Thank you to Johnson Farms, Inc@Flickr for today's image of a hardy geranium. The original image can be seen here, and it was shared via the BPotD Flickr Group Pool.

The cultivar name of this hardy geranium is 'Gerwat', but it is sold under the trade designation Geranium Rozanne. Trade designations add yet another layer of complexity (and some might say confusion) to answering the question, “What is the name of that plant?” The Royal Horticultural Society has a tidy summary on trade designations and trade marks; it is worthwhile reading it to understand why a plant can have two or three different names on the same label (e.g., common name of Rozanne hardy geranium, cultivar name of Geranium 'Gerwat' and trade name of Geranium Rozanne).

For gardening information on this meritorious hardy geranium, visit the Kemper Center for Home Gardening's page on Geranium 'Gerwat' Rozanne or see this page from Blooms of Bressingham in New Zealand. Interested in geraniums? Visit the web site of The Geraniaceae Group

In UBC garden web site news, you might be interested to read this blog interview with me about Blogging at UBC Botanical Garden on The Little Garden.

Small tidbit from the resource link from two days ago regarding Lomo-style images: I forgot to mention I discovered it via Darren Barefoot's weblog.

Botany resource link: Desmids in the Netherlands is a site dedicated to the unicellular green alga in the Desmidiaceae and Mesotaeniaceae. Includes a Desmid of the Month – I'm a fan of Euastrum humerosum, myself. Little green beauties.

Thanks to two people on Flickr for today's images: Van in NYC@Flickr for the first image and springgal@Flickr for the abstract second image. Original images can be seen here and here. Many thanks to both of you!

Bird of paradise or crane flower is a short shrub native to South Africa, though its flowers are commonly seen in fairly expensive cut flower arrangements around the world. At first glance, its flowers may confuse as to how they are structured, but it isn't too difficult to decipher. The orange-yellow parts are sepals, not petals. It does have petals, though, and they have two forms. One is the thumb-shaped nub at the base of the long dark-coloured structure in the centre of the flower – this is the “free petal”. The other petals are united into the structure that resembles a toothed bird's beak. If you were to peel these united petals back along the toothed groove, you'd find the pollen-producing anthers. The stigma, or pollen-receiving surface, extends outwards beyond the united petals.

Botany / photography resource link: Kurt Stüber's Index of Four Thousand Botanical Images, indexed by numerical order, plant name and family.

My recent trip to Manitoba didn't have much time available for photography, though I did manage to sneak in a few hours on one day before a thunderstorm and downpour ended that day's venture.

Blue-eyed grass, or, as the USDA PLANTS database suggests, strict blue-eyed grass, is native to much of central and northern North America. Of course, it is not a true grass, as evidenced by the flowers with tepals (grass flower morphology is a topic for another day!).

As I've previously mentioned on BPotD, the distribution maps in the Flora of North America are superior to the maps supplied by the USDA PLANTS site if you want to know more about the plant than merely presence or absence in a jurisdiction; see the Flora of North America account for the species and its distribution map in particular.

A gardening perspective on this plant is available from Nature North, while Wikipedia's account for the genus, Sisyrinchium reveals the meaning of its name and shows some of the diversity of flower colour and form within the genus.

Photography resource link: For inspiration, visit West Light Images, the photography of Utah's David C. Schultz.

Today's photograph was taken in mid-June of 2005. Many thanks to Brent Hine, UBC's curator of the E.H. Lohbrunner Alpine Garden, for sharing it.

This is the second unidentified species of Lilium from a collection expedition to Sichuan to be featured on BPotD. The previous entry was on November 1, 2005. Ignoring the fact that there are paired flowers on today's plant, you can see a superficial resemblance between the flowers of the two different lilies in tepal colouration and markings. Both have white tepals peppered with black spots (what is a tepal and how is it different from a petal? In the broad sense, both the petals and sepals (see photograph in this link) of a flower are tepals, but tepal is typically used as a term when the petals and sepals can not be easily differentiated from one another, such as the three petals and three sepals in these lilies).

If you feel like wearing your plant taxonomist hat today, feel free to add a comment on how the two flowers differ (again ignoring the obvious paired flowers in today's plant, which I'm not certain as to whether it is a chance or common occurrence).

Botany / conservation resource link: Learn about Centres of Plant Diversity in The Americas. Each centre is described in detail including geography, flora and vegetation.

Colour@Flickr has submitted today's photograph (original image | BPotD Flickr Group Pool). I highly recommend you spend some time visiting Colour's Flickr stream of images – much to admire! Thanks, Colour!

In South Africa, it is reportedly possible to see fields of this species blooming en masse. That must be quite a sight.

The story of Zantedeschia aethiopica is aptly told by Alice Aubrey of Witwatersrand National Botanical Garden in this account; the story includes tidbits such as the origin of its name, its history in cultivation and its ethnobotany. Plant of the Week goes into details of its cultural requirements. I'd love to share the story of its floral biology, but I'm still on vacation and don't have my reference material handy. Perhaps when I return!

Photography resource link: Nancy Camel is a nature photographer from Louisiana. Plenty to admire in her portfolio of photographs (don't neglect to check out her bird photos – top-notch!).

