The view from airplanes is a gift we too often take for granted. C.J. Cherryh wrote, in Visible Light (1986), that when the plane takes off, she thinks of the countless generations of people from before the invention of airplanes who would have so loved to fly. I have remembered that vision for decades. We grow jaded, and we shouldn't.
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| the world below |
Cheatgrass, also known as downy brome and downy chess, Bromus tectorum (grass family Poaceae) is a very small grass that has become a major weed. Generally we think of problems increasing as plants get bigger. Individual plants of cheatgrass are almost too small to notice. It makes up for that in numbers.
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| patch of cheatgrass along a trail (red) |
Hummingbirds are a strictly New World group of birds, some 375 species (family Trochilidae) found from Alaska to southern Chile and Argentina. They are the main group of birds that pollinate in the New World. Fast and often brightly colored, people love to watch them. They typically hover while probing flowers for nectar, a fascinating sight.
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| hummingbird pollinating Monarda |
Vera aloe has been a household remedy for burns for millennia. It still works.
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| Vera aloe, Aloe vera |
I live in Colorado. Castles are not a part of my landscape. So of course I was fascinated by the plants that had colonized the walls of Conwy Castle.
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| View of Conwy Castle |
The dandelion is a plant everybody knows. That is quite a distinction since so many people are oblivious to the plants around them. And because dandelions are not particularly distinctive. There are many plants with similar yellow flowers and others with a puff-ball seed head. It is not the dandelion's unique shapes that make it so widely recognized, but rather because it is so common.
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| common dandelion, Taraxacum officinale seen in Seattle, Washington |
Winter enhances memories of summer. Here is a July visit to Guanella Pass, in the Rocky Mountains of central Colorado.
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| Rocky Mountains, central Colorado, July |