Vines

“Sweet Fairchild of Mine”

ESPatch Apr 1, 2012 13 comments

I recently visited the infamous Fairchild tropical botanical garden in Coral Gables, Florida, adorning completely inappropriate flip flops and shockingly long toenails.

I only became aware of my rather hostile toenail situation when I had a little time to kill before hopping onto the tour cart that was to ferry myself and some other visitors around the garden’s grounds. I am not an unhygienic person but cutting my toenails requires some thoughtful planning, soaking, a few makeshift medieval implements and some pairs of industrial goggles for everybody’s safety in the local vicinity. It was an ordeal that apparently, of late, I had regretfully neglected.

In an attempt to hide my enhanced talons I dashed (as best as I could) to the very end row of the last carriage and immediately stretched my legs out, subtly hiding my Nosferatoes underneath the seats in front of me.

I even offered up a fake stretch just to render more credence to my lounging actions…we were almost off, but not before a spot of history:

Fairchild was founded in 1936 and gets its name from one of the most famous plant explorers in history, David Fairchild (1869-1954). David was an American writer, botanist and plant explorer who introduced more than 20,000 exotic plants and varieties of established crops into the United States. Dr. Fairchild retired to Miami in 1935 and three years later, the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden opened its 83 acres to the public for the first time.

The garden featured colorful sculptures by artist Will Ryman, this installation is called ICON, and it is constructed from fiberglass, stainless steel and colored with marine paint. His work was scattered all around the gardens.

Just before the tour cart set off, I took full advantage of a short delay as some tourists shuffled around playing musical chairs. I totally related to their psychological plight after having countless ordeals myself with my family when faced with the formidable and apparently daunting phenomena of the ubiquitous empty restaurant table.

I jumped off the train and quickly captured this…

…a massive Rainbow Eucalyptus tree,

Eucalyptus deglupta

Most Eucalyptus trees are native to Australia, this one originates from Papua New Guinea and the colors were really something.

The bark peels off layer by layer, the olive surface inside the tree gradually turns blue then purple then and finally brick red as it is exposed to air,

giving it a very painted Edvard Munch quality. It reminded me of the winter skies on those paint-by-number kits I used to do when I was young. (Snort)

Edvard Munch, The Scream, 1893

After the guided tour, I went off on a flip-flop-footed adventure of my own. In no time I was passing all manner of new and interesting forms.

Like the female cones of this Encephalaetos Ferox cycad from South Africa,

here is another one dropping its large crimson colored glossy seeds.

The large colorful blooms on this Brownea or handkerchief tree (so called because the drooping tassels of its young leaves resemble limp handkerchiefs). Brownea trees grow well in gardens all over southern Florida and are hummingbird magnets, naturally.

The question is…can it really beat frost-bitten hoja santa in the soiled handkerchief looking department?

…surely (s)not (ahem)!

I passed through large rain forests,

with secluded water groves.

The rainforest area housed lots of epiphyte orchids and exotic coral-like blooms and fruit,

from the likes of this Cannonball Tree.

At night the flowers become particularly pungent to attract swift flying pollinators.

When the tree’s cannonballs clash in the wind they sound like artillery fire.

“Oh come on Sid”!

When the fruit falls (hopefully well away from anyone’s noggin…they do kill) and cracks open, it emits a rather foul stench. Passing animals whiff the aroma, eat the fruit and pass the seeds through their digestive system, you know how that all goes.

Massive palm fronds…and tiny anoles were also abundant.

Fairchild garden is a must-stop,

especially if you like cycads and palms, (I am now really coveting the gunmetal Bismark Palm).

Bismarckia nobilis

The genus is named for the first chancellor of the German Empire, Otto von Bismarck, and not for the color of the warship as I had assumed.

When I saw the palm paired with a mass-planting of purple heart around its base, I was immediately sold. Now why did I not take that picture?

More exotics…

this bat flower,

Tacca chantrieri

was one of the more flamboyant, as was this incredible glass sculpture by Dale Chihuly.

End of the Day Tower, 2005

Now THAT is a bottle-tree!

I will leave you with this life-sized sculpture of Majory Stoneman Douglas, one of America’s greatest conservationists. The existence of the Everglades National Park is largely due to her efforts.

Douglas lived until age 108, working until nearly the end of her life for Everglades restoration.

I walked around Fairchild for about four hours straight and covered numerous miles. I witnessed an alligator lounging at the side of one of the remote walkways and had a large, and I do mean large, lizard scare me into a ridiculous Ministry-of-Silly-Walks stumble out of the Madagascar garden and into the full sight of the people on the next tour cart.

Some of them waved at me nervously as they passed, my disheveled appearance affording the look of a potential tourist-cart highwayman, I am sure. My flip-flopped feet hurt, I was dripping with sweat, but at least my Nosferatoe nails had significantly diminished in size, I assume to abrasion…it was time to go home.

Stay Tuned for:

“I Sand Corrected”

All material © 2012 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by late (and extremely unpleasant)
14th century planet Earth techniques.

“A Handful of Sand Dollars”

ESPatch Mar 11, 2012 9 comments

I have recently been traveling back and forth to Florida on business,

soaking up the sights,

and making new friends.

