Halmstein, Malching am Inn.

The people have always sought an explanation about the origin and its formation. This massive boulder, Halmstein, is ultimately attributed to heavenly or hellish powers in two legends.

Anemone are the graceful ballet dancers of the flower world. In spite of the wind tossing their petals to and fro, they ultimately reach for the sky.

Midday view of Svalbard's Ekmanfjord and surrounding mountains. There is still a bit of sea ice in the fjord, which will ultimately disappear later in the summer.

Camera: Canon PowerShot G12.

Edited with Adobe Photoshop.

Another image from the river on Saturday. I originally created this in camera, but ultimately I've refined it a little using the original RAW files.

We are literally, ultimately children of the stars.

Jocelyn Bell Burnell

Texture with thanks to Alan- sunsetsailor

© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Use without permission is illegal.

Please, don't fave and run, you will get yourself blocked.

Taken in our garden this Spring.

The tulip is a perennial, bulbous plant with showy flowers in the genus Tulipa, of which around 75 wild species are currently accepted and which belongs to the family Liliaceae.

The genus's native range extends west to the Iberian Peninsula, through North Africa to Greece, the Balkans, Turkey, throughout the Levant (Syria, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan) and Iran, North to Ukraine, southern Siberia and Mongolia, and east to the Northwest of China. The tulip's centre of diversity is in the Pamir, Hindu Kush, and Tien Shan mountains. It is a typical element of steppe and winter-rain Mediterranean vegetation. A number of species and many hybrid cultivars are grown in gardens, as potted plants, or as cut flowers.

Tulips are spring-blooming perennials that grow from bulbs. Depending on the species, tulip plants can be between 4 inches (10 cm) and 28 inches (71 cm) high. The tulip's large flowers usually bloom on scapes with leaves in a rosette at ground level and a single flowering stalk arising from amongst the leaves.Tulip stems have few leaves. Larger species tend to have multiple leaves. Plants typically have two to six leaves, some species up to 12. The tulip's leaf is strap-shaped, with a waxy coating, and the leaves are alternately arranged on the stem; these fleshy blades are often bluish green in color. Most tulips produce only one flower per stem, but a few species bear multiple flowers on their scapes (e.g. Tulipa turkestanica). The generally cup or star-shaped tulip flower has three petals and three sepals, which are often termed tepals because they are nearly identical. These six tepals are often marked on the interior surface near the bases with darker colorings. Tulip flowers come in a wide variety of colors, except pure blue (several tulips with "blue" in the name have a faint violet hue).

The flowers have six distinct, basifixed stamens with filaments shorter than the tepals. Each stigma has three distinct lobes, and the ovaries are superior, with three chambers. The tulip's seed is a capsule with a leathery covering and an ellipsoid to globe shape. Each capsule contains numerous flat, disc-shaped seeds in two rows per chamber. These light to dark brown seeds have very thin seed coats and endosperm that does not normally fill the entire seed.

Etymology

The word tulip, first mentioned in western Europe in or around 1554 and seemingly derived from the "Turkish Letters" of diplomat Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, first appeared in English as tulipa or tulipant, entering the language by way of French: tulipe and its obsolete form tulipan or by way of Modern Latin tulīpa, from Ottoman Turkish tülbend ("muslin" or "gauze"), and may be ultimately derived from the Persian: دلبند‎ delband ("Turban"), this name being applied because of a perceived resemblance of the shape of a tulip flower to that of a turban. This may have been due to a translation error in early times, when it was fashionable in the Ottoman Empire to wear tulips on turbans. The translator possibly confused the flower for the turban.

Tulips are called laleh (from Persian لاله, lâleh) in Persian, Turkish, Arabic, and Bulgarian. In Arabic letters, "laleh" is written with the same letters as Allah, which is why the flower became a holy symbol. It was also associated with the House of Osman, resulting in tulips being widely used in decorative motifs on tiles, mosques, fabrics, crockery, etc. in the Ottoman Empire

Cultivation

Tulip cultivars have usually several species in their direct background, but most have been derived from Tulipa suaveolens, often erroneously listed as Tulipa schrenkii. Tulipa gesneriana is in itself an early hybrid of complex origin and is probably not the same taxon as was described by Conrad Gesner in the 16th century.

Tulips are indigenous to mountainous areas with temperate climates and need a period of cool dormancy, known as vernalization. They thrive in climates with long, cool springs and dry summers. Tulip bulbs imported to warm-winter areas of are often planted in autumn to be treated as annuals.

Tulip bulbs are typically planted around late summer and fall, in well-drained soils, normally from 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 cm) deep, depending on the type. Species tulips are normally planted deeper.

