Gold

My Sulcorebutia arenacea has been blooming off and on for several weeks.  The flowers only last a day (sometimes two), and are closed by evening, but today I finally remembered to take a picture when I was home for lunch.



They are so pretty, with their beautiful deep golden flowers.  This species is native to the Cochabamba region of Bolivia on the dry slopes of the eastern Andes.

Even when it's not in flower, it's a beautiful plant.  I love the flat spines.

Four new and a repeat

I have a plethora of amaryllis blooms to show today, although not too much variety.  The first four are new bulbs for me this year, and the last is a repeat.

If you're keeping track, these are Amaryllis #31, #32, #33, #34, and #35 for the year.

This is is Black Pearl #2,



and Black Pearl #3.



Very pretty, and so dark that my phone has a really hard time capturing the color.

Next is Magical Touch #2, which is kind of wonky because there were two scapes that bloomed out at the same time, and the eight flowers were really crowded.



And Magical Touch #3, much more symmetrical.



Last up is Red Lion 2011, a repeat bloomer. This one hasn't bloomed since 2013, so hooray for you, bulb!



So those are new bloomers for the past little while. 



Amaryllis are so pretty.

I still have a bunch of flowers open on second and third scapes for bulbs that I've previously shown, seven scapes still developing, and a few bulbs that still aren't showing signs of flowering this year. I'm thinking that this show will go into July!

Volunteer pansies

I have three planter boxes with pansies in them.  I only actually planted pansies in one of them, in the spring of 2015.  Since then, I have gotten a wondrous variety of pansy volunteers self-seeding into the two adjacent planters.



The ones I originally planted looked most like the three in the top row. The lavender and yellow were relatively small varieties, about an inch across, and the dark-centered blue was a standard size, about two inches across. Just normal pansies from the clearance rack.

All the rest are spontaneous hybrids that have occurred over the past two years, including that one enormous blue-purple that is nearly as big as the palm of my hand.  Such an amazing thing, gene recombination.

This is the original pansy box with stargazer lilies,



this is the other lily planter with volunteer pansies, all shades of lavender in this one,



and this is the curly willow pot, with Doone Valley thyme that is creeping beautifully and a few tiny pink and blue pansies.

Parodia schlosseri

I have a pretty yellow cactus blooming today, Parodia schlosseri (Parodia erubescens), which is native to Uruguay.  I think that's what it is, anyway - it didn't come with a tag. Whatever it is, it's pretty.



The bright red stigma in the center is so striking.



Each flower lasts a couple days, opening in the morning when it gets direct sunlight and closing in the evening.



So pretty.

Gervase #1 and Picotee

Up today are two amaryllis, both rebloomers from last year.

Amaryllis #29 for the year is Gervase #1.  This variety is known for its random streaks of red over a pink background.  The amount of red streaking can vary wildly between blooms on a single stalk, and on the same bulb between years.

This exact bulb bloomed out much redder this year than last year.  Here's the first flower this year:



And here's the second flower on the same scape this year.



Such variety!  I like the single solid red petal.  So jaunty.

Amaryllis #30 for the year is Picotee.  Unlike the Gervase, this one has less red than last year.  The thin red piping around the edges of the petals is there, but much thinner this time.  The petals are also narrower this year.



Both these bulbs only put up one scape this year, and only two flowers on the scape.  While somewhat disappointing, it wasn't unexpected.  Gervase had three big scapes last year, and Picotee had two.  Blooming that much on newly-shipped bulbs without roots takes a significant toll, and it can take a while to build up their reserves.  I expect that next year will be better.

White coral bells, upon a slender stalk...

This is the pot of lily-of-the-valley that I planted in 2015, starting out with just five scrawny little starts from the clearance rack at BiMart.  This is the first year they have bloomed!



They are so pretty, pure white and beautifully fragrant.



I wish I had a whole drift of them.  But the pot is filling in nicely, and my vision of the cobalt blue pot with white lily-of-the-valley is coming true.

