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December 21, 2012

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Life at Big Garden, Postaweek

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Delicate (2nd Submission)

Late Fall/early Winter is one of Indian River County’s best growing seasons. While doing my garden walkabout today, I noticed some very delicate blossoms on my Mystery Plant:

Mystery plant, Ranchero, 12/21/12

Although it’s shot up another foot and grown quite bushy (with lots of buds! 🙂 ), I’m still no closer to naming it.  The flowers hint at centaurea but the leaves are all wrong. 😎 If anything comes to mind, please let me know! (Clicking on the picture will enlarge it for a better look.)

This next delicate beauty is popping up all over the place: containers, flower beds, even the backyard grass…I’ve counted 17 so far;  strange, since last winter I saw only one and not ’til the holidays were long passed.

Soldier Orchid, Vero Beach, 12/21/12Soldier Orchid, Vero Beach, 12/21/12

Soldier’s Orchid (aka Zeuxine Strateumatica) originated in Southeast Asia.  In 1936, the species spread through Florida via seedbags of centipede grass imported from China. Because of their spontaneous, almost weed-like appearance in open fields (or yards like mine) scientists assume this delicate species is not dependent on insect pollinators. Most likely they self fertilize/create seeds internally by an apomictic reproduction process….and somehow 3 of those seeds jumped into this Caladium pot! 🙂

Zeuxine strateumatica growing in the Caladium pot, 12/21/12

Nature sure is surprising!

And with that, I leave you to the walking, smiley, present guys:

sxmas_present_100-100sxmas_present_100-100sxmas_present_100-100

….while you’re waiting for Santa, check out other interpretations of delicate in the Zemanta links below!

Merry Christmas!!!

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9 thoughts on “Weekly Photo Challenge: Delicate (2nd Submission)”

  6. Pingback: Mystery Solved and Merry Christmas, of course! :) :) | small house/BIG GARDEN

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