Pollen Relay. Rosa pulverulenta, Narzana Rose, and Honeybees, Apis mellifera, National Botanic Garden of Belgium, Meise, Belgium
Visiting Brussels, of course I had to go to the National Botanic Garden of Belgium just north of the capital at Meise. A truly marvellous place and a fine Sunny Day. Enormous glass houses, a castle, a large bee-stall; but the Oudoors with its two pretty lakes drew me more today as it did also these Honeybees, Apis mellifera, as if flying 'relay' for Pollen. Just look at the filled Pollen Baskets, corbicula, of the Bee about to set off, and her Sister's not yet quite full one.
They're on the flower of a Rose shrub sign-posted as Rosa pulverulenta. That Rose was first scientifically described in 1808 by Friedrich August Marschall von Bieberstein (1768-1826), a German naturalist, botanist, explorer and sometime diplomat in the service of the Russian Empire. He'd travelled and explored the Caucasian Regions of ever-expanding Russia. Near Kislovodsk, Stavropol Krai, in the Circassian Mountains from which plunges the 'acidic' Narzana River (supplying spa-waters to Kislovodsk), he found this Rose. In his description he doesn't mention the pine smell of its foliage upon which later descriptors remark. Indeed, try as I might I could discern nothing of the sort myself this morning. I also attempted to find the 'powderiness' on stems or leaves - 'pulverulenta' - which is said to protect plants such as these from the UV light of high altitudes. But saw none; perhaps the word is descriptive rather of the powdery red color of the Rose.
Regardless my failures, you might imagine I spent some happy time with this Pretty Rose and its other Two Visitors...
Pollen Relay. Rosa pulverulenta, Narzana Rose, and Honeybees, Apis mellifera, National Botanic Garden of Belgium, Meise, Belgium
Visiting Brussels, of course I had to go to the National Botanic Garden of Belgium just north of the capital at Meise. A truly marvellous place and a fine Sunny Day. Enormous glass houses, a castle, a large bee-stall; but the Oudoors with its two pretty lakes drew me more today as it did also these Honeybees, Apis mellifera, as if flying 'relay' for Pollen. Just look at the filled Pollen Baskets, corbicula, of the Bee about to set off, and her Sister's not yet quite full one.
They're on the flower of a Rose shrub sign-posted as Rosa pulverulenta. That Rose was first scientifically described in 1808 by Friedrich August Marschall von Bieberstein (1768-1826), a German naturalist, botanist, explorer and sometime diplomat in the service of the Russian Empire. He'd travelled and explored the Caucasian Regions of ever-expanding Russia. Near Kislovodsk, Stavropol Krai, in the Circassian Mountains from which plunges the 'acidic' Narzana River (supplying spa-waters to Kislovodsk), he found this Rose. In his description he doesn't mention the pine smell of its foliage upon which later descriptors remark. Indeed, try as I might I could discern nothing of the sort myself this morning. I also attempted to find the 'powderiness' on stems or leaves - 'pulverulenta' - which is said to protect plants such as these from the UV light of high altitudes. But saw none; perhaps the word is descriptive rather of the powdery red color of the Rose.
Regardless my failures, you might imagine I spent some happy time with this Pretty Rose and its other Two Visitors...