2017 Ladd Marsh Bird Festival

Today was the 12th Annual Ladd Marsh Bird Festival.  This is the 11th year that I've been here for it, and I have to say, it's one of the highlights of my year.

It starts off with a music program and guest speaker on Friday night, and this year the speaker was Mark Obmascik, who is a journalist and author of The Big Year.  It was great fun, and when we left we were treated to this amazing sunset.



I was also somewhat more excited than usual, because I made a purchase at the program!  This is new-to-me spotting scope, a Vortex Viper HD. 



I've been saving my pennies for several months to upgrade my scope.  You may remember that last year I was given a Bushnell Spacemaster II scope (I still can't believe that).  While I like that one, I frequently found myself wishing that the optics were a little better, so the image could be a little brighter and a little clearer.

The owner of the local bird shop had this one for sale at the Friday night program.  It has been gently used, and other than a cosmetic scratch on the casing is in perfect condition.  He gave me a good deal, and now it's mine!  The tripod is the one I bought last year, so Yay! I'm set for a while!  I'll probably hang on to the Bushnell, since it's a good scope.  Maybe I can convince Emma to go birding with me.

The Vortex has a larger lens (80 mm vs 60 mm for the Bushnell), so it's much brighter, and has a higher magnification (20-60x vs 15-45x for the Bushnell), though I will say that the image quality and brightness significantly decrease at the higher zoom levels.  This is to be expected with a zoom lens, and happens with both scopes.

I was able to take a couple bird shots with my iPhone 5 through the new scope, and it did well.  This one of a coot on a nest came out the best.  This is taken from about 100 feet away.



I have a hard time lining up the camera with the scope lens properly, and holding the camera steady enough to get a clear picture.  It will take practice, but I also may or may not be ordering a phone-to-scope adapter mount to be able to get clearer images. (Hint: I already did.)



The marsh part of the Bird Festival weekend was great fun, and we saw 67 species of birds in six hours at my station.  That's fewer species than normal, but the water was really high in the marsh this year, and we didn't get the suite of shorebirds that we usually do. My prize for the morning was a wood duck.  They're so fancy!

After lunch, Anne and I went birding on our own around the valley, and added another handful of species to our lists for the day.  My highlights for this part of the day were Western tanagers and a lazuli bunting.  Beautiful!

We drove up and around High Valley Road and a couple side roads, between Cove and Union on the southeast side of the Grande Ronde Valley, which is one of my favorite bird routes.  The views along this drive never fail to take my breath away.



All in all it was a great day.

Stillness

Gearing up for the 12th Annual Ladd Marsh Bird Festival.  I can't wait.

Silken

Another beauty today, Mammillaria bombycina.  This species is native to central western Mexico, growing on slopes and cliffs in high elevation oak forests.

I absolutely love the fringed edges on the petals.



This is the first cactus I ever bought with hooked spines.  For the first couple months after I discovered cacti, I very smugly said that I was I only going to get the more non-lethal species with flatter spines.  Hooked-spine varieties are much too annoying, and I don't see why I would every get any of those, I said.

Then Emma and I were in TriCities last spring and I saw this one in a Lowes, and once I saw the beautiful clusters of white spines I decided that hooked or not, this plant needed to come home with me.  It hooked my thumb quite painfully before we even got back to the car, but I didn't care.  It was pretty.


This is its first blooming for me, and the plant itself has almost doubled in size in a year.  I'm very proud of it.

Ammocharis coranica

I have another non-amaryllis bulb blooming today... not an amaryllis but an amaryllis cousin.  This is Ammocharis coranica, native to grasslands of South Africa, often in or near depressions that are seasonally wet.

I got this bulb in February, as a completely un-rooted, un-leafed bulb.  I potted it up and watered sparingly, and within two days I started seeing leaves growing.  In its native habitat, this bulb goes dormant during drought, and is able to "wake up" and start growing leaves within hours of a rain storm.  I didn't expect it to bloom for at least a year.