Propagation

Tulips can be propagated through bulb offsets, seeds or micropropagation. Offsets and tissue culture methods are means of asexual propagation for producing genetic clones of the parent plant, which maintains cultivar genetic integrity. Seeds are most often used to propagate species and subspecies or to create new hybrids. Many tulip species can cross-pollinate with each other, and when wild tulip populations overlap geographically with other tulip species or subspecies, they often hybridize and create mixed populations. Most commercial tulip cultivars are complex hybrids, and often sterile.

Offsets require a year or more of growth before plants are large enough to flower. Tulips grown from seeds often need five to eight years before plants are of flowering size. Commercial growers usually harvest the tulip bulbs in late summer and grade them into sizes; bulbs large enough to flower are sorted and sold, while smaller bulbs are sorted into sizes and replanted for sale in the future. The Netherlands are the world's main producer of commercial tulip plants, producing as many as 3 billion bulbs annually, the majority for export.

For further information please visit en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip

This beautiful hawk was seen at Lake St. Clair Metropark, Michigan.

It's one of my favorite birds, and they are sometimes seen in my neighborhood chasing sparrows or pigeons.

I say call it a Cooper's "for now" because there is a movement to change all of the eponymous names of North American birds (birds named after a person). There are many commonly seen birds whose names will ultimately change.

The tree was traditionally decorated with edibles such as apples, nuts, or other foods. In the 18th century, it began to be illuminated by candles which were ultimately replaced by Christmas lights after the advent of electrification. Today, there is a wide variety of traditional ornaments, such as garlands, baubles, tinsel, and candy canes. An angel or star might be placed at the top of the tree to represent the archangel Gabriel or the Star of Bethlehem from the Nativity.Edible items such as Gingerbread, Chocolate and other sweets are also popular, and are tied to or hung from the tree's branches with ribbons.

Our tree as you can see is covered with everything & anything, a real eclectic mix

I can take no credit for the final outcome other than getting the tree down from the loft & dressing the tree in lights in a very artist manner

The arch sits on a rock shelf or terrace on the side of a hill.

In my head I had debated weather or not I should stay at the arch into the night and sleep there.

Ultimately I decided to stay into the night but not to sleep there.

After all, there is some minor climbing involved in reaching it. Minor yes, in the daytime! But in the pitch black of night things look a little different. But I managed to climb down thanks to a bright head lamp that helped more than I thought it would. The idea of sleeping in my car appealed to me more and more as the evening progressed, it just made me feel safer than spending the night with the bears and the rattle snakes.

It is a spectacular place and the Milky Way core moves through the arch just in the right spot at around 10:45 pm in the middle of June.

I know the position and movement of the Milky Way pretty well, but to be able to pre-visualize it with an app while it's still light out is very helpful for positioning the camera ahead of time.

Yes, we have spectacular arches in New Mexico. This one can hold it's own against anything Utah can throw at you. -:)

Made from 16 light frames with 13 dark frames by Starry Landscape Stacker 1.8.0. Algorithm: Min Horizon Star Dupe

This little fishy was not going down with out a fight. But ultimately this great egret sent him down the hatch, his fate to provide sustenance to a big white bird.

and he and mom were talking back and forth to each other.

I always wonder what they are saying to each other because they have to be communicating something, some kind of message that they understand and we, of course, do not. But he didn't have a fish in his talons and I was hoping he'd come land in the nest but he ultimately flew to places unknown to me.

The mom still had a large portion of fish that she was feeding to the chicks the entire time I was there.

So maybe she was letting dad know that they weren't out of food yet so he could take his time catching another fish for them, I don't know.

The deeper the blue, the more it summons man into infinity, arousing his yearning for purity and ultimately transcendence.

Blue is the typical celeste colour.

Blue very profoundly develops the element of calm. -

Vasily Kadinksy, On the Spiritual in Art

Thank you for your kind visit. Have a wonderful and beautiful day! xo❤️

As I was walking yesterday through pretty W.H. Vliegenbos and admiring a Spring pond, suddenly there it was, Beautiful European Peacock Butterfly. First called generically Aglais by Johan Wilhelm Dalman (1787-1828); earlier it went by the generic Papilio, used for many Butterflies. 'Papilio' is probably ultimately derived from a Proto-Indo-European word - 'pal' - meaning something like 'shake', 'shaking'. The reduplication to 'papilio' can be rendered, I think, into English as 'flutter', 'flutterer'. Aglais io is not very particular where it'll flutter as long as there are nectar-producing plants or water nearby. And such there were in the pleasant wood.

'Aglais' does not belie its name. Aglaea, from which it's derived, is one of the three Classical Graces, who boasted great splendor and brilliance. Voilà!

Why do objects that encounter air resistance ultimately reach a terminal velocity?

Ultimately, nothing can separate people from the divine, because that would be to fall out of existence altogether and, conversely, awakening to the fullness of divine life is a matter of complete perception, not perfected behavior.

