Andrea's Plants, Photos and Travels: September 2012

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Nobody is spared of knowing Carl Linnaeus, also known as Carl von Linne or Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778), the Father of Taxonomy. His name is strongly taught to students of all ages since they enter school. Maybe it is a mortal sin for people in the sciences if they don't know his famous name. He is known most prominently for his binomial classification of living species, or what we presently call the Scientific name, or Genus species. Every living thing has a name, an identification, that no one in the universe own but himself. Genus is the first name and species is the 2nd name. Genus is written starting with a capital letter and species written in small letters. Scientific names are formally written in italics or underlined.

Linnaeus monument beautifully erected inside the Linnaeus Garden at the University of Uppsala

It is reported that Linnaeus started school taking up medicine in the University of Lund, but ended up classifying plants in the University of Uppsala. I love this correlation to our situation, as during our one month stay in Sweden, our base is Lund and ended up later in Uppsala at the end of our stay. (For a thorough discussion about the life of Linnaeus click here)

The Linnaeus Museum, also located in the garden is separately run by the Swedish Linnaeus Society

gate to Linnaeus Garden and Museum

The Uppsala University Botanical Garden is the oldest botanical garden in Sweden since 1655. The old garden, now known as the Linnaeus Garden, is restored in 1745 in French Style following Linnaeus and Carl Harleman's design. It is reported to be planted to 1300 species of plants according to Linnaeus' classification. There are actually 3 separate Linnaeus Gardens, the other two are the Modern Botanical Garden and the Linnaeus Hammarby. We unfortunately only visited the Linnaeus Garden.

center pond inside the garden

The garden is oval and the buildings housing the Linnaeus museum surrounds the garden. We did not enter the museum for lack of time. We were briefed by the garden authority who discussed and entertained questions about Linnaeus and the garden.

I guess, this small plants and annuals have to be planted every year to maintain the showcase. We visited at the time when they are mostly newly planted. These can be very beautiful when fully in bloom.

An onion species flowering beautifully during our visit. I just cannot put the Scientific name prominently because i cannot read the label, which i suppose is patterned after Linnaeus' handwriting. Since onions don't flower here, I am not familiar with it, but am also correct, it is an onion species. Now i already know it as chives, Allium schoenoprasum. Thanks to Donna (comment below) for pointing it out as chives.

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Care for more orchids?

I have not been posting here because I am minding my newer blogsite, which I want more people to see than this site. Anyway, there are more people who already know this. But in contrast with that one, which details all our plants in our province property, this older site has more subjects for posting. All the things i encounter in my travels, including animals and whatever are posted in this site. And of course, garden shows, orchid shows or even sunset shows are presented here! Now back to my topic.

Top and bottom are Vanda sanderiana (Euanthe sanderiana), the pride of the Philippines, as it is native here. They are formerly found in our forests and when orchids became famous demanding high price in commerce, they got lost in the natural habitat. They are now found in expensive and big nurseries, or conservatories in temperate countries. These are mostly the parents or grandparents of most Vanda hybrids now in circulation.

I heard from an orchid photographer and editor during the last Philippine Orchid Society show, that in most orchid exhibits, the Phalaenopsis never fail to catch visitors immediate attention! I observed the visitors, and somehow that is really correct. Maybe the forms, colors and flamboyance of Phalaenopsis make the scene. The individual flowers manner of following the line or habit in the spike is also very formally arranged, and no individual flower seem to be out of place. Look at the above white Phals and the succeeding three hybrids, and they never fail to follow that rule.

A design exhibit of predominantly Phalaenopsis flowers

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

New Fotos from the Orchid Show

The Philippine Orchid Society holds exhibits and commercial plants sale twice a year at the Quezon Memorial Circle in Quezon City, Philippines. The first was held in February and the 2nd is ongoing for two weeks until September 10 this year. The first one, i confess is so hot and humid, as it is during the dry season. This time the plants are happier as temperatures are not that high, sunlight is not so intense and periodic drizzles are common. It is also not very disappointing for visitors because the flowers stay longer than during the dry season. However, intense rainfall will probably pressure the flowers and will also be unfavorable. It is raining intensely now, I have to visit the exhibit again tomorrow to check how the flowers fared.

I was in the show for both Saturday and Sunday, and despite the drizzles my friends and I were happy to take photos. It was a good testing environment for my newly acquired macro lens. It made me so exciting and even forgot to take my lunch on time. I had the wider angle lens with me, but wasn't able to use it. Goodbye for now from the individual exhibit photos, anyway they were fully shown last February. I hope you will also be happier with my results now, as I did.

The Waling-Waling, Euanthe sanderiana aka Vanda sanderiana. This is the orchid pride of the Philippines, endemic here, and has been one of the parents or grandparents of most Vanda hybrids today.