We used to find the shells (exoskeletons) everywhere as kids, but I hadn't found many lately. So after saying that publicly, of course I immediately started finding them everywhere.
I had told Wayne that we used to wear them around like brooches when we were little. I made my husband demonstrate:
Wayne is about four hours east of us, but at almost the same latitude, so why are his Bottlebrush Buckeyes (Aesculus parviflora) blooming so much earlier than ours? Blog-scooper!
Not yet blooming.
Ahh, but they're getting there! Look at those pretty spires! Mine were there for a month before they finally flowered up - maybe that delay is variable or something. Or maybe Athens is just *special* :-)
ReplyDeleteI love the cicada brooches. Hint: String them together with a snakeskin for special effect!
Happy Fourth!
Is this a type of Veronica?
ReplyDeleteWayne - well there is REM to consider... :)
ReplyDeleteAnvilcloud the only Veronica I know is one with little blue flowers. And the one that hangs out with Archie.
:) I think it's commonly called Speedwell here. Does that help at all? The flowers are spikey, but my cultivar is less elongated than this.
ReplyDeleteEWWWW...wearing cicada skins as jewelry. Although, I guess I shouldn't talk because we used to throw old, dried up cow pies around like frisbees. Kids are weird.
ReplyDeleteWe call it speedwell, too. I love that stuff.
Cicada jewellry?
ReplyDeleteDuring the research phase of my cockroach article, I received two cicada exoskeletons as a gift. Looking at them now, they would look good as a pendant, too.
And the one that hangs out with Archie.
ReplyDeleteWell, and there's me.
But buckeye's a tree, an Aesculus, and of the zillions of veronicas, I don't know of any that are woody. (Stop that.) And "Veronica" is the official genus name anyway, just also used in English. And if that's not muddles enough I can always write more.
When I was a pro, I used to plant some veronica somewhere in clients' gardens by way of signature. Sometimes it was a prostrate form called "Veronica repens" and I'd have to put the back of my hand to my forehead and declaim, "Non, je ne regrette rien!"
Anvilcloud, the Bottlebrush Buckeye is a huge bush - I got kind of close in on the flowering parts so maybe you can't tell from that pic. Anyway all the Veronica/Speedwell I know is pretty small, and like Ron said, non-woody. So they are probably not related, unless there's a bush form that I'm not aware of.
ReplyDeleteHick I won't bring up what we used to do with lightning bugs!
Maktaaq maybe I could sell some to that taxidermy jewelry site, LOL.
Edith, I mean Ron, how could I forget?! Well probably because everybody I know named Veronica actually goes by some other name.
My bottlebrush buckey finished blooming a few weeks ago, and I'm not all that far from where you are. There are at least two varieties that I know of, though, and the serotina, variety blooms a few weeks later than the species, according to Dirr.
ReplyDeleteMy bootlebrush buckeye finished blooming a few weeks ago, and I'm not all that far from where you are. According to Dirr, the variety serotina blooms a few weeks later than the species, so maybe that explains it.
ReplyDeleteGrace
What an excellent couple of comments about the two varieties of bottlebrush and the delayed flower - I even have Dirr and didn't notice that! (And it is definitely bottlebrush!)
ReplyDeleteAnd Karen, I bet I know what you did with lightning bugs.
Dangit I definitely need to get that Dirr book. It's been on my list for a while. :)
ReplyDeleteOh Wayne, yeah it wasn't a very nice thing to do, even to a bug. Poor little bugs.