-Mark Vernon, Dante’s Divine Comedy, a guide to spiritual journey

In this case not a happy one. Though the house may look abandoned, it isn't. The man who lives here had a pack of 14 pitbulls, that attacked a man walking down the road a number of years ago. Ultimately all the dogs were killed by sheriffs officers. They had never been trained, socialized and were rumoured to have been involved in dog fights. The dogs paid the price for the human's behaviour. Warsaw, ND.

This lion cub was learning how to hunt when we saw him in South Luangwa National Park in Zambia. He (and several siblings) had joined Mom in an attempt to take down a zebra. Ultimately, the hunt failed and the zebra got away.

Feel free to follow me on Instagram @gregtaylorphotography

Ihren Namen verdankt sie der griechischen Mythologie:

Ein junges Mädchen namens Clytia hatte sich in den Sonnengott Helios verliebt, der ihre Liebe leider nicht erwiderte. Ihre Leidenschaft war so groß, dass sie die ganze Zeit damit verbrachte, ihn anzuschauen.

Letztendlich verwandelte sie sich in Helianthemum, die Blume, die sich stets zur Sonne dreht.

It owes its name to Greek mythology:

A young girl named Clytia fell in love with the sun god Helios, who unfortunately did not return her love. Your passion was so great

that she spent all the time looking at him.

Ultimately transformed she turns into Helianthemum, the flower that always turns towards the sun.

A Great Egret stands frozen at it stalks its next meal. Ultimately, when the moment is right, it will strike with lightning speed.

Getting only between two and three hours of shuteye a night, the African Elephant (Loxodonta africana) indeed has some interesting eyes. Ultimately, they aren't spectacularly perceptive. In shadowed or otherwise dull light, they can see relatively well. But in the garish light of day, visual acuity drops precipitously. Wildly, eyesight isn't all that important to them and there are documented cases of blind elephants leading herds, guiding their troops by feel! Still, the eyesight they do have, they guard carefully with long eyelashes unaided by Revlon products.

This is a captive elephant living in the Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia, SC.

i love observing flowers as they age

an ethereal beauty develops as they fade

the petals seem more transparent and the colour becomes more varied~

ultimately more interesting i think...

My first bubble photo in a long time which was prompted by a recent upload by Jillysooon (I can't do links on my phone but you can find Jilly's photo stream through my contacts list). I really enjoy taking these shots, but as they're what ultimately killed my last camera I'm now being a bit more careful with them! My Olympus has weathersealing but unfortunately not with my Minolta Rokkor attached...

Taken in our garden this Spring.

The tulip is a perennial, bulbous plant with showy flowers in the genus Tulipa, of which around 75 wild species are currently accepted and which belongs to the family Liliaceae.

The genus's native range extends west to the Iberian Peninsula, through North Africa to Greece, the Balkans, Turkey, throughout the Levant (Syria, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan) and Iran, North to Ukraine, southern Siberia and Mongolia, and east to the Northwest of China. The tulip's centre of diversity is in the Pamir, Hindu Kush, and Tien Shan mountains. It is a typical element of steppe and winter-rain Mediterranean vegetation. A number of species and many hybrid cultivars are grown in gardens, as potted plants, or as cut flowers.

Tulips are spring-blooming perennials that grow from bulbs. Depending on the species, tulip plants can be between 4 inches (10 cm) and 28 inches (71 cm) high. The tulip's large flowers usually bloom on scapes with leaves in a rosette at ground level and a single flowering stalk arising from amongst the leaves.Tulip stems have few leaves. Larger species tend to have multiple leaves. Plants typically have two to six leaves, some species up to 12. The tulip's leaf is strap-shaped, with a waxy coating, and the leaves are alternately arranged on the stem; these fleshy blades are often bluish green in color. Most tulips produce only one flower per stem, but a few species bear multiple flowers on their scapes (e.g. Tulipa turkestanica). The generally cup or star-shaped tulip flower has three petals and three sepals, which are often termed tepals because they are nearly identical. These six tepals are often marked on the interior surface near the bases with darker colorings. Tulip flowers come in a wide variety of colors, except pure blue (several tulips with "blue" in the name have a faint violet hue).

The flowers have six distinct, basifixed stamens with filaments shorter than the tepals. Each stigma has three distinct lobes, and the ovaries are superior, with three chambers. The tulip's seed is a capsule with a leathery covering and an ellipsoid to globe shape. Each capsule contains numerous flat, disc-shaped seeds in two rows per chamber. These light to dark brown seeds have very thin seed coats and endosperm that does not normally fill the entire seed.

