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 ABOUTfeatured: 30 Best Snorkeling Blogs Fun Ways to enjoy the caribbeanArchive for the ‘Flowers’Feb 1, 12 Comments (0)
Good morning friends, I have a big beautiful Tillandsia Air-Plant for you all this morning which was just one of millions that we saw on our hike last Sunday at Mount Christoffel. A Tillandsia is a Bromeliad but not all Bromeliads are Tillandsias. Bromeliad is the Family name, Tillandsia is the genus. Airplants are the common name for Tillandsias (sometimes called “Air Plants”). Not all Bromeliads are Airplants. Airplants grow without soil while most types of Bromeliads do best in soil. Tillandsias grow naturally in South and Central America and southern parts of the United States. They are in the Bromeliad family, and are sometimes referred to as “air plants.” Hundreds of different varieties grow on trees, rocks, cliffs, and various types of cacti. Thin-leaf varieties grow in areas with more rain, and thick-leaf varieties in areas more subject to drought. No soil is needed to grow these unique plants. All water and nutrients are taken through the leaves. Their roots are used as wire-like anchors. Bromeliads or Tillandsias have a growth cycle starting with one plant growing to maturity and then blooming! One to two months after the bloom has finished, new plants form around the base of the “mother” plant. They will then eventually mature and complete their blooming cycle in one to several years, depending upon the variety and growing conditions. I did three dives yesterday. The first was with two models shooting some photos for Scuba Diver Magazine again the other two were with Mark from the World famous “Dive Bus” and a friend of his up the coast. All this week we are involved in a project of moving corals from one place to another due to up-coming construction project and if they don’t get moved they won’t have a chance. So today starting at 11:00 we will again be doing 2-3 more dives and moving corals and taking them to their new homes a short ways down the reef. So much to do, have a wonderful day, Barry Jan 26, 12 Comments (0)
Hi friends, here’s one of the prettiest flowers on the island called a Passion flower or Passiflora foetida. It is also known as Love-in-a-Mist, Foetid Passionflower, Running Pop, Scarletfruit Passionflower, Stinking Passionflower, Tagua Passionflower, Wild Passion Fruit and Wild Water Lemon. The name foetida (Latin for foetid) came about because the damaged leaves emit an unpleasant odor. This species is quite varied: the flowers can be white, pink, purple or blue and the fruits are orange and the size of a kumquat. The leaves are trilobed or pentalobed, hairy and sticky and the stems are very thin, also covered with sticky hair. These sticky hairs can catch insects which are digested by enzymes contained in the sticky liquid. It is not clear if the plant retrieves part of its diet from this, it is more likely that it is a protection against possible damage caused by these insects. Many Passiflora have very complex flowers, some are scented, some are used in commercial perfumes. In the early 1600′s Catholic priests in Peru saw a religious symbolism to this plant. The name “Passion Flower” is said to derive from the vines flower resembling the crown of thorns placed on Christ’s head. Others say that the parts of the plant symbolize features of the Crucifixion, known as, “the Passion of Christ”. The ten sepals and petals are the ten apostles (minus Judas and Peter), the darker circle the crown of thorns, the five stamens the wounds, the three styles the nails, and the leaves the hands of the persecutors. For those of you asking, the little mamma hummingbird is doing great and still sitting on her eggs, we just got home from watching her. It was another busy day, I dove and Aimee worked with dolphins, yeah I know tough life!! Dinner is calling, Barry PS; I want to thank everyone again for you continued support and all the GREAT comments I receive each and every day! In fact I get so many comments (around 1500 a week) that it is no longer possible for me to answer them but know that I really do appreciate you taking the time to post a comment!! Cheers!!
