MinxterBLOOM

This text is clipped from one of Charles Darwin's books. Darwin used Primula species to examine some of his ideas concerning variability and selection across several plant generations.

This reminds us of the visionary work of Gregor Mendel on generations of pea plants.   I am not sure if Mendel worked on pea plants that yielded peas to eat or if he worked on sweet peas.  More on that later.  In the mean time, we will ponder here the lowly yet elevated Primula. See this book, On The Different Forms Of Flowers On Plants Of The Same Species, available on line at the Darwin Literature site. 

Of course, pictures of plants help greatly.  Primrose yellow could be the purest hue in the gilt palette. Here is the citation note for this classic image:  Dr. Otto Wilhelm Thomé Flora von Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz 1885, Gera, Germany. For more information and access, go to www.biolib.de

Note:  this image is a thumbnail. Click to see a moderately larger one. I should mention that I found this image on Wikipedia.  Some generous German is kind to have scanned and uploaded this.

this year.  I usually find two or three exquisitely-wrought jewel cases when raking.  

Consider this bit of Graffiti, a facebook application.  Th animation reveals the artist's path in rendering this caterpillar.

Elizabethan blackwear -- embroidery on light-colored fabric -- is lovely in a spiderweb way.  Look at this sample pattern for a cowslip border. This pattern comes from the Blackworkarchives, a site devoted to Renaissance stitchery.

I love cowslips, a progenitor of primroses.  Last year, at great trouble and cost from an Ebay plant provider, I bought a wan little cowslip.  I do hope that this pale yellow darling emerges this spring.  On Dartmouth street in my town is a plot that used to feature cowslips.  The gardener's grandmother kept them going each spring. Absent the last two years from this corner plot, the cowslips may have faded. Therefore, I so hope that my efforts yield a little something.  

Where the bee sucks, there suck I
In a cowlip's bell I lie
       - THE TEMPEST

 

Coda on Cowslips: Primula veris, but the common name is from "cowpat," from where cowslips would spring up when they were common in the wild. Some say this means cow pie but others think cow pasture. These meadow flowers are also known as Fairy Cups and Mayflowers.  The yellow gives rise to the hue primrose.The fragrance is gentle and understated. 

XKCD comics abut science, maths, and other nerd-geek obsessions.

Randall Munroe is the cartoonist: very droll, very wacky, very pointy-headed in a science way. Most of his cartoons are black and white. But this, echoes of 6th grade scratchboard work, is especially nice for my garden blog. Enjoy.

which is quite wonderful. Here is a 2005 NASA image from the Spitzer Telescope image bank that fanciful observers call flowerlike. NASA says the nebula evokes a camellia blossom. One JPL group sees the flower as Raffelisia-like. Another scientist says the flower is more a crysanthemum-shape. Anyhoooo....the astral body is a nebula. Read more here at NASA's website.

Located about 2,000 light years from us in the constellation Lyra, the Ring Nebula is a favorite night body of backyard astronomers.

Corolla of petals The "ring" is a thick cylinder of glowing gas and dust around a dying star. Previous images of the Ring Nebula taken by visible-light telescopes usually showed just the inner glowing loop of gas around the star. The outer regions of this doomed body are especially prominent in this new image because Spitzer "sees" the infrared light from hydrogen molecules.

Button center The implosion of what was once a star.

Flowers, like stars, are finite creatures. Yet, they do bewitch us for a time.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Harvard-Smithsonian CfA