Etymology

The word tulip, first mentioned in western Europe in or around 1554 and seemingly derived from the "Turkish Letters" of diplomat Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, first appeared in English as tulipa or tulipant, entering the language by way of French: tulipe and its obsolete form tulipan or by way of Modern Latin tulīpa, from Ottoman Turkish tülbend ("muslin" or "gauze"), and may be ultimately derived from the Persian: دلبند‎ delband ("Turban"), this name being applied because of a perceived resemblance of the shape of a tulip flower to that of a turban. This may have been due to a translation error in early times, when it was fashionable in the Ottoman Empire to wear tulips on turbans. The translator possibly confused the flower for the turban.

Tulips are called laleh (from Persian لاله, lâleh) in Persian, Turkish, Arabic, and Bulgarian. In Arabic letters, "laleh" is written with the same letters as Allah, which is why the flower became a holy symbol. It was also associated with the House of Osman, resulting in tulips being widely used in decorative motifs on tiles, mosques, fabrics, crockery, etc. in the Ottoman Empire

Cultivation

Tulip cultivars have usually several species in their direct background, but most have been derived from Tulipa suaveolens, often erroneously listed as Tulipa schrenkii. Tulipa gesneriana is in itself an early hybrid of complex origin and is probably not the same taxon as was described by Conrad Gesner in the 16th century.

Tulips are indigenous to mountainous areas with temperate climates and need a period of cool dormancy, known as vernalization. They thrive in climates with long, cool springs and dry summers. Tulip bulbs imported to warm-winter areas of are often planted in autumn to be treated as annuals.

Tulip bulbs are typically planted around late summer and fall, in well-drained soils, normally from 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 cm) deep, depending on the type. Species tulips are normally planted deeper.

Propagation

Tulips can be propagated through bulb offsets, seeds or micropropagation. Offsets and tissue culture methods are means of asexual propagation for producing genetic clones of the parent plant, which maintains cultivar genetic integrity. Seeds are most often used to propagate species and subspecies or to create new hybrids. Many tulip species can cross-pollinate with each other, and when wild tulip populations overlap geographically with other tulip species or subspecies, they often hybridize and create mixed populations. Most commercial tulip cultivars are complex hybrids, and often sterile.

Offsets require a year or more of growth before plants are large enough to flower. Tulips grown from seeds often need five to eight years before plants are of flowering size. Commercial growers usually harvest the tulip bulbs in late summer and grade them into sizes; bulbs large enough to flower are sorted and sold, while smaller bulbs are sorted into sizes and replanted for sale in the future. The Netherlands are the world's main producer of commercial tulip plants, producing as many as 3 billion bulbs annually, the majority for export.

For further information please visit en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip

The Taj Mahal ultimately from Arabic, "crown of palaces" is a white marble mausoleum located in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India. It was built by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his third wife, Mumtaz Mahal. The Taj Mahal is widely recognized as "the jewel of Muslim art in India and one of the universally admired masterpieces of the world's heritage".

Taj Mahal is regarded by many as the finest example of Mughal architecture, a style that combines elements from Islamic, Persian, Ottoman Turkish and Indian architectural styles.

In 1983, the Taj Mahal became a UNESCO World Heritage Site. While the white domed marble mausoleum is the most familiar component of the Taj Mahal, it is actually an integrated complex of structures. The construction began around 1632 and was completed around 1653, employing thousands of artisans and craftsmen. The construction of the Taj Mahal was entrusted to a board of architects under imperial supervision, including Abd ul-Karim Ma'mur Khan, Makramat Khan, and Ustad Ahmad Lahauri.

Professor Pangloss thinks, as you may know, that ultimately this world is the best world possible. Even Covid, he says, disruptive as it is now, may at the end of the day have some positive sides. Humanity will come out of this as a leaner body, renewed, strengthened and even more capable of survival. The many companies that will go bust will provide the food for new economic ventures that are more robust. International cooperation on Covid and Climate will be seen as normal. Like Aphrodite on her shell, a new civilisation will emerge from the disasters of today. Hmm. Let me think about this.

Nieuw-Sloten is a diverse neighborhood in Amsterdam, known for its unique character and location in the southwestern part of the city. It was initially planned as a site for the 1992 Summer Olympics village, which, ultimately, did not take place in Amsterdam. Architecturally, the neighborhood boasts distinct styles, with various sections showcasing modern and traditional Dutch designs, making each part of Nieuw-Sloten different from the other, offering a rich blend of architectural aesthetics.

Eine Blumenart, die derzeit häufig zusammen mit anderen Blumen auf Feldern ausgebracht werden. Die Insektenwelt wird es zu schätzen wissen und letztendlich haben die Landwirte .

A type of flower that is currently often planted in fields with other flowers. The insect world will appreciate it and ultimately farmers have.

Leicester being reclaimed by nature.

I thought I would have a play in Photoshop based on where I think mankind is possibly taking us ultimately!

