Mystery Plant: Blue flowers up at Tiavi

Mystery Plant 4

Unkown flower of plant found growing at Tiavi

On the day I visited the Vailima Botanical Garden I drove further up to Tiavi as I wanted to take some photos of the Hedychiums that grows there to add to a post that covers just that. But then in the vicinity of the Hedychiums I saw this plant growing in the tall grass that lined one side of the road and had to stop to take some photos. As I did not want to get all itchy from the grass I resorted to the zoom to take some close ups although I am debating going back to take some better photos.

If you are driving on the Cross Island Road you can find this shrub with its delightfully elegant flowers on the right hand side just before you get to the steep hill after which you will find the viewing station for the Papapapaitai Falls.

View of Cross Island Road at Tiavi leading towards Papapapaitai Fall

Above is close to where I turned off the Cross Island Road to photograph the shrub with lavender flowers. Below is the view on the left hand side where I parked on the verge. There is enough space to park so you can pretty much get the car off the road.

Above is the right hand side view across from where I parked the car. Just to the right of the two beautiful ferns which are the actual object of the photo, you can see some of the lavender flowers of the mystery shrub.

Driving a bit further down the road and then (below) just as you start going down the steep section.

Flora and Fauna - Plants and Critters Blog by Vincent Albert Vermeulen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at http://plantsandcritters.blogspot.be/.
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My other blogs

· Flora and Fauna - Plants and Critters (on plants, animals as well as gardening, conservation and environmental matters): http://plantsandcritters.blogspot.com/

· The Blood of Souls (language, translation and etymology) : http://thebloodofsouls.blogspot.com/

· Whiskers on Kittens (Life with Kittens and Cats in general) : http://whiskersonkittens-vincent.blogspot.com/

Random photos of Flowers, Bees, Kittens and Birds

Random photos of Flowers, Kittens and Birds

 Since I just published a long technical post here is some eye candy for those in need of some just for the sake of it photos of beautiful flowers, interesting insects, crazy kittens and a friendly bird. Enjoy

I was taking some photos of Mimosa pudica (Senstive plant) and Mimosa invisa (Giant senstive plant) at Malifa for a post I have been working on. I already have photos but needed some macros for illustration purposes.

As usual while taking the photos I started taking photos of other interesting plants and critters that happened to be there. In this case I was actually taking some photos of this plant because I wanted to identify it when I saw this bee busily ignoring my intrusion into her activities.

I have no idea what the plant is although I am sure everyone will say it is a weed ignoring the fact that a weed is simply a plant growing where a human does not want it to grow. In this case it was growing along the riverbank out of everyones way.

 It has interesting miniscule flowers and berries that were black-purple when ripe and green when unripe.

Here is another "Mystery Plant" I have growing at Alafua. I got it when I bought some plants a few months ago and it was a stray that was growing together with the plant I bought. It had stunningly pure white flowers and miniscule seeds that I have been trying unsuccessfully (so far) to germinate.

I have been trying to get a photo of the Hedychium gardnerianum (Kalihi Ginger) on the boundry behind the bedrooms at the house at Alafua in full bloom. I planted these in 2011 and they have bloomed en mass several times but either I have no batteries or it is raining or as was in this case the sun was in the wrong place and the yellows are a bit washed out in the panoramic shots.

Here is a close up and I could smell them from a few feet away. If you really want a whiff of these go up to Tiavi in the late evening. There are stands of them along the road that you can smell as you drive past. There is also a swathe of  Hedychium coronrarium White Hedychium around Tanumalala on the Cross Island Road to Lefaga. It appears that cool air has some effect on the potency of the scent because I have noticed that they smell much stronger during the night, evenings or early moring or during the day only up high in the mountains where it is cool.
In fact the most stunning visual and olfactory experience I had with Hedychiums was up at the place where you go to view Waimea Canyon on Kawaii. That was absolutely sublime.

I cannot recall what this is called but it is the flower of a plant that grows on trees. All I can say for sure is that it is belongs to the family Araceae is

It is growing on the Indian Mulberry that fell over during Cyclone Evan but has yet to be chopped up and removed mainly because it is still alive, flowering and bearing fruit which several species of birds visit regularly.

Pebble "accidentaly" getting in the photo AGAIN

Invariably when I am in the garden taking pictures of plants, birds and other critters ... this guy turns up looking for camera opportunities. His two brothers (Stoney and Rocky)  sometimes turn up also and wander around pretending not to follow me, but he does it the most. Don't believe anything he says about "I just happened to be climing the tree or walking there and did not realise ..." I am sure he does it deliberately. Just as he deliberately moves when you actualy do want to take a picture.