Jan 24, 12 Comments (0)
Good morning friends, here’s another flower from the same cotton plant, Gossypium hirsutum that I sent you a few weeks ago, except this one is light yellow. These are growing wild and out of control behind the Curacao Sea Aquarium. Gossypium hirsutum is a soft, fluffy, staple fiber that grows in a form known as a boll around the seeds of the cotton plant, a shrub native to tropical and subtropical regions around the world, including the Americas, India and Africa. The fiber most often is spun into yarn or thread and used to make a soft, breathable textile, that is a most widely used natural-fiber in clothing today. Through genetic assistance and breeding, today’s cottons have evolved from these “wild” sources and are more processing friendly. Currently, there are five prominent types of cotton being grown commercially around the world: Egyptian, Sea Island, American Pima, Asiatic and Upland. In addition to the textile industry, cotton is in fishnets, coffee filters, tents, gunpowder (see Nitrocellulose), cotton paper, and in bookbinding. The cottonseed which remains after the cotton is ginned is used to produce cottonseed oil, which, after refining, can be consumed by humans like any other vegetable oil. The cottonseed meal that is left generally is fed to ruminant livestock. Cottonseed hulls can be added to dairy cattle rations for roughage. The top leading producers of cotton are China, India, US, Pakistan and Egypt. The five leading exporters of cotton are (1) the United States, (2) India, (3) Uzbekistan, (4) Brazil, and (5) Australia. The cotton plant is grown from seed and usually bears fruit or bolls in about 100 days after planting. Around 45 days after, the cotton boll will begin to naturally split open along the bolls segments or carpels and dry out, exposing the underlying cotton segments called locks. An average boll will contain nearly 500,000 fibers of cotton and each plant may bear up to 100 bolls.
Since it rained almost all day yesterday I took the day off and completed a ton of little jobs that really had to get finished. I first photographed a new snail I found in the driveway and again in doing so got stung not once but twice in the arm by hornets that were nesting in nearby bush. My arm was super swollen all day yesterday and is still a bit puffy this morning. I then spent at least two hours trying to finish my new driftwood creation that will be a gift for a friends new house, boy is it heavy, I bet it weighs close to 200 pounds! At 6:00 I had a meeting at Carmabi, that’s our local “coral research”/ “coral protection” agency here in Curacao and they really do a pretty good job. I went there asking for help and advise in moving some corals that must be moved soon in front of a new development and they were very helpful.
That’s it for me today, not a whole lot going on, hope all is well out there! Be back soon, Barry
Jan 17, 12 Comments Off
Good morning from sickville AGAIN!! Now I am sick with another stupid cold and Aimee is still fighting hers. We currently have a record amount of people sick at work which means those who aren’t sick soon will be. I even ran into an old friend out walking his dogs and he was so sick with the flu he could hardly walk, I didn’t even shake his hand, I just yelled “Happy New Year” and ran past him at full speed!
Our island still looks like a Brazilian rainforest even though the rains have stopped considerably. Most of the island is currently covered in this carpet of pink flowers called Coral Vines or Bride’s Tears, Antigonon leptopus and it’s more or less killing everything underneath. In this photo there is supposed to be a big beautiful tree on the right but with all the rain this plant completely covered it! The Coral vine is very difficult to remove as it possesses small tubers which can grow quite deep into the ground. After the rains these tubers will rapidly sprout new vines and within a short time everything will again be covered by this plant! The leaves are oblong heart-shaped and make a knobby impression. The flowers hang down in large fiery rose-red branches. There also exists a variety with white flowers and to see a large area of this color variation is truly a sight to behold, it’s like a blanket of snow covering everything.