Whenever you have a few minutes to spare, check out the following links:

Photography: www.flickr.com/photos/iainmerchant/

Art: www.theartoflife.gallery

Subscribe: www.iainmerchant.com

Blog: www.iainmerchant.com/blog

#IainMerchant #Art #Photography #PhotoOfTheDay #PicOfTheDay #TheArtofLife #ThinkingOutLoud

Photo by: Iain Merchant Photography (www.iainmerchant.com)

Diesel hauled trains are not a particularly common sight on the Maintal so the appearance of Ludmilla 232413 (Skinest Rail on hire to Budamar West) was worth recording as it passed heading towards Garching with a transfer from Kassel.

Built by the Soviet Union in Ukraine, over 1000 of these diesels were constructed in Luhansk and ultimately passed to DR and then DB. Derivatives were also constructed for Soviet countries such as Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Ukraine.

The Butterfly Effect: "It is said that something so small a the flutter of a butterfly's wing can ultimately cause a typhoon halfway around the world." - Chaos Theory

Sponsor:

SL: Riot Mainstore:

maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/RIOT%20District/121/167/28

Flickr: Riot SL - www.flickr.com/photos/riotsl/

This is a newly designed Tee!! Get this pretty Tee at the Saturday Sale this week. Special pricing this weekend only! Ends Sunday night just before midnight then prices will go to full!

Style

RIOT / Pamela Halter Tee

RIOT / Constance Jeans

Poses: Pose: Audition - Flutter Bento Pose Set

Pure Poison - Mariposa Nails & Rings

Puddytatts - Butterfly Garden Half Sleeve Tattoos

WINGS-Hair-EF0403

Taken in our garden this Spring.

The tulip is a perennial, bulbous plant with showy flowers in the genus Tulipa, of which around 75 wild species are currently accepted and which belongs to the family Liliaceae.

The genus's native range extends west to the Iberian Peninsula, through North Africa to Greece, the Balkans, Turkey, throughout the Levant (Syria, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan) and Iran, North to Ukraine, southern Siberia and Mongolia, and east to the Northwest of China. The tulip's centre of diversity is in the Pamir, Hindu Kush, and Tien Shan mountains. It is a typical element of steppe and winter-rain Mediterranean vegetation. A number of species and many hybrid cultivars are grown in gardens, as potted plants, or as cut flowers.

Tulips are spring-blooming perennials that grow from bulbs. Depending on the species, tulip plants can be between 4 inches (10 cm) and 28 inches (71 cm) high. The tulip's large flowers usually bloom on scapes with leaves in a rosette at ground level and a single flowering stalk arising from amongst the leaves.Tulip stems have few leaves. Larger species tend to have multiple leaves. Plants typically have two to six leaves, some species up to 12. The tulip's leaf is strap-shaped, with a waxy coating, and the leaves are alternately arranged on the stem; these fleshy blades are often bluish green in color. Most tulips produce only one flower per stem, but a few species bear multiple flowers on their scapes (e.g. Tulipa turkestanica). The generally cup or star-shaped tulip flower has three petals and three sepals, which are often termed tepals because they are nearly identical. These six tepals are often marked on the interior surface near the bases with darker colorings. Tulip flowers come in a wide variety of colors, except pure blue (several tulips with "blue" in the name have a faint violet hue).

The flowers have six distinct, basifixed stamens with filaments shorter than the tepals. Each stigma has three distinct lobes, and the ovaries are superior, with three chambers. The tulip's seed is a capsule with a leathery covering and an ellipsoid to globe shape. Each capsule contains numerous flat, disc-shaped seeds in two rows per chamber. These light to dark brown seeds have very thin seed coats and endosperm that does not normally fill the entire seed.

Etymology

The word tulip, first mentioned in western Europe in or around 1554 and seemingly derived from the "Turkish Letters" of diplomat Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, first appeared in English as tulipa or tulipant, entering the language by way of French: tulipe and its obsolete form tulipan or by way of Modern Latin tulīpa, from Ottoman Turkish tülbend ("muslin" or "gauze"), and may be ultimately derived from the Persian: دلبند‎ delband ("Turban"), this name being applied because of a perceived resemblance of the shape of a tulip flower to that of a turban. This may have been due to a translation error in early times, when it was fashionable in the Ottoman Empire to wear tulips on turbans. The translator possibly confused the flower for the turban.

Tulips are called laleh (from Persian لاله, lâleh) in Persian, Turkish, Arabic, and Bulgarian. In Arabic letters, "laleh" is written with the same letters as Allah, which is why the flower became a holy symbol. It was also associated with the House of Osman, resulting in tulips being widely used in decorative motifs on tiles, mosques, fabrics, crockery, etc. in the Ottoman Empire

Cultivation

Tulip cultivars have usually several species in their direct background, but most have been derived from Tulipa suaveolens, often erroneously listed as Tulipa schrenkii. Tulipa gesneriana is in itself an early hybrid of complex origin and is probably not the same taxon as was described by Conrad Gesner in the 16th century.

