preparing for even further invasion.
Ricinus communis
Author: Hashi
for Annette
Nasturtiums and Mexican marigolds are both very strongly scented flowers, one peppery, the other more citrusy. Put them in a vase together, and they create a visual riot, while the aromas somehow balance and calm each other. An analogy for my bestie and me? Maybe.
Lyn and Mitch
On a break in life drawing class, I sketched some of the students chatting. I’m not going to inflict my weekly drawings of naked people on you, but I do want to report that I’m loving the class, and learning a lot.
Callistemon viminalis “MacArthur”
We bought this Callistemon 10 years ago. It spent a few years in a pot before going in the ground, and now it’s well-established and close to its maximum size of 1.8m high x 1.5m wide. It feeds hooded orioles, house finches, lesser goldfinches, and maybe other birds too during the long flowering season, and brings us much pleasure.
I’m more of a purist about planting CA natives now, but I’m not sad about the select Australian trees and shrubs we’ve established here (no acacias or eucalypts, they are way too invasive).
Butorides virescens
Green Herons are short and stocky (for a heron) with a thick neck that is often drawn down into the body. It’s only when they strike at food that you can see the length of the neck.
Although Green Herons are fairly common across the U.S., their population has suffered a decline of approximately 1.3% per year between 1966 to 2019, resulting in a cumulative decline of about 51%, according to the North American Breeding Bird Survey. In the past, people hunted Green Herons for food and controlled their numbers near fish hatcheries. Today they, like so many creatures, are negatively impacted by habitat loss from the destruction of wetlands.
Anthomyiidae
After picking sixty (60!) snails off our little orange tree this morning, I noticed this handsome fly on one of the ravaged leaves. I am no entomologist, so the ID could be wrong. Looking at the distribution map in iNaturalist, Anthomyia species are far more common in the Southern Hemisphere than the northern, so possibly I’m way off. I was attracted to the strong dark dots on the wings; I suspect that are a key feature for identification.
Selasphorus sasin
Ah! They grow up so fast! The baby hummers continue to provide daily drama and entertainment, but soon they’ll be out in the big wide world.
I love the feather pattern on their chins. Reminds me of Hallgrímskirkja.
vase o’ v.a.s.e.
Today’s arrangement brought to you by Verbena, Aloe, Salvia and Encelia, whose initials, I just realised, spell VASE.
Aphyllon franciscanum
This week in the PerpJo—according to Milt McCauley (Wildflowers of the Santa Monica Mountains), two species of the Broomrape family are native to the SMM, but very rare. Clustered broomrape (Aphyllon franciscanum) is found in chaparral and coastal sage scrub. It has fleshy stems 2 to 8 inches (5 to 20 cm) high, covered with soft hairs, and bell-shaped flowers 1 to 4 inches (2.5 to 10 cm) long. Broomrape is parasitic on the roots of other plants like chamise, sagebrush and buckwheat.
Big thanks to Annette for spotting this rarity. Actually, she also spied the horned lizard this week last year. I’ll have to be sure to hike with her in week 16 next year too. Who knows what she will find for us then!
above and below water
Bet you always wondered what tadpoles eat 😂
hashiworks 