This dazzling white and pink lily is probably Crinum zeylanicum, but, since it was found in a human-curated area (Lake Lotus Park, Altamonte Springs, FL), it may be any one of, or a hybrid of, a number of human-cultivated variations of the basic “Crinum lily”, including C. zeylanicum (its closest equivalent, visually) or others. I…
Tag: flower
Common Buttonbush
Native to the eastern United States, the common buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis) attracts both birds and butterflies with its inch-wide, white spherical blossoms. Buttonbush is a shrub in the Rubiaceae family, often used as an ornamental plant or windbreak. It can get to be pretty large, about 8′ high and 14′ wide. (I am NOT a…
Frogfruit
Ah, the lengths to which I have gone in order to write a post entitled “Frogfruit”. This, er, eccentrically-named plant is also called capeweed, matchweed, and turkey tangle fogfruit, probably not by the same people. It is described as “interesting foliage” by the Florida Native Plant Society. The flower has a spherical purple center (a…
Shepherd’s Needles
This small, white, daisy-like flower with white petals and a yellow center made out of smaller, yellow flowers is Bidens alba, a fast-growing wildflower also known as shepherd’s needles, beggarticks, Spanish needles or butterfly needles. Bidens means two-toothed, and describes the twin projections at the top of the plant’s thin, elongated, black, stick-to-clothing seeds. This…
Oxalis Debilis
I originally took the plant this flower was on to be a clover, but now I am slightly smarter and know that plants in the genus Oxalis just happen to have triplet, round leaves that look like those of clover plants, and are not actually clover (Trifolium sp.) at all. I can’t claim to be…
Long-Tailed Skipper
This one was hard to identify, mostly because “black swallowtail” describes a bunch of species, and “black butterfly” describes even more. Ironically, this is a very distinctive butterfly which I happened to catch at a terrible angle: if I’d seen this butterfly from above, I would have noticed the bright blue upper side which would…
The Zombie Plant
Mimosa pudica, also known as bashfulgrass, touch me not, the sensitive plant, and the zombie plant: the compound leaves fold inward and droop when touched or shaken, defending themselves from harm, and re-open about half an hour later. Click here to see a video of the leaves folding when touched, and then re-opening in time…