Tulips are indigenous to mountainous areas with temperate climates and need a period of cool dormancy, known as vernalization. They thrive in climates with long, cool springs and dry summers. Tulip bulbs imported to warm-winter areas of are often planted in autumn to be treated as annuals.

Tulip bulbs are typically planted around late summer and fall, in well-drained soils, normally from 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 cm) deep, depending on the type. Species tulips are normally planted deeper.

Propagation

Tulips can be propagated through bulb offsets, seeds or micropropagation. Offsets and tissue culture methods are means of asexual propagation for producing genetic clones of the parent plant, which maintains cultivar genetic integrity. Seeds are most often used to propagate species and subspecies or to create new hybrids. Many tulip species can cross-pollinate with each other, and when wild tulip populations overlap geographically with other tulip species or subspecies, they often hybridize and create mixed populations. Most commercial tulip cultivars are complex hybrids, and often sterile.

Offsets require a year or more of growth before plants are large enough to flower. Tulips grown from seeds often need five to eight years before plants are of flowering size. Commercial growers usually harvest the tulip bulbs in late summer and grade them into sizes; bulbs large enough to flower are sorted and sold, while smaller bulbs are sorted into sizes and replanted for sale in the future. The Netherlands are the world's main producer of commercial tulip plants, producing as many as 3 billion bulbs annually, the majority for export.

For further information please visit en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip

"All those who are struggling for freedom today are ultimately fighting for beauty. Of course, it is not a question of defending beauty for itself. Beauty cannot do without man, and we shall not give our era its nobility and serenity unless we follow it in its misfortune. Never again shall we be hermits. But it is no less true that man cannot do without beauty"

The VFW VAK 191B was an experimental German vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) strike fighter of the early 1970s. VAK was the abbreviation for Vertikalstartendes Aufklärungs- und Kampfflugzeug (Vertical Take-off Reconnaissance and Strike Aircraft). Designed and built by the Vereinigte Flugtechnische Werke (VFW), it was developed with the purpose of eventually serving as a replacement for the Italian Fiat G.91 then in service with the German Air Force.

Operationally, it was intended to have been armed with nuclear weapons as a deterrent against aggression from the Soviet Union and, in the event of a major war breaking out, to survive the first wave of attacks by deploying to dispersed locations, rather than conventional airfields, and to retaliate against targets behind enemy lines.

The VAK 191B suffered from a protracted development cycle, spanning ten years between inception and flight, in part due to changing requirements, partnerships changing, and the difficulty inherently associated in the development of VTOL-capable aircraft. Ultimately, during the late 1960s, VFW took the decision to demote the development programme from targeting the type's production and instead only to test-fly a limited number of prototypes, using the VAK 191B effectively as a technology demonstrator and experimental aircraft to support the company's other activities and future programmes. On 10 September 1971, the first prototype conducted the type's maiden flight. A total of 91 flights were performed prior to the retirement of all three prototypes in 1975. These aircraft have been preserved and two are now on public display in museums.

Come hideaway amid the tropical palms and ferns at Cremorne Point Reserve, on the northern side of Sydney harbour.

So you park the car on Bogota Avenue, Cremorne, and then walk along the pathway that takes you through a sub-tropical rainforest with Shellcove Beach to the right. Ultimately you reach the amazing Cremorne Point Reserve where I took this photograph.

Perfect for picnics and watching the sunset through the palms OR simply "hiding away" beside the harbour.

Welcome to Cremorne Point, Sydney. One of my favourite and relatively secluded places to "chill" in Sydney.

And here's Ourson with the very chilled song 'Hideaway' from the super cool 'Emily in Paris' soundtrack (the best show ever on Netflix)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtUyx91Lptk

My Canon EOS 5D Mk IV with the Canon EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 lens.

Processed in Adobe Lightroom and PhotoPadPro by NCH software.

Þingvellir National Park walks you through the divergent boundary of the North American and European tectonic plates where the two are separating at a very slow rate ultimately widening the Atlantic Ocean and what millions of years ago formed the island of Iceland

"How the visual world appears is important to me. I'm always aware of the light. I'm always aware of what I would call the 'deep composition.' Photography in the field is a process of creation, of thought and technique. But ultimately, it's an act of imaginatively seeing from within yourself.".... Sam Abell

This is a portrait of my friend, Sabrina...I took it with the original Sony A7 and an old and battered Meyer Görlitz Trioplan 50mm/F2.9! The original file was, well, extremely blurred as were the other ones in the shoot and I thought I'd have to chuck them and start over. But then I thought I'd try putting it through TopazLabs Sharpen AI and it performed a little miracle on it, I think! Of course, it looks nowhere near a shot of the A7Riv plus 135/f1.8, but that wasn't the point, of course! I'm ultimately very pleased with the result. I'd love to hear what you think!