You only have to look into those crazy green eyes to realise the depths of his deviousness.

This Wattled Honeyeater (Foulehaio carunculatus) is one of two that have claimed the area around the house as their territory. This includes the huge mango tree, all the Indian Mulberries and the Pink Orchid tree. I occassionally assist them in their turf wars with the Red Vented Bulbuls.

They have become so used to me doing stuff in the garden and especially under the mango tree that they will actually fly close by and perch on branches only a few feet away from me. They also let me approach them much more than before which means that now I can take much better pictures of them as it is much easier to take decent photos from 3-4 feet away than trying to zoom in from 15-20 feet away.
They still flit about from flower to flower and branch to branch but they tend to stay for a decent interval chirpping away happily (or bossily) looking me over and doing their thing.


Flora and Fauna - Plants and Critters Blog by Vincent Albert Vermeulen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Based on a work at http://plantsandcritters.blogspot.be/.

Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://plantsandcritters.blogspot.be/.

Ground cover and recalcitrant canines

Okay it has been a while. First I moved in before work on the house at Alafua was completed. Although the contractor and his men have been gone a while now they have not quite completed all what they were supposed to do so the place is not exactly all ready. The main problem is the wiring as well as the lights and electrical outlets of the kitchen, bathroom and toilets have yet to be installed among a few other things.

However, that is all out of my control so I have been busy with the "landscaping" which at the moment means planting as many of the plants that need to be transplanted into the ground (rather than other pots or poly bags). It also means planting a hedge or rather several hedges and plant barriers between the various neighbours, the road front and the access road that runs down the back of the property to the creek.

I started by transplanting Flame violets (Episcia) as ground cover around the side where the bedrooms are and along the front of the house that looks out down the street. I have two varieties one with green leaves and bright red flowers
and another with burgundy leaves and pink flowers.

I have had to put cocoa wire over them to keep the four resident dogs (the owner has not come to take them yet) from digging the plants up. I had to rake and remove a whole lot of stones, bones and other rubbish from the area. The dogs were used to digging the soil up and making themselves nice soft beds there as well as all around the house. So far the cocoa wire has kept them off the plants and most have not only recovered but are flowering and look on their way to establishing a nice ground cover.

Unfortunately for some reason the burgundy leaved Flame violets do not seem to be doing too well. Admittedly I did not have that many of them to start off with and very few of those were in top condition. I suspect that the fact that the area these are in has a lot more sun may be a factor.

I also took some Heliconia and Hedychium from Malifa to plant at Alafua.

I planted them both on the side of the bedrooms along the fence with the Helliconia along the fence and the Hedyciums further in. The Heliconia were Heliconia caribea which are the giant ones. One of the varieties I am certain is a cream and the other I am not so sure but is alot more showy than the cream. Once they grow into a decent sized stand they will provide a tall leafy  screen and produce nice flowers as well.

For the Hedychium I have three varieties so far and decided to plant the Yellow Hedychium (Hedychium flavenscens) in this location because they have very big flower heads and a strong scent. The other two varieties seem to be Hedychium coronarium since it is white and the other is sort or salmon coloured but I have not been able to identify it yet. I think it is Hedychium augustiflolium "Peach" I will also plant these two at Alafua although I am not sure when or where. I may try planting some along the creek bank which has been greatly eroded over the last 20 years since I used to go swiming and exploring there.


Flora and Fauna - Plants and Critters Blog by Vincent Albert Vermeulen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at http://plantsandcritters.blogspot.be/.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://plantsandcritters.blogspot.be/.

Glorious pink Zephyranthes among other flora

When I went to the back porch to let the cat Felonious Feline yesterday morning I was quite delighted by an unexpected and astonishing view of a whole slew of pink rain lilies Zephyranthes in bloom. Scratchit was of course oblivious to this and made a beeline for her bowl while I went out to admire them. Two of the pots have about thirty flowers in each (yes I counted them). Three other pots have one to four and one of the little poly bags has a couple.

I went to get the camera but the battery was low because in spite of the label "heavy duty" these ones did not last long. Apparently you need to buy special batteries made for use in digital cameras. I don't get it. Heavy Duty should mean heavy duty not heavy duty except if you use it in your digital camera.
Naturally I was so excited and anxious to take some photos that I messed up the pictures and managed to take four blurry shots before the battery died.


I forgot to buy batteries and today they are looking as if the flowers will not last much longer. I suppose I should have held of pollinating them but all I could think of was how this many flowers could translate into tons of seed heads and a gazillion itty bitty black seeds that would grown into more Zephyranthes and produce even more dazzling floral displays.