Today's photograph is courtesy of marcella2@Flickr (original image | BPotD Flickr Group Pool). If you click on the marcella2@Flickr link, you'll be greeted by over three dozen other images of plants. Thank you, marcella2!

The European meadow salsify (or showy goat's-beard or Jack-go-to-bed-at-noon) can now be found as an introduced species throughout most of North America. I think (read on).

The USDA PLANTS database suggests that Tragopogon pratensis is not valid, and that the plant should actually be known as Tragopogon lamottei. What's curious is that some recent scientific papers mention both Tragopogon pratensis and Tragopogon lamottei as separate species in their experiments (see: Mavrodiev et. al. 2005. Phylogeny of Tragopogon L. (Asteraceae) Based on Internal and External Transcribed Spacer Sequence Data. International Journal of Plant Sciences. 166:117–133). Unfortunately, I don't currently have access to the primary scientific literature to resolve why there is some apparent confusion surrounding the name – it will have to wait until later in the week when I return from Manitoba.

Photography resource link: “How to Find the Best Light for a Specific Photograph”, an article from The Luminous Landscape by Alain Briot.

Thank you again to contemplar@Flickr for today's photograph (original image | BPotD Flickr Group Pool). Don't forget to visit her weblog, Blog de cheiros (in Portuguese). Many thanks, contemplar!

The first time I encountered jacaranda was in Syndey, Australia a few years ago, where it was being used as a street tree. It is actually a native of subtropical South America, but its beauty contributes to it being widely cultivated around the world. Unfortunately, in some areas (Queensland in Australia, South Africa), it does too well – it is considered an invasive plant in those regions.

The Wikipedia entry for Jacaranda mimosifolia is jammed with information on subjects such as nomenclature, distribution and plant care.

Science learning / botany resource link: “Growing Vocabularies for Plant Identification and Scientific Learning” from the June / July 2006 Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology. The article highlights an effort to bridge the gap between the plant identification vocabularies used by students and those used by professional scientists. Thanks to karol on the UBC forums for pointing this out.

Commonly known as prairie smoke or old man's whiskers, you need a photograph of the plumose achenes to see why: visit the Burke Museum of Natural History's page for Geum triflorum for an extensive set of images of this species. Distributed across southern Canada, the northern USA and the southwestern USA, it has also been introduced into cultivation.

In BPotD news, you might like to revisit this BPotD entry on the Agave border in Lotusland. Mike Bush, Lotusland's Executive Director, has sent along some images of what the garden looks like in bloom.

Local readers might be interested in visiting the Pendulum Gallery before June 24 to see Alex Waterhouse-Hayward's latest exhibition, “Secret Gardens: Vancouver's Hidden Rooftops” (PDF). If you're not local, anyone can enjoy Alex's weblog, one of the best photography weblogs around.

Nature / photography resource link: The Micropolitan Museum is proudly presented by “the Institute for the Promotion of the Less than One Millimeter”. Photomicrographs at their finest, the virtual museum includes a Botanical Garden!

From time to time, I get to share a photograph of a plant that isn't already on the web – a Botany Photo of the Day Exclusive, I suppose. Today's images is one of those, though the plant is starting to become commercially available in North America (a search for its name turns up only a few North American nursery catalogues and some botanical work on the species in China).

This little-known honeysuckle, Lonicera crassifolia, forms a prostrate mat of evergreen foliage. The epithet crassifolia translates to “thick-leaved”, a suitable descriptor for this species.

The second photograph was snapped a few weeks ago, when the flower buds were beginning to develop. The first photograph, taken last Friday, shows some of the first flowers to blossom this year, but also hints at the profusion of flowers to come. Today, I observed plants with a mass of yellowish flowers tinted by hints of orange and pink, all offset against the dark-green foliage. Quite pleasing to the eye. If I have an opportunity to photograph it this week, I'll post an image as a follow-up comment.

Science / art resource link: Sci-Philately, “A Selective History of Science on Stamps”. My favourite is the set of six stamps from the British Antarctic Territory in the Geology and Mapping collection.

Another species of red-hot poker, Kniphofia nelsonii, was featured on BPotD last year. Kniphofia northiae is a brute in comparison; the inflorescences are roughly twice as large, and the leaves more closely resemble those of Agave instead of the grass-like foliage of Kniphofia nelsonii (image search). It is with good reason that the common name for this plant is giant poker or giant red-hot poker (though I've seen one reference call it octopus red-hot poker).

Kniphofia northiae is found in South Africa, the centre of diversity for the genus. However, the genus is more broadly distributed throughout continental Africa. Species can also be found in Madagascar and Yemen.

Photography resource link: Transient Light, the photography of Ian Cameron of Scotland. The gallery section is the highlight, but also visit the new images section for a few more photographs.

Thank you to Weekend Gardener of Coquitlam, British Columbia for today's image (submitted via the BPotD Submissions Forum on the UBC boards) | original thread / image). Much appreciated!