Sony A7

Meyer Görlitz Trioplan 50mm/F2.9

Sedona is known for having countless views of interesting and scenic red rock formations, many of which can be seen after a short walk or even from the road. However, there are also several more rugged and grander views in the Sedona area, which are not witnessed often, due to accessibility. Unfortunately, most of those require highly challenging off-road navigation, just to reach a trailhead. Fortunately, the trailhead which leads into this part of Sedona’s surrounding wilderness, is located next to a well maintained road. After hiking about 2.5 miles with 2000 feet of elevation gain, the reward is this view. However, I must admit that lack of patience, prevented me from setting up at one of the many better foreground options, and with some regret, I ultimately settled for this composition.

In 1813 3,000 US troops tried to invade Upper Canada and set-up camp. In return, 700 British Regulars left their encampment in Burlington Heights to attack the enemy. While both sides suffered great losses, the Americans were ultimately defeated and withdrew. This particular battle is credited with saving Upper Canada from being overrun in 1813.

It's a dour misty day over the fenland-like landscape of the River Humber's north bank, and the last rites of Crabley Creek Signal Box and semaphore signals are all but playing out.

Well, at least that was the plan. The £34m re-signalling project designed to eliminate all signal boxes and semaphore signals along the 9½ mile stretch from Gilberdyke to North Ferriby was ultimately successful - with the exception of the box at Crabley Creek. Required to serve Crabley Farm, which lies isolated on the banks of the Humber behind me, the deeds of the land specify that while ever there is a railway crossing just here, it must be manned.

So, the signal box, which at over 120 years just happened to be the oldest along this stretch, remains in use. It no longer controls signals (that takes place some 30 miles away at the York Rail Operating Centre), but the attendant on duty does monitor the location of trains on the track diagram to decide when it's safe for traffic to and from the farm to cross. With typically 10 trains an hour using the crossing, integrating the passage of tractors, especially during the busy harvest season, together with the occasional movement of livestock, can be quite a challenge.

In this shot, a 2-car Northern class 142 Pacer unit approaches under clear signals with a local train destined for Hull. Rather like the signals, the Pacer unit is now also consigned to the past. But at least some of the history here lives on.

2nd April 2014

(bonus pic) What's creepier than a spider on Halloween? A spider that has been infected by a fungus that ate it from the inside-out! This individual was infected by Gibellula pulchra, which took over its body and ultimately killed it. It is now in the fruiting phase, where it puts out stalks to spread its spores to other unsuspecting arachnids. This was found at Don Robinson State Park in Missouri.

The adult Pied-billed grebe ultimately gave up the fish to her youngster in a tug-of-war.

Bought my first variable ND filter before going away with a view to do some experimental LE shots. I never really had the patience for those but I loved the colour that the filter gave!

Have a thing for geology, experimentally took it at school as a subject and loved it, ultimately design won out (far less study, but possibly less travel).

Running long hood forward, the way EMD set it up for CV when they bought it new in 1957, Adrian & Blissfield's job out of Adrian is arriving in Blissfield. The train is strung out through the second of two significant bridges over the River Raisin. They have 5 covered hoppers on the drawbar and ADBF 1759 is bringing up the rear. They'll ultimately leave 1752 in Blissfield and return to Adrian with just the 1759 and two tank cars. Blissfield, MI 11/25/2022

Gannets are seabirds comprising the genus Morus, in the family Sulidae, closely related to boobies. "Gannet" is derived from Old English ganot "strong or masculine", ultimately from the same Old Germanic root as "gander".[1] Morus is derived from Ancient Greek moros, "foolish", due to the lack of fear shown by breeding gannets and boobies, allowing them to be easily killed.

Moscú - Moscow - Москва

El río Moscova (en ruso: 'Москва-река - Moskvá-reka') es un río afluente del río Oká en la parte europea de Rusia. Tiene una longitud de 502 km y su cuenca drena una superficie de 17.600 km².

Administrativamente, el río discurre por el óblast de Moscú y el óblast de Smolensk de Rusia.

es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Río_Moscova

The Moskva River (Russian: река Москва, Москва-река, Moskva-reka) is a river of western Russia. It rises about 140 km (90 mi) west of Moscow, and flows roughly east through the Smolensk and Moscow Oblasts, passing through central Moscow. About 110 km (70 mi) south east of Moscow, at the city of Kolomna, it flows into the Oka River, itself a tributary of the Volga, which ultimately flows into the Caspian Sea.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moskva_River

is one of the hardest things to do. Yet it's easily the most essential:-)

Pete Turner

HGGT! Truth Matters!

dahlia, and wee guest, j c raulston arboretum, ncsu, raleigh, north carolina

Went out for a morning drive and could not resist taking a shot of this slick and misty curve in the road. This is Redstreak Road which ultimately ends up at Redstreak Campground in Kootenay National Park.

