View allAll Photos Tagged Botany
(Updated on March 11, 2025)
While I'm not sure where I was on Puerto Blanco Drive when I took this shot, I know I was well past the point at the Pinkley Peak picnic area where the road becomes a stony, one-way, high-clearance-only track. My best guess is that I was just east of the northern end of the Puerto Blanco Mountains.
Isn't it a shame that deserts are such bare, bleak, and lifeless places? I mean, isn't that what those Dune movies show? Why would a botanist ever one to visit one?
Of course, this photo illustrates that such arid environments—the Sonoran Desert chief among them—often feature amazingly diverse, drought-adapted plant populations.
Here the largest and most eye-catching species are the tubular, pale-green Organ Pipe Cactus (Stenocereus thurberi) and the darker, slender-branched Ocotillo (Fouquieria splendens). The latter is splendid indeed when it produces brilliant red flowers at its stem tips after a good rain.
In addition, there are quite a number of other, lower xerophytic (aridity-tolerant) plant varieties growing up through this hillside's desert pavement.
To see the other photos and descriptions in this set, visit my my Integrative Natural History of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument album.
These striking, pumpkin-colored Jack-o'-Lantern Mushrooms (Omphalotus olearius) had emerged from roots of a huge but toppled windfall tree in woodland near the park's Panther Swamp.
Their species, quite poisonous, is famous for the eerie bluish-green bioluminescence of its gills, visible at night.
I have a complicated relationship with this photo. It's very old and was taken in 2021, when I was just starting my path in photography.
This is a beach near Port Renfrew, Vancouver Island. I was really disappointed with the fog but it does add a neat effect.
Close in on the face of a sunflower, with individual stamens. You can actually see the bits of pollen on them.
Now that I have fixed the Adobe Infrared processing challenge I can begin to play with the files. The 590nm conversion files can be push processed to do incredible things.
New Norfolk.
Along the banks of the Derwent, the re-located settlers from Norfolk Island settled here in 1807. Some had been members of the 1788 first fleet to Botany Bay. Nine “first fleeters” are buried in the Methodist Chapel in New Norfolk. The town has one of Australia’s oldest Anglican Churches, St Matthews built in 1823 and the oldest continuously licensed pub, the Old Bush Inn Hotel, first licensed in 1815. ( The oldest existing church in Australia is St Matthew’s Anglican at Windsor designed by convict architect Francis Greenway and opened for services in 1820. St John’s of Parramatta opened in 1819 but was demolished and re-built in 1852. St Luke’s of Liverpool opened in 1824 as did St James of King Street, Sydney).
The area, especially Ellendale near Mt Field, produces much of Australia’s hop crop. One old oast house for drying the hops is now a café on the outskirts of New Norfolk. Hops were taken to VDL by Paterson to the Launceston district in 1804 but hops were not successfully grown on a commercial basis until 1816 and harvested in 1818.Hops were not grown for brewers until 1829. Governor Arthur gave land grants of 200 acres to men willing to grow hops commercially. The hop industry was well established by the 1840s. Local industries today include a nearby salmon hatchery and since 1941 newspaper pulp mills. In the 1920s wooden cloths pegs were made here too! Timber felling is still an industry in the district, as is antiques and tourism.
Mt Field National Park.
Mt Field itself is much higher than Mt Wellington. It is Tasmania’s oldest national park. It is best known for the beautiful Russell Falls area and tree ferns. The last Tasmanian Tiger captured in 1933 was found in this park.
Hamilton.
White settlers first arrived here in the 1820s. It was on the way to the west coast and prospered. By 1844 the town had two breweries, seven inns, a quarry, flour mill and a convict station. This dry area of Tasmania is excellent for sheep and cattle production. The town is known for its many 1840s Georgian style sandstone buildings- all built by convicts before transportation ceased in 1853. Since the 1960s some land has been irrigated from the Derwent River dams. The district also grows opium poppies for medicinal purposes. We hope to have time to visit Prospect Villa, a fine sandstone Georgian house with two Grecian style side additions! Visitors come to Prospect Villa to see the beautiful gardens known for roses, the white garden, the secret garden, the urn garden, the Italian garden and the round garden.
Botany Marshes is on the Swanscombe Peninsula; close to this spot are a number of industrial sites on the north bank of the River Thames at Northfleet. Beyond the little 'hill' in the foreground the Channel Tunnel rail link tunnel under the Thames.
More and better info here;
swanscombemarshes.co.uk/the-marshes/ with a lovely video.
91124 is seen at Botany Bay north of Retford working 1S27 the 17.30hrs Kings Cross - Edinburgh.
24/6/2020
Pole shot
Using Photoshop I picked up the black ink and text from Botany and then printed the image on some handmade paper from India. I'm kind of digging it.