Beautiful to see the plants, delightful to smell the flowers, but don't eat the seeds of Japanese wisteria or any of its relatives; they're poisonous. Wikipedia has an excellent article on Wisteria, including mention of the origin of the generic name; it is named after Dr. Caspar Wistar by the eminent botanist, Thomas Nuttall.

Botany / conservation resource link: Background information on the potential Okanagan-Similkameen National Park Reserve in the southern interior of British Columbia via Botanical Electronic News. I might be writing more about this possible park in the near future.

Special thanks to lyda_pearl of Berlin, New Hampshire who submitted this image via the BPotD Submissions Forum on the garden's online discussion boards. The original thread and image is here. Many thanks – it's great to receive some images from eastern North America!

Native to eastern North America, painted trillium is found in forests with moist, nutrient-rich, acidic soils. Its epithet, undulatum, means “wavy”; the photograph aptly illustrates that the petal margins are the reason for that name.

A phenomenon mentioned in the entry on Cirsium vulgare (bull thistle) also applies to trilliums – many, if not all, trilliums (including Trillium undulatum) have their seeds dispersed by ants. In other words, they are myrmecochores.

Photography resource link: For inspiration, the photography of Paul Butzi. Paul has also written a number of articles worth investigating.

Considering how much I like taking photographs of this hallmark tree in the Alpine Garden, it's a wonder it hasn't been featured on BPotD previously. Known commonly as either Tasmanian snowgum or Mt. Wellington peppermint, this is one of over seven hundred species of Eucalyptus found in or near Australia.

The striking white part of the flower is not the corolla (i.e., not the flower petals). Instead, as is typical of Eucalyptus species, this is a ring of showy stamens. Where are the petals? In Eucalyptus, the petals are modified into a woody cap that protects the flower bud. This cap, called an operculum, is shed as the bud matures and the staminal ring erupts.

Lastly, here's the small announcement: 40 Small Thank-yous, a proclamation of my intent to make 40 small improvements to the UBC BG site over the next two months as a thank you to you for visiting and helping support the site.

Photography resource link: “Beauty, Cliche, and Other Empiric Tidbits”, an article by Mark Hobson for Nature Photographers Online. “Do beautiful (nature) photos require beautiful subjects?”

Thank you to -Merce-@Flickr for today's photographs (original image 1 and original image 2 via the BPotD Flickr Group Pool). Thank you -Merce-!

Michael Charters from Calflora.net explains that the pronunciation of the generic name for this plant has an emphasis on the first syllable, so it is said “SIL-i-bum”. However, that doesn't prevent certain coworkers of mine from repeating the humorous version of the name when they encounter the plant or images of such (I expect today's “word of the day” at work will be “sillybum”).

Humour aside for the moment, blessed milkthistle is a plant native to the Mediterranean area. Where agriculture has gone, though, it has followed, and it is now found in mild temperate areas around the globe. If you can't take the time to read this report on Silybum marianum from the Global Invasive Species Initiative, I'll share two facts that leapt out at me.

One is that seed production of this plant in infested areas can reach and exceed 500kg/ha (or 446 lbs/acre) – a massive amount, and an indication of why this plant can become a problem.

I'll quote the second fact from the site: “...One reason control methods have been sought after is due to the toxic potential of the thistle. Silybum marianum has caused some of the worst cases of stock poisoning in northwest Tasmania. The poisonous principle is nitrate (Macadam 1966). Cattle and sheep eat the plant material which contains potassium nitrate and break it down by means of ruminal bacteria into the poisonous form (Knott 1971). ‘The nitrite ion...combines with haemoglobin to form methaeglobin ...[which is] incapable of combining with oxygen. If large amounts of methaeglobin are present in the blood stream, affected animals will begin to show respiratory distress for lack of oxygen.’ (Knott 1971) Poisoning threats are increased when the plants are wilting after being cut or partly turned under during plowing and in wet weather (or) when soil moisture is high. In dry conditions they are not considered dangerous (Parsons 1973).” (references to further reading on the bottom of the essay on Silybum marianum).

Photography resource link: When Pretty Isn't Enough, the latest essay from Michael Reichmann of The Luminous Landscape, reminds that photographs are a synthesis of the observer and the observed.

The ever-changing nature of gardens is most strongly evident in the Alpine Garden at UBC; what one sees as particularly showy in one year may not be repeated in the next. I don't recall this Californian tree poppy catching my attention previously, but I was quite enamoured of it when encountering it on Friday.

Native to the Sierra Nevada and coastal ranges of California and Baja California, Dendromecon rigida is a woody shrub that typically grows in post-burn chapparal. Germination of its seeds requires a smoke treatment, but unlike many of the annuals that also establish on sites after a fire, tree poppy also requires its seeds to have been stored in the soil for an extended period (see: Keeley, JE and CJ Fotheringham. 1998. Smoke-induced seed germination in California chapparal. Ecology. 79(7): 2320-2336).

Three more days until a small announcement!

Botany / conservation resource link: Discover the efforts of Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in understanding and conserving the Flora of Madagascar. One of the world's biodiversity hotspots, the flora (and fauna) of Madagascar is under heavy threat of extinction from deforestation.