Monday, September 5, 2011

A narrow view of things


Sometimes, when you look at, or consider, or try to capture, the big picture, you lose sight of it altogether. Sometimes, looking at small things shows you what the big thing really is.

So here is a look at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, up close, in early September. I had a meeting there on Thursday, late in the afternoon, and had a little time to look at things on my way home, afterwards. There is  a lot to see.


Lobelia siphilitica grows beside the pond in the Japanese Garden, and I have also seen it at on the edge of the bog garden at Pier One, in Brooklyn Bridge Park. Safe to say it likes to have wet feet and takes shade. Tall, up to three feet high.


Ha! The medlar. What will happen to them? Right now they are as hard as the nuts they resemble. I am very curious about their flavour and smell, post frost and bletting.


Moonflowers grow on the gazebo in the middle of the Cranford Rose Garden. They open in the last part of the afternoon, pant all night, and fold early the next morning.


Nicotiana sylvestris, cleome, and Verbena bonariensis in the Magnolia Plaza.


Scented.


Nicotiana mutabilis in the Fragrance Garden.


And...what's this? Anyone? Sarah - are you there? In the perennials near the pond at the rose arches...


And another, same place?


Rose hips in the rose garden. It is September, after all.


Looking: it may give you the courage to see.

8 comments:

  1. Your second mystery plant looks like cuphea.

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  2. I like to think you can see the forest and you can see the trees. And the leaves and maybe the tiny spider hanging out on the leaves catching a ray of light. You just have to walk slow when you're at Brooklyn Botanic and take in what you can each time.

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  3. First mystery plant could be isomopsis rubra but hard to say from just the close up. Otherwise I would guess penstemon.

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  4. Frank - :-)

    Carol - thank you! Bat faced cuphea! Jajajaja. Good name...

    Sweetgum T - yes, I think so, too. Like visiting a museum and looking at just a few things...

    Klaus! There you are...I also thought perhaps penstemon, but I think you have it. Isomopsis rubra. Thank you.

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  5. Hi Marie. The plants with pink and white flowers on the same stems look to be (almost certainly) nicotiana mutabilis - the plants in my 'work garden' have very large base leaves then a profusion of two-coloured flowers. Very pretty :)

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  6. Ooops! You knew that!! For some reason am reading the wrong captions this morning - sorry! Confusion borne of exhaustion? I did do a lot of digging yesterday...! :D

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  7. Check out one of my new favourites - cerinthe major purpurescens - a beautiful hardy annual that will grow fine in a pot, bees love it and it politely self seeds so it never really goes away :)

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  8. Hello,

    The plant labeled "and another same place" could be Cuphea llavea

    M

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