Hope all is well out there, miss you guys!! Barry
Jan 11, 12 Comments Off
Good morning friends, here’s something cool, this the flower from a cotton plant,Gossypium hirsutum that I found growing behind the Curacao Sea Aquarium. Gossypium hirsutum is a soft, fluffy, staple fiber that grows in a form known as a boll around the seeds of the cotton plant, a shrub native to tropical and subtropical regions around the world, including the Americas, India and Africa. The fiber most often is spun into yarn or thread and used to make a soft, breathable textile, that is a most widely used natural-fiber in clothing today. Through genetic assistance and breeding, today’s cottons have evolved from these “wild” sources and are more processing friendly. Currently, there are five prominent types of cotton being grown commercially around the world: Egyptian, Sea Island, American Pima, Asiatic and Upland. In addition to the textile industry, cotton is in fishnets, coffee filters, tents, gunpowder (see Nitrocellulose), cotton paper, and in bookbinding. The cottonseed which remains after the cotton is ginned is used to produce cottonseed oil, which, after refining, can be consumed by humans like any other vegetable oil. The cottonseed meal that is left generally is fed to ruminant livestock. Cottonseed hulls can be added to dairy cattle rations for roughage. The top leading producers of cotton are China, India, US, Pakistan and Egypt. The five leading exporters of cotton are (1) the United States, (2) India, (3) Uzbekistan, (4) Brazil, and (5) Australia. The cotton plant is grown from seed and usually bears fruit or bolls in about 100 days after planting. Around 45 days after, the cotton boll will begin to naturally split open along the bolls segments or carpels and dry out, exposing the underlying cotton segments called locks. An average boll will contain nearly 500,000 fibers of cotton and each plant may bear up to 100 bolls.
Not much going on at the moment things seem to be fairly quiet here. Stijn and I went for a fast ride last night but I ended up having some bike problems due to a new swing-arm I put on yesterday, will have to take it in to the shop today.
Aimee and I are taking the dogs to the North coast early this morning, I need to pick up some wood that I left there a few days ago. Have a great day,
Barry
Jun 24, 11 Comments Off
Howdy gang, here’s a new one for my flower lovers out there, this is called Royal Poinciana, or Delonix regia and it’s by far the most beautiful tree on the island! When we lived in Cancun, Mexico years ago the locals told us this tree was called “the flame of the forest” or “flame tree” and in Spanish it’s Arbol de Fuefo. This tree is constantly voted among the top five most beautiful flowering tree in the World, you really have to see it to believe it! When you see one of these from a distance it looks like the whole thing is on fire, hence the name, “flame tree”. The Royal Poinciana is native to Madagascar and related to the Tamarind and Mimosa trees. The astonishing reddish orange flowers bloom in dense clusters which create a solid picture of color and the older the tree the more intensely it will bloom.
I just got home from a fast ride thru the wilds of Curacao with my buddy Stiyn who just keeps getting faster and faster with every ride! All this rain has made the trails very difficult and dangerous to ride, the plants are growing so fast and there are loose rocks everywhere! Not much else to report, all is quiet, hope you all are doing well. Sorry so short, be back tomorrow, Barry
Jan 14, 11 Comments Off
Good day everyone, it’s weekend time! I have so much stuff to do tomorrow and Sunday that it will be tough to get half of it finished. Today I did three more dives in very rough seas. All day the waves kept getting bigger and bigger and underwater it was a total mess of churned up sand, dirt and plankton making picture taking a big challenge. Today was “bring on the pain day” for me, I was freakishly getting hurt all day, and don’t say it’s old age! I first walked right into solid steel hook on the end of a crane and fell on the ground, nice bump on the head and cut my knee. Then while walking with the bag of ice on my head I kicked the edge of the Photoshop counter with my toe, more blood, then slipped on the moving platform putting my dive gear on, cut my finger, more blood, then later kicked the same spot in the Photoshop again, more blood and last stepped on a long thorn that went thru my flip-flop into my foot, yep, more blood! Man what a day, I feel like I wrecked on my mountain bike!
Here’s a flower we call French Cotton or Giant Milkweed (Calotropis procera) and has the coolest most beautiful clusters of lavender and purple flowers. The locals call this plant the Katuna di Seda, Katunbom and in Dutch it’s called Zijkatoen, say that ten times real fast!! This plant is originally from Africa and can be found here in Curacao anywhere that the locals have removed the natural vegetation, meaning it’s everywhere and easy to find. The plant contains a milky sap which sticks to the skin but does not have any harmful effects and the stem and the undersides of the leaves are covered with small hairs. It’s rather small flowers are white and purple and grow in the axils of the leaves. The seedpods are greatly inflated and contain seeds with silk-like fluff (the cotton) which bursts open and disperse the seeds by the wind.
Very tired, have some car horror stories for you later, we found the worst place on the island to take a vehicle for body repair. Have a wonderful weekend, I need to go find a new Band-Aid! Bye, Barry
Sep 13, 10 Comments Off
Good morning everyone, surprise: Aimee here! Yes, Barry and I finally went on vacation together! It is so wonderful! Yesterday was the best day ever! The weather could not have been more perfect with a slight breeze blowing over the golden prairie just enough to cool us down, the brilliant blue sky with hardly a cloud in it and this little oasis of flowers and animals right in the center of it all! To begin with, it seems like a holiday around here and we have eaten more food in one day than in most weeks! This involves about 10 people, huge tables, ham and potatoes and all the fixings. We keep laughing about all the eating that is going on. After the birthday of the night before there many people here and soon after breakfast Karin took me on a great horseback ride around their place. This was quite a ride (for over an hour in just one, single pasture) on one of their working horses and I really enjoyed learning how to guide and cue the horse to open gates from up on top of her. Out on our ride we got to see so much of their local wildlife from deer, to coyotes, to quite a large herd of antelope making a dust storm moving across the prairie; it’s life a wildlife park out here! Barry took this time to go with one of the kids to check out a new fossil area and see what it had. The afternoon was spent with people relaxing in the front yard, watching the turkeys and sage hens, kids playing and women getting lunch made. It was a wonderful picnic in the yard with hamburgers and beer and cake. Wow. Barry spent his afternoon taking photos of a 50 caliber sniper rifle in the barn, where he fixed up an entire studio area. Some of the kids helped him as assistants and that gave me time to help in the kitchen and then to set out to video and photo some of the turkeys in the yard. There is one mamma and about 10 of her young; wow, so much fun. I learned if I sat down and started reading and ignored them, they got quite curious and came within about 10 feet of me, clucking and talking all the way. Soon after it was once again time to eat, as others headed out to their respective homes for the beginning of the week. Wow. What a great day. I could just get lost here for sure. I love this photo, it’s a “Flower Face” that we found in the garden, I guess you need to use your imagination. We are off for a full day of hiking and then at 5:00 Barry is photographing some cowboys. See you tomorrow, Aimee Sep 12, 10 Comments Off
Good morning from Wyoming again. Aimee and I had a super fun Saturday out here on the ranch yesterday. We went with our friend Karine (who was just in Curacao with us) on four-wheelers in search of new fossil locations on their land. Aimee and I shared a vehicle and she drove, it was pretty much non-stop fun from the beginning till the end. We ended up finding some great new areas that I will go back to today while Aimee and Karine go horse back ridding. Last night we sat in on a fantastic home made country dinner and after celebrated two birthdays, again it was a really fun evening. Still fighting my cold/throat infection junk, what a drag, I am blaming my boss Dutch and his son for this as they were both super sick when I left, I knew I would get it! Here is another fast snap-shot of the garden they have here. These are Gloriosa Daisys or Rudbeckia that are still busting with color and were screaming at me to come take their photo. Off to play, talk to you again soon, Barry Sep 11, 10 Comments Off
Hello all, remember me? The last few days have been crazy! I lost my compact flash drive with all my pre-made and ready underwater photos, I can’t find it anywhere! I am thinking it fell out of a sweater pocket when I was taking it off but who knows!? Well let’s see, Thursday night I drove out to the airport and picked up Aimee who flew in for two weeks. After collecting luggage we had to stay in the airport for awhile due to an incredible thunderstorm that was dumping rain like you can’t imagine but after we all were treated to beautiful rainbows and the sound of chirping birds. I am still sick and yesterday went to a doctor who said I have some kind of lung infection and gave me some pills but so far they don’t seem to be doing much. Aimee and I spent yesterday shopping and driving around to see friends, it has been so much fun! In the afternoon we drove up to Hill City (about 25 miles from Rapid City) and spent the afternoon with our friend Neal Larson who is owner of the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research. Neal was great, he took us all over and gave us the grand tour, it’s really the most amazing place in South Dakota, I highly recommend this place on your next vacation to South Dakota. After that we met our friends Leon and Sheila at the World famous Alpine Inn steak house for dinner, it was fantastic and we all had a great evening. Aimee and I are now back up in Wyoming, we drove here early this morning. We will probably hang out on the ranch for a few days then head out fossil collecting starting on Monday. That’s about it in a nutshell. Here’s a beautiful Zinna with a little green spider sitting on top, one of the zillions of beautiful and cool things out here on the ranch. Talk to you all soon, Barry Sep 4, 10 Comments Off
