I flew into Manchester England for the start of a tour of Wales. It was September and I wondered whether any plants were still flowering. Awaiting the tour, I stayed at a hotel near the Manchester Airport, a very urban area. It was cloudy with intermittent rain. Nevertheless, I became restless and went out to look for plants (to "botanize").
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| willowherb, Epilobium |
I think the word disambiguation is cute. It means to remove uncertainty, and in this context and Google's, to point out when two different things have the same name and clarify which is which. Scientific names were created to address this problem in plants and animals, but not everyone understands this and certainly not everyone uses scientific names.
Below are disambiguations for sage, hemlock, bergamot, and yam. (More in future posts)
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| sagebrush, Artemisia is not the same as culinary sage, Salvia |
I had two nights in Iceland thanks to Iceland Air. It was the end of September and I signed up for a tour north and west of Reykjavik, to the Snaefellsnes Penninsula. It was spectacular.
Sumacs are common shrubs in North America, and inconspicuous except in the fall, when the leaves turn a brilliant red.
When I wrote a blog post about my visit to Wales a couple weeks ago (link), it got long before I had shared the full trip. Here are more pictures from Wales, starting at about Cardigan and continuing southward.
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| the countryside in Wales |
The New England aster (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae aster family, Asteraceae) is very widespread; in North America it is found from the Atlantic to the Pacific, missing only very dry states like Nevada. Distribution maps show it as native across all that range, but it is an attractive plant that was brought into gardens long ago and may have escaped and naturalized.
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| New England aster |
I took a tour in Wales, mainly along the coast. Wales, the southwest corner of Britain, is about 170 miles long and 60 miles wide, but hills, mountains, and rivers make it a lot more complex. My tour, with Road Scholar, began just north of Wales in Manchester, and circled south along the coast, finally turning east to Cardiff and then London.
We saw lots of green pastures, with cows or sheep
