Thursday, August 25, 2005

Summer blooms

Remember the Frost flowers from earlier in the year? This is how they look in the summer:


White crownbeard
(Verbesina virginica).


Heal-all or Self-heal (Prunella vulgaris).


A thing that looks like Blackeyed Susan, but may actually be a type of Sunflower, but I'm not really sure.


Passionflower or Maypop (Passiflora incarnata).
The fruit is edible. I tried it once - it tastes like lemonade. Like a pomegranate though, it's somewhat difficult to eat.


Mimosa pods. For a horrible alien invasive they sure look nice. (And at least they stick to the edges.)

Some other very interesting flowers. Really, they're quite unique. Click to see what I mean. I can't decide whether I like the pitcher plant or the nautilus shell the best. If you happen to have several thousand extra dollars just lying around, you can surprise me. Oh and wouldn't a Venus flytrap be great in this series?!

10 comments:

KFarmer said...

LOL- what will they think of next! I loved your pictures as well. Very pretty.

LauraJ said...

Definitely black-eyed susans, Rudbeckia. My sympathies about the hen. If the coyote gets one now and then, are you likely to lose the whole flock, or just one now and then (and I suppose it depends, like everything does)?

Anonymous said...

Oh. My. God. How can I have missed this? (Slaps own face.) Now I'm going to have to drive all the way to Stockton, and drag Joe along for um practical evaluation of the designs.

Now imagine a whole bathroom of such plumbing. Wheeeeee! (As it were.)

Rurality said...

Thanks KF!

LauraJ, there are lots of flowers on one stem here, and I was thinking that the BES had just one...? Of course maybe there are just different forms of BES also.

Ron you crack me up!

Thanks DPR, I fixed the link - I had somehow copied the link for the White Crownbeard over the the Heal-all too. They used to tout it as a treatment for lots of things, but I wasn't aware of that one!

R.Powers said...

Beautiful passionflower shot. I tasted them too and thought they tasted like styrofoam...I just couldn't get a "flavor" response...
oh well, the gulf frit caterpillars love 'em ...passionately.

Anonymous said...

The passionflower flowers make a wonderful sedative! If you get a really bad migraine you can make a tea with passionflower, catnip and a little lemonbalm or so and you will sleep so good and your headache will be gone! Tastes pretty good too.

Rhodent said...

I have never seen a selfheal before...
a great picture!

Rurality said...

FC I wonder if it has anything to do with ripeness? I don't normally find the fruit too often so I haven't repeated the experiment.

Weldergirl, sounds like you know your herbs! I have studied some in the past but have forgotten a lot of it. One of my grandfathers was very knowledgable about herbs, but he died years before I ever developed an interest in it. I wonder if that tea would work as well with dried herbs... (I happen to have all those in my "bath herb" stash!)

Rho it's usually fairly low to the ground so you may have just missed it. It's probably considered a weed by most people.

Anonymous said...

Actually, I should have said that I have only used dried herbs for that tea. The passionflower is so hard for me to find and does not seem to last long that I collect all I can and dry it to keep over the winter. You can use the leaves too. The catnip dries well too.

Rurality said...

Thanks weldergirl, I will have to try that tea. I have the dried herbs, though I didn't grow them myself.