Thursday, September 23, 2010

A gift of spring

Yesterday was the spring equinox in the Southern Hemisphere. On my walk in the Silvermine section of the Table Mountain National Park I came across this beautiful Table Mountain Watsonia presenting its pollen to passing birds and bees all wrapped up with a perfect bow on top.
Spring-flowering watsonias in three different colours. These are the Table Mountain Watsonia (Watsonia tabularis) and pink and white colour forms of the Purple Watsonia or Suurkanol (Watsonia borbonica subsp. ardernei).

7 comments:

  1. Oops, spring equinox kinda bypassed me this year. But Spring has been stunning so far. Now if only we can get some rain to break this drought.

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  2. Lovely flowers, especially the closeup of the watsonia is very cheerful.

    A propos equinox: 23 Sep 2010, 03:09 GMT (today). You can enjoy it twice, it's free!

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  3. Beautiful offering to the birds and the bees, Caroline. Thank you for sharing South Spring with me - I miss it this year. Blessings and hugs Jo, Khartoum

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  4. Hi, thanks so much for these tips! My blogs usually do bring readers and responses. One thing I do is engage with the readers. Answer questions in responses and make clarifications where needed. I think they appreciate that I take the time to talk to them.

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  5. Wow, what a stunning colour. The darker petal edges really accentuate it. (I clicked on the image in the hope of enlarging it for more detail.)

    As an aside, Watsonia is considered a weed in Australia.

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  6. Yes - there is even a gladiolus that is extinct in the wild here, but a weed in Western Australia! This orangey watonia is endemic to the Cape Peninsula, but I think the borbonica ones are weeds in Australia.

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