I brought it to work and watched it growing a cool fan of leaves for a couple months, and then last Monday I came in after the weekend and was dismayed when I saw what I initially thought was one of the leaves turning yellow.  I thought I had killed it with too much water, but then I looked closer and saw that it was a flower spike!!!  I swear this spike was not evident the previous Friday, though I may have just overlooked it since it's behind the leaves a bit.  Either way, it grew fast!

This is it on Monday, 5/8/17.



And this is it on Wednesday, 5/11/17.  The spike is a bit longer and the buds are starting to open.



And this is yesterday, Monday 5/15/17, just one week after I first noticed the flower spike.  About half the flowers have gone by and the leaves are starting to yellow.  This is a fast-lane plant that is well-adapted to take advantage of any available water in a dry region.



The flowers are very pretty, and are fragrant, smelling sort of like sharp dusty orange oil.  Or, as I realized when I made my after-lunch beverage, actually a lot like an Earl Grey tea bag just as it first hits the hot water.



This is a relatively uncommon bulb in the houseplant trade, but I really like it.  I played bee with the flowers today, and I can't wait to see if I get any seeds.

A tiny orchid

One of my tinier orchids is blooming now, Specklinia grobyi, formerly known as Pleurothallis grobyi.  I actually have two plants of this species, from different sources.  This one is from Andy's Orchids, and has a much paler flower than the one I got from Ecuagenera, which bloomed last fall.



They are so tiny and delicate, and now looking at the pictures on my computer, I see that I broke a flower while photographing!  Boo!



Each flower is about 8 mm long (less than 3/8 inch), on a six-inch spike. The reddish thread right above my finger in the last picture is the base of the spike.

The whole plant is such a tidy little package.

Feathery spines

Today I have a truly beautiful little cactus to show. 



This is Mammillaria duwei, currently considered to be a subspecies of Mammillaria crinita, just like Mammillaria zeilmanniana.  Which, by the way, just keeps getting better and better!



M. crinita is apparently a hugely variable species.  This is why I'm a "splitter," not a "lumper."  I'm going to keep calling these duwei and zeilmanniana.

The duwei subspecies is native to central Mexico and like the zeilmanniana, is critically endangered in the wild.  It's threatened by habitat loss and overcollection, with only an estimated 500 or so individuals left in its natural habitat.  This is so sad, because it's a beautiful species (which of course led to the overcollecting).  Mine is seed grown from a nursery.



I am completely enchanted by the feathery spines.



They almost look like jellyfish larvae that have drifted down onto the plant.



Just beautiful.

Sleepy

Another Echeveria is blooming, this one is called Sleepy.  I wonder if there are six other hybrids named for the rest of the dwarves.



This one is very pretty, with orange and yellow flowers that don't fully open.  Similar and yet distinct from my other varieties.

Floofy

Ahhh, so pretty!  This is amaryllis #28 for the year, Aphrodite.



This is a replacement bulb that the company sent me after I reported a mislabeled bulb (the second Dancing Queen).



I'm so glad it was correct this time.  It's so floofy and frothy and delicately colored.

Repeat bloomers are so satisfying

This beauty opened yesterday, Parodia werneri (formerly Notocactus uebelmannianus), which is native to southern Brazil.

This is the little cactus that I got last April on my way back from the Portland orchid show. (Speaking of which, I went again this year and had great fun!  Emma and I made a weekend of it.  I'll have to post on that soon.)



This little cactus is so pretty.  It's a fairly slow growing species so it hasn't gotten much bigger since last year, only adding about three rings of spines, but it's blooming right on schedule.  This is one of the few cacti I have that isn't under lights in the basement.  This was an early acquisition in what became my cactus-obsession, and so received a spot on the sunny east windowsill in my dining room.

The petals fairly glow.

A little different

Up today is Mammillaria bocasana roseiflora, a selected form of a species native to northern central Mexico.  It looks soft and cuddly, but watch out!  In among those soft and silky hairlike spines are a few that are hooked, just waiting for an unsuspecting hand to brush by.



This is a pretty cactus with long-petaled pink flowers.  I like it.