Wednesday, April 19, 2017

Wildflowers near the Falls

I purposely went to La Union, a province >6 hours by bus north of Manila to see waterfalls. (My previous post earlier about the Simminublan waterfalls). My travel buddy met me at Evelyn's house there, our base while looking for whatever interesting things we might go into. Evelyn is also looking for buddies who just want to go nature tripping, butterflies and photography. The only concrete plan is to go see a waterfalls, wherever that might be. Through the circuitous and undulating steep roads we went, enjoying the incredibly difficult trip. As most say "it is the process not the product", or  "enjoy the means more than the end". So we go, they plunged into the water, Linda even jumped from the cliff. But i stayed dry, looked for butterflies, dragonflies, and wildflowers. I even looked for hoyas at nearby trees, but found none!

So i might as well share with you the wildflowers.

 I am sorry, i do not know most of their names. Maybe i am the only one who love them that much. Above and below looks like a species of Impatiens. Both the stems, leaves and morphology of the flowers and fruits have semblance to Impatiens balsamina, even I. walleriana. When i searched in the web, i just realized there's a lot, as in a LOT,  of species of Impatiens. Unfortunately, i was not able to find one image that looks like this.

 those flowers are lovely with the bottom petals darker than that on top

 This one has very minute flowers in spikes, but the leaves have smudges of red like drops of blood. Of course, i don't know it too. They are actually weeds.

 What a lovely color for flowers! I haven't seen any flower design or structure like this. And they are so small with half of that petal only one-third of a centimeter. If you don't call that small,  i don't know what is. Again, a NOID for me.

 Above is so striking in golden yellow. I am sure it is a legume, flowers looking like peas. I searched for its leaves and they look like that of peanuts. I am sure this is a peanut cousin.

 And while the above is a wildflower i know very much it is lantana. Whether it is L.camara or another species, i don't know. I watched for butterflies nectaring on it, but i didn't see any.

 This one is the favorite of butterflies, as we have them too in our property as weeds, and butterflies love them, the porter weed, Stachetarpheta jamaicensis. I will not forget that long scientific name because i had been teaching my nephew and niece this name since they are 5 yrs old. Now they can recite that long name even if they just woke up! That is the first Sci name they learned, hahaha.

Another NOID (No Identification). This is an umbel and the white flowers are arranged around it, i wonder why there are no white flowers at the center, maybe the maturity starts from that bottom. The golden yellow pollens are very prominent.

I searched for more wildflowers at the vicinity of the waterfalls, but the dragonflies and damselflies got my attention most. So next time i will be posting them too, maybe next post. Thanks for your visit and comments. Your comments are the life of my posts.

12 comments:

  1. You saw a wide variety of wildflowers. Each one is beautiful.

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  2. Nothing better than wild flowers AND waterfalls.... You found a great variety of beautiful flowers. Thanks for sharing... Many of those I have never seen.

    Hugs,
    Betsy

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  3. The yellow one is quite the unusal pod. All so pretty.

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  4. Wonderful all wildflowers! Some I never seen before! it must be lovely to see them in the amazing nature! A very pleasant weekend of April!

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  5. Hello, they are all beautiful flowers. I love the lantana and impatiens. Lovely photos. Happy Monday, enjoy your new week!

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  6. That is quite the trip, but worth it as you say to see all these beautiful wildflowers Andrea...Michelle

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  7. Andrea, it's so good to be back visiting your blog. Even though you couldn't id all the wildflowers, your interesting descriptions and comments were very helpful. I wish someone had taught me the scientific names of things when I was young. Now I find them very hard to remember (but I try).

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  8. I'm like you--I know they are gorgeous but don't know the names. These bright and gorgeous flowers make me smile!

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    1. I just don't know them because they are in an area very different from ours, those weeds are aliens to me.

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  9. It requires dedication to name wildflowers. My group crowdsources, but some are not in any book, or on the websites. A long and wobbly learning curve for me!

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