Taken in our raspberry patch earlier this spring. Although our raspberry crop has been poor, our tulips put on a grand display!

The tulip is a perennial, bulbous plant with showy flowers in the genus Tulipa, of which around 75 wild species are currently accepted and which belongs to the family Liliaceae.

The genus's native range extends west to the Iberian Peninsula, through North Africa to Greece, the Balkans, Turkey, throughout the Levant (Syria, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan) and Iran, North to Ukraine, southern Siberia and Mongolia, and east to the Northwest of China. The tulip's centre of diversity is in the Pamir, Hindu Kush, and Tien Shan mountains. It is a typical element of steppe and winter-rain Mediterranean vegetation. A number of species and many hybrid cultivars are grown in gardens, as potted plants, or as cut flowers.

Tulips are spring-blooming perennials that grow from bulbs. Depending on the species, tulip plants can be between 4 inches (10 cm) and 28 inches (71 cm) high. The tulip's large flowers usually bloom on scapes with leaves in a rosette at ground level and a single flowering stalk arising from amongst the leaves.Tulip stems have few leaves. Larger species tend to have multiple leaves. Plants typically have two to six leaves, some species up to 12. The tulip's leaf is strap-shaped, with a waxy coating, and the leaves are alternately arranged on the stem; these fleshy blades are often bluish green in color. Most tulips produce only one flower per stem, but a few species bear multiple flowers on their scapes (e.g. Tulipa turkestanica). The generally cup or star-shaped tulip flower has three petals and three sepals, which are often termed tepals because they are nearly identical. These six tepals are often marked on the interior surface near the bases with darker colorings. Tulip flowers come in a wide variety of colors, except pure blue (several tulips with "blue" in the name have a faint violet hue).

The flowers have six distinct, basifixed stamens with filaments shorter than the tepals. Each stigma has three distinct lobes, and the ovaries are superior, with three chambers. The tulip's seed is a capsule with a leathery covering and an ellipsoid to globe shape. Each capsule contains numerous flat, disc-shaped seeds in two rows per chamber. These light to dark brown seeds have very thin seed coats and endosperm that does not normally fill the entire seed.

Etymology

The word tulip, first mentioned in western Europe in or around 1554 and seemingly derived from the "Turkish Letters" of diplomat Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, first appeared in English as tulipa or tulipant, entering the language by way of French: tulipe and its obsolete form tulipan or by way of Modern Latin tulīpa, from Ottoman Turkish tülbend ("muslin" or "gauze"), and may be ultimately derived from the Persian: دلبند‎ delband ("Turban"), this name being applied because of a perceived resemblance of the shape of a tulip flower to that of a turban. This may have been due to a translation error in early times, when it was fashionable in the Ottoman Empire to wear tulips on turbans. The translator possibly confused the flower for the turban.

Tulips are called laleh (from Persian لاله, lâleh) in Persian, Turkish, Arabic, and Bulgarian. In Arabic letters, "laleh" is written with the same letters as Allah, which is why the flower became a holy symbol. It was also associated with the House of Osman, resulting in tulips being widely used in decorative motifs on tiles, mosques, fabrics, crockery, etc. in the Ottoman Empire

Cultivation

Tulip cultivars have usually several species in their direct background, but most have been derived from Tulipa suaveolens, often erroneously listed as Tulipa schrenkii. Tulipa gesneriana is in itself an early hybrid of complex origin and is probably not the same taxon as was described by Conrad Gesner in the 16th century.

Tulips are indigenous to mountainous areas with temperate climates and need a period of cool dormancy, known as vernalization. They thrive in climates with long, cool springs and dry summers. Tulip bulbs imported to warm-winter areas of are often planted in autumn to be treated as annuals.

Tulip bulbs are typically planted around late summer and fall, in well-drained soils, normally from 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 cm) deep, depending on the type. Species tulips are normally planted deeper.

Propagation

Tulips can be propagated through bulb offsets, seeds or micropropagation. Offsets and tissue culture methods are means of asexual propagation for producing genetic clones of the parent plant, which maintains cultivar genetic integrity. Seeds are most often used to propagate species and subspecies or to create new hybrids. Many tulip species can cross-pollinate with each other, and when wild tulip populations overlap geographically with other tulip species or subspecies, they often hybridize and create mixed populations. Most commercial tulip cultivars are complex hybrids, and often sterile.

Offsets require a year or more of growth before plants are large enough to flower. Tulips grown from seeds often need five to eight years before plants are of flowering size. Commercial growers usually harvest the tulip bulbs in late summer and grade them into sizes; bulbs large enough to flower are sorted and sold, while smaller bulbs are sorted into sizes and replanted for sale in the future. The Netherlands are the world's main producer of commercial tulip plants, producing as many as 3 billion bulbs annually, the majority for export.

For further information please visit en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip