FLORIDA - PLANTS AND WILDLIFE - MARCH 2008

[Maggi Young]

Welcome home, Bookers! A thread which I know i will enjoy perusing at leisure, some time, but for now----it just so happens that I have been asked to identify a house plant.....it is familiar because it is one which is seen quite a lot in the UK- it has big leathery leaves and it is the very plant which is the first flower pic that Cliff shows! = "At Selby 1"  Help, what IS the blasted thing called? It's driving me crazy!

[Carlo]

I believe it's Medinilla magnifica...

[Maggi Young]

Carlo, I knew you would know it!  Many thanks.... you were just in time.... not much hair left for me to pull out!!

[Carlo]

Just in time then...I'd hate for you to have to wear that hood forever!

I've got a plant of it here...and have just picked up its tiny little cousin Medinilla sedifolia.

[Maggi Young]

tiny little cousin Medinilla sedifolia

Didn't know that one, so had a google! Given that this species is from Madagascar and looks completely different to the larger Medinillas, I doubt that I would ever have twigged they were the same family, never mind genus!  Truly, the depth of my ignorance is astounding....move over Atlantic Trench, you've got nothing on me

[Carlo]

Ignorance? Certainly not. This is just the kind of thing that keeps us coming back for more...

[Ezeiza]

Hello:

What great images! Many thanks for sharing them.

However, what will make Mary Selby immortal till the end of time is Phragmipedium kovachii. Search in the web using these two magic words, there is lot of info available.

That was a turning point in conservation and plundering history.


Best
Alberto

[Lvandelft]

Magnificient pictures (as usual).
Thanks for sharing your trip with us, Cliff.

[ranunculus]

Many thanks Luit and Alberto (you certainly have intrigued me sir, I will investigate in the morning)...

...And now for something a little different.....

Royal terns seemed fairly common on the island beaches of western Florida and I shall post a collection of images of these and other lovely birds.....many more to follow.....be warned!

[ranunculus]

Some more amusing but beautiful brown pelicans....

[ranunculus]

Very quiet viewing figures overnight!  Everyone asleep or what?

Few more images to greet the snorers...

[ranunculus]

....And, before some of you mention it, the shifting earth effect WAS deliberate in the 'White sands' image....but please don't ask me why!

[ranunculus]

My thanks once again to Alberto for drawing my attention to the history of Phragmipedium kovachii and the link to the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens (but not, of course, to the dear lady herself who passed away on 9th June 1971).....What a story!

For a brief introduction to this amazing tale please visit:- http://www.slipperorchids.info/phragdatasheets/kovachii/index.html

[Paddy Tobin]

Cliff,

It seems Friday nights and Saturday mornings are quiet on the forum. People will wake up and catch up soon enough. As for me, well, I have my job as a roadie for a teenage rock star and had to transport him to the recording studio early this morning, so that's what got me up early.

I am amazed at the Royal Terns allowing people to get so close. Is it the same with the pelicans, cormorants and the egrets?

In the photograph above 'White Sands' is that an owl on a perch near the sign about the manitees?

And I won't ask you about the 'White Sands' photographs. We all know what makes the earth move.

Many thanks for the photographs, Lovely.

Paddy

[ranunculus]

Good evening Paddy,
You obviously missed the title of the 'owl' picture?  The clue was contained within. 
Thanks for the kind comments...as you will see from many of the images still to be posted, the birds of Florida are incredibly trusting .... all except the ospreys, of which more later.
Kind regards from an amazingly wet East Lancashire.

A further posting this evening....after a warm soak.