I recently took some time to tour around a rather remarkable place called Bonnet House, slap bang in the middle of the coastal hi-rise hotels of Ft Lauderdale by-the-sea.

Construction on Bonnet house (named for the bonnet lily,

Nymphaea odorata

that grows here) began in 1920 and continued for 20 years. Alligators that resided in the ponds on the property would purportedly surface with lilies on the top of their heads that resembled, you guessed it, bonnets.

The land was given to Frederic Clay Bartlett, an American artist and his wife Helen by her father, Hugh Taylor Birch as a wedding gift. When work began on the house this part of the Florida coastline was a natural wilderness.

Frederic and Helen traveled extensively and were avid art collectors. Helen passed away in 1925 of cancer before the construction ended. Six years after Helen’s death in 1925 Frederic married Evelyn Fortune Lilly. Frederic passed away in 1953 but Evelyn continued to winter at Bonnet house and in 1983 she deeded the house to the Florida Trust for Preservation.

It is the last protected and undeveloped area of the Florida coastline for miles.

The grounds of the property contain some amazing Ficus ‘banyan’ trees. This is actually a single tree with secondary trunks arising from its branches, these futuristic trunks are known as aerial roots, and they are huge.

Aerial roots allow these trees to survive on inhospitable terrain such as rocks and even other trees.

Many types of figs start their lives on other trees, these are called strangler or epiphytic figs and can be a problem in tropical and humid areas. Named after the Asian Indian traders who used the trees as shade to conduct their business, banyan refers to the style of these trees which is not specific to Ficus, other banyan trees include Schefflera, Pandanus and mangrove. I am not sure what the climbing variegated ginger-looking plant is in the above shot but it had spread to a ridiculous height in the upper canopy.

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571 – 1610)

Talking of climbing, this climbing cactus on the property was clawing and snaking its way up the trunk of this unfortunate palm tree.

Bonnet House.

Most of the house has been hand painted by Frederic, unfortunately pictures were not allowed on the inside of the house.

Impressive agaves line the pathways.

I will finish this Florida segment with a hop to the beach, where else?

This sea-weedy coastline is Biscayne National Park just south of Miami. The snorkeling chap was actually metal detecting underwater. I had a brief conversation with him as he exited the water and found out that he finds jewelry that drops from sea-shrunken digits, some of it quite nice jewelry.

His best find to date was a Cartier ring.

Metal detecting, underwater?

I know someone who is already extremely interested in this activity…

She is, as I type, figuring out what chores command the highest allowance value to cover the purchase cost of a waterproof metal detector.

Paddling around in the warm waters I reached blindly under the waves and pulled out what I thought was just a rock.

to my surprise it turned out to be a live sand dollar, (the dead bleached ones are thought to be the standard currency of mermaids that have washed-up from the deep ocean).

John William Waterhouse: A Mermaid – 1901

Sand dollars are from the class of marine animals known as Echinoids, spiny skinned creatures. Their relations include the sea lily, the sea cucumber, the star fish and the sea urchin. When alive,

Echinarachnius parma

is outfitted in a maroon-colored suit of moveable spines that encompass the entire shell. Like its close relative the sea urchin, the sand dollar has five sets of pores arranged in a petal pattern, the creatures mouth opening is located in the center of the star on the underside of the animal.

Due to the lack of edible parts and its relatively hard skeleton, sand dollars have very few predators. According to the “Legend of the Sand Dollar,” the Sand Dollar (or Holy Ghost Shell) symbolizes the birth, crucifixion, and resurrection of Christ. The flower on the side of the Sand Dollar resembles an Easter lily, with a five-pointed Star of Bethlehem as its center. On the underside of the shell is the outline of a Christmas poinsettia. The five narrow openings, or “lunules,” represent the five crucifixion wounds inflicted by Roman soldiers. When a sand dollar is broken open, there are five tiny white objects (the jaw apparatus) which resemble white doves in flight. These birds are called the Doves of Peace and Good Will.

Here is one of the jaws/doves (lower right)…amazing.

Back in the Patch:

Rain, rain and some more rain has given everything a really good soaking.

A large asparagus looking flower-spike is now shooting north above my soft leaf yucca, this is a first for this plant.

The flames of this Fire cracker have been dowsed by the rain.

I have never had so many poppies and blue bonnets growing in the Hell-strip.

This sotol is reaching new heights, and as for my Artemesia ‘Powis Castle’?

well they have formed large silvery clouds all over these mounded areas of the Patch.

More silvers courtesy of this ever-spreading Sedum reflexum ‘Blue Spruce’.

Peas were harvested this week,

to the delight of Kumo who took great delight in hoovering them up as they bounced out of pods during the shelling process.

Finally:

We have now officially ascended the nerdom staircase to new snorting heights…

We have degenerated from rock tumbling, metal detecting and aircraft modelling kits (if this is possible) only to arrive at the riveting and rather startling juncture of stamp collecting and those irritating fiddly stamp hinges…Snort.

Is there a better activity to occupy us until SXSW and spring break is over?

I think not…

Now, can you pass me a stamp hinge and where is the Republic of where-ever?

Stay Tuned for:

“Sweet Fairchild of Mine”

All material © 2012 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by late (and extremely unpleasant)
14th century planet Earth techniques.