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| Bougainvillea Blossoms |
As I was out on my walk this morning and mulling over the possibility of heading out to the Eastern Sierra for fall color next week, I took a moment to appreciate the color closer to home. The bougainvillea was climbing over a neighbor's fence, so I took some home to get a closer look at it.
The pink bracts enclose three flowers; the photo above shows them in different stages of opening. I was interested to learn that bougainvillea is in the four o'clock family, Nyctaginaceae, and that its sap can cause a poison-oak-like skin rash. The petals of our own desert four o'clock (Mirabilis multiflora) sport a similarly showy color.
Bougainvillea is a native of South America and was discovered (by Europeans, that is) during a circumnavigation of the Earth undertaken by the French Admiral Louis Antoine de Bougainville in 1766. One of the botanists on the trip was Jeanne Baret, who disguised herself as a man in order to join the voyage, and became the first woman to circumnavigate the planet.
Other fall color I noticed on my walk included princess flower (Pleroma urvilleanum). According to Google definitions, pleroma is a Gnostic term for "the spiritual universe as the abode of God and of the totality of the divine powers and emanations." Someone must have really liked this flower! One of my favorite things about this plant, which is among the first horticultural plants I learned when I moved to Santa Barbara in the early '80s, is the fallen petals that cover the ground below them.
Finally, since I'm already stretching the idea of "fall color," I'm posting more video clips of the cherry-headed parrots going after the acorns on my neighbor's coast live oak. The footage was shot through a double-paned window with the FZ80, and I substituted the obnoxious sounds the camera made with some royalty-free background music.
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| Princess Flower on Noriega Street |
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| Princess Flower Detritus |
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