Good morning friends, I am waking up in one of the most beautiful and peaceful places on planet Earth located in the upper right hand corner of Wyoming. Yesterday I arrived at my destination at around 8:30 and after a few hugs I immediately grabbed my camera and started shooting flowers that our friends have growing in their own prairie oasis! The garden these ladies have here is nothing short of spectacular, they should charge admission! So after an hour of running from one flower to the next I then took off on a fun afternoon of hiking the prairie on their ranch. I wish I could describe to you how quiet it was out there yesterday, no planes, no cars, no people, no nothing, just a gentle wind and the sound of my footsteps, it was great! I have told my friends from Curacao and Holland that you can stand at the top of any given hill here and look out in any direction and see nothing but land but I think that’s hard to believe unless you see it for yourself. I had a great day yesterday driving around in a jeep and collecting fossils and pretty much just singing to myself most of the day. In the evening I was treated to a dinner fit for a King with fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, and corn from their garden, yummy! The above flower is for my dear wife who is working hard in Curacao today, I sure wish you were here! The good news, my luggage arrived! Better late than never! See you tomorrow, Barry Jul 31, 10 Comments Off
!oacaruC morf olleH, That’s a big backwards Hello from Curacao for you all this fine evening! By request again and not from the same people, here are more “now blooming” Curacao Wildflowers. Again I shot these with my 105 macro so these are very small flowers! In fact the one at the top left, the whole cluster of flowers is the size of a pencil eraser! Most of these I found along the road and I am sure they are some kind of weed but boy are they ever beautiful! The top right is my newest re-shoot of those tiny starfish looking flowers which I just found the name for. They are called, Tournefortia Volubilis, ( Boraginaceae) Twining Soldierbush and the salmon colored flower at the bottom right both open when the sun hits them in the morning and close within two hours, that’s it! I saw a ton of the blue flowers this morning out in the desert like the ones in the left hand corner. This flower grows wild in big bushes and when blooming like they were this morning it’s quite a sight! I have found it close to impossible to get nice shots out in the wild as the wind is always blowing. For the orange starfish flower photo I first found a cluster I liked then gently cut it and stuck the cut end in a piece of dried wood that was on the ground and used my camera case as the background. I laid on my stomach in the dirt and blocked the wind with my body and thanks to my little tripod I was able to make it work, this is what we go thru for a single photo.
We are off to an employee party, see you all again tomorrow. If you find names for any of the flowers I have sent please let me know so I can update my web page.
See ya, Barry
Jul 11, 10 Comments Off
Good evening all, this one’s for Aimee tonight, this is her favorite flower called Frangipani or Plumeria. As the story goes, a year ago Aimee was walking around near Punda and passed some gardeners trimming a giant Frangipani Tree. She grabbed a freshly cut piece and brought it home and immediately placed it in water and set it in our kitchen window where it stayed for next two to three months until it finally had roots. Next we bought a big pot and planted it in fresh soil and placed it outside for the first time since she brought it home and weeks later it started to grow. It then stayed in the pot outside on our porch for the next few months until she finally asked the gardeners if they would plant it outside in our garden where it has been ever since. Because of all this rain it finally started to really grow and this week we had the first flowers! Plumeria flowers are most fragrant at night in order to lure sphinx moths to pollinate them. The flowers have no nectar, and simply dupe their pollinators. The moths inadvertently pollinate them by transferring pollen from flower to flower in their fruitless search for nectar. Plumeria is related to the Oleander, Nerium Oleander, and both possess poisonous, milky sap, rather similar to that of Euphorbia. Each of the separate species of Plumeria bears differently shaped alternate leaves and their form and growth habits are also distinct.