I used a most unsophisticated method possible which consisted of bending the long stems and making the flowers kiss each other. In the meantime here are some photos I took not too long ago of other plants.

 

This is a Blue Iris which was from a huge clump that I divided and transplanted only a few months ago. Amazingly they have already started flowering. These flowers look a bit raggedly because they are all wet from the rain. Also to catch them at their best you need to get them in the morning soon after they have opened up. Towards the afternoon they start closing up and do not look as spectacular.

Here you can see some of the blue iris plants. As you can see they are quite small still and yet amazingly they are already flowering. They belong to the Iris family ( Iridaceae). I think these ones belong to the Neomarica genus but I am not sure. I have a similar plant with smaller yellow flowers which are definately Neomarica. Neomarica are also known as Walking Irises or Apostle Plants. this is becasue the flower stalk has numerous flowers (supposedly twelve hence the name) which eventually become little plantlets. As these grow the stalk dips until the plantlets are able to take root which gives rise to the "walking" bit. Here you can see one where the little plantlets are growing where the flowers were.
Unfortunately the big blue ones I have do not do this. However, there are pictures of other Neomarica species that look similar and are also non walking. the closest that I think resembles this variety is the Brazilian Iris (Neomarica gracilis or caerulea). This site has a picture. They look very similar even the three flowers on one stem but the stems of these ones have never ever bent down and taken root.

Here is one of my favourites a Hedychium which is also known as butterfly ginger. I have four varieties; white, salmon and a creamy yellow and a buttery yellow. The one on top is the creamy yellow one. Hedycium are native to the foothills of the Himalayas and have an intense and divine fragrance. Anyone who has gone over the Vailima cross island road in the evening or at night will have smelt them as they get over the top and descend toward Lotofaga as there is a huge patch growing along the road in one of the cattle farms there.

I also remember an even more intense encounter with these on Kauaii up at Waimea Canyon. It seems that the scent is stronger in cool weather because when I was up at the Waimea Canyon it was in the middle of the day and it was very cool. Up at Afiamalu it only gets cool at night unless it is a rainy or overcast day. The ones I have growing at Malifa only smell strongly in the evening. During the day you have to practically stick your nose into the flower to smell it.

This one is the buttery yellow Hedycium. I think it is Hedychium flavescens. I will be planting a whole lot of Hedychium at Alafua along the fence which runs along the side of the house where the bedrooms are. I have not decided if I will plant just one variety or all four in blocks. I will be planting them in other locations too so it is more a matter of aesthetics than of planting one variety or another. The buttery yellow one seems to be hardier and have bigger flower heads so I might put those in by the bedrooms

At Malifa I planted some Hedycium at the base of some of the Avocado (Persea americana) and Moso’oi a.k.a. Ylang-ylang (Cananga odorata) saplings to protect the trees from careless idiots with whipper snippers who kept going to close and damaging the young saplings in one case stripping the bark of and practically ring barking one of the saplings. I also planted some teuila aka Red Ginger (Alpinia purpurata) around another avocado sappling

The Hedychium Genus belongs to the Zingiberaceae Family which is part of the Zingiberales Order.  Strangely most of the plants that I have belong to the Order Zingiberales and most of these to the Zingiberaceae Family. These include the Rattle plants (The Marantaceae Family) and the Helliconias (family Heliconiaceae), Torch Gingers (Etlingera), Beehive Gingers (Zingiber spectabile), Tumeric (Curcuma), Ginger (Alpinia) and Ginger (Zingiber officinale) from the Zingiberaceae Family.

There are so many stunning species available in the Zingiberales Order and the Zingiberaceae Family in particular. Whenever I go anywhere I notice what plants are there. Its amazing how often people are oblivious to what they have growing in their gardens or on their property and worse how often precious and not easily obtainable species are chopped down, pulled out and thrown away or burnt all in the guise of "cleaning up".
Every now and then I have been somewhere and been able to anticipate the destrution and managed to rescue a few plants.
Actually I saw some exquisite little plants growing down by the river at Alafua which I fear are in danger. I am not sure but they could be May flowers they have flower clusters with tiny little white bell shaped flowers. I need to ensure that they are not decimated by the vegetable garden planters there at the moment clearing land.

I transplanted some Tumeric in the front yard at Malifa and they were growing fine but they all withered and died down. I am hoping that the rhizome is still viable and will resprout as it did in the past when I had them in big poly bags until Ninja Cat started using it as her litter box. I am still not sure if it is the variety that is used to produce tumeric but the rhizome certainly smells like that and stains your fingers yellow if you crush it.

The Ginger that I have growing in a few locations is the edible variety. I am only certain of this because they grew from rhizomes I bought from the market and stores specifically so I could grow some.