Well lets see, what’s going on? We all thought Holland would win the World Cup of Soccer today but Spain took home the gold, we have a whole lot of disappointed folks here tonight! Lance Armstrong is currently 12 minutes behind in the Tour de France and doesn’t think he will be able to make up that much time but may concentrate on a stage win instead. Big congrats to Andy Schleck for winning a very tough stage of the Tour de France today, he’s one of the top riders that comes to Curacao every year and we always end up running into him and his brother Frank.
I took the dogs to the beach this morning and bagged trash while they played and then spent the rest of the day at home on the computer. That’s about it gang, be back tomorrow, Barry
Jul 6, 10 Comments Off
Hi readers of the blog, welcome to another night of “what’s going on in Curacao”! Here’s a new flower I found today. We have a local book on the island called “Our plants and trees” where I found this information, “This comes from a flowering tree called, Cordia dentata, Clammy cherry, Lolbolly tree or White manjack. Here on the island of Curacao the locals call this Karawara or Karawara di Mondi and the Dutch call it just Karawara. This tree has oval-round leaves and are rough to the touch. When flowering it grows large umbels of small yellowish white flowers which is similar to the European elder. After the blooming period, large, white, glassy berries are formed on the flower stems. The contents of these berries are very sticky. Many birds are very fond of these fruits. The bare-eyed pigeon swallows the berries whole but smaller birds which peck at the berries get the sticky substance on their beaks and when trying to rub it off on some branch they usually drop seeds on the ground which in time will make new trees. The branches of this tree are being used as ribs in small boats and the locals here put the berries in drinking water to give it a fresh taste. Also the flowers can be put into a container of drinking water and drunk during the day to “refresh” the kidneys.”
This morning I took the dogs for a nice long walk without the camera and ended up seeing a bunch of cool stuff so the minute I got back home I grabbed the camera and went back out to re-find and shoot what I had seen earlier. We had a nice rain go over this morning and after it was dead calm making it a perfect time to shoot flowers. I back home again around 10:00 and it was hot and humid so after a shower I took for an afternoon of running errands and then spent the rest of the day on the Mac! At 5:00 I went for a fast one hour ride with some friends and came home very tired. That’s about it guys, puppies are still doing great, we are walking them so much every day that they have no time to even think about being bad!
Off to bed, have a wonderful Wednesday! Barry
Jun 28, 10 Comments Off
Hi friends, I have had so many requests for more Curacao Wildflowers so here you go again. These are four more that I found either along side the road or out in the desert. The red one is the flower that I brought home from Sunset Waters yesterday and re-potted it and it’s doing great! Unfortunately I don’t have a clue what any of these are, possibly weeds?? If any of you have any time to surf the web or already know please send me a note and I will go back and label them all online. Many have asked me what is the secret to shooting flowers? Well really folks I am not a pro at flowers but am learning by trial and error. For these small wildflowers you first need a tripod that is a must! I am using a Nikon 105mm 2.8 macro lens but a 60mm would work nicely as well. If your shooting flowers in the wild you will need a calm morning or evening with zero wind, moving flowers are a nightmare to shoot. Find a flower with a nice background, just get on your knees and look behind it, the best backgrounds are typically dark so your flower really stands out. I shoot a lot of mine at around 250 F-14 using a slow rear flash on just about every shot, flash is very important and if the flower is moving a little this will help to keep it sharp. Normally I find if I shoot to low of an F-stop like F-5.6, thru F-8 the flower is not sharp enough, and if you go too much like F-22 your background will then start to become distracting, you just have to mess around with it and see the results for yourself. Go out right after a rain shower, that is the best time as you get all those tiny droplets on everything, it’s really beautiful. If you have any general questions I can help and if I don’t know the answer I bet I can find someone that does, good luck and most of all have fun!
It was an overcast day here in Curacao, it looked like it was going to rain almost all day but it never did although it looked like Venezuela was getting hit hard! I’m out, busy day tomorrow, Barry
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