Category: Plants

Posted on

New Photo Book Published

CLICK this cover image for the bookstore and a preview of all 30 pages.

It is too late to get it for Christmas except in the states, but my reasons for publishing now is to have in January and February to share on trips. I have no ambitions to make money on my photography but operate with an almost obsessive desire to create and these little photo books provide that creative outlet more than anything other than maybe this blog! 🙂 The sharing of photos on this blog and in my gallery are two other outlets and to a lesser degree the sharing of bird photos on eBird and butterfly photos on butterfliesandmoths dot org. 🙂 Right now I’m the biggest contributor of butterfly photos from Costa Rica! 🙂

Check this book out with the free preview and let me know what you think! And I hope you are exploring the world where you live! There’s a lot to discover literally everywhere!

¡Pura Vida!

Posted on

Liking the Lichens

Photographed under the same Higueron Tree as yesterday’s mushrooms, only a few days later and the mushrooms were gone! 🙂

Lichen, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
Lichen, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica
Lichen, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

See also my Just Fungi GALLERY!

🙂

Posted on

Parasola plicatilis: The Pleated Inkcap Mushroom 

and one website called it an “Urban Mushroom” while a third site more logically called it the “Japanese Parasol Mushroom.” 🙂 These were seen on a morning walk growing under the Higueron Tree (Strangler Fig) by the cow pasture in front of my house. This identity was found on the internet which sometimes works if I use the right words! 🙂 I started to just call them “Fluted Mushrooms” (my first impression) but learned on the internet search that that is the name of a culinary recipe! 🙂 There is also a “Fluted Bird’s Nest Mushroom” that is different and concave like a nest. Nature continues to entertain me! 🙂

Pleated Inkcap Mushroom contrasted with a blue washcloth someone threw down or lost.
Continue reading “Parasola plicatilis: The Pleated Inkcap Mushroom “
Posted on

Faces in the Garden

🙂 Well . . . sort of! I earlier introduced my indigenous man statue and maybe a long time ago showed my frog flower pot, not sure. And all along I’ve had this little plastic mother frog with a baby frog on its back sitting on the little rustic wood table between my two wooden rocking chairs on my terrace. It was the souvenir gift from the National Association of Zoo Docents at one of their national meetings that I attended in the states and I still have it! 🙂

Indigenous Man statue hidden the jungle of my back garden, Atenas, Costa Rica.
Continue reading “Faces in the Garden”
Posted on

Banded Peacock

In addition to the Satyrs, several of these Banded Peacock butterflies are staying around while the bulk of butterflies seem to have gone from my gardens.

Banded Peacock Butterfly, Atenas, Costa Rica
Continue reading “Banded Peacock”
Posted on

New Spider Web

This one is more “normal” or typical of spider webs than the strange one taking over a plant the other day. If you look close, there is one insect trapped in the web but I do not see the spider.

Spider Web in my garden, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica.

¡Pura Vida!

See my Spiders (& webs) GALLERY!

Posted on

New Perspective Each Morning

Yep! I seem to see my garden a little differently each morning and never tire of walking through it. Here’s my snaps of flowers as seen 2 or 3 mornings ago – I know that they are often the same flowers but I am seeing them differently each time. 🙂 Pura vida!

My Desert Rose in a pot continues to surprise me with blooms year around for 6 years now!

A sample for the email announcement and then a slide show . . .

Continue reading “New Perspective Each Morning”
Posted on

New Color Bursting Forth . . .

. . . every few days it seems in my “Miniature Jungle” garden. Here is the unusual bloom or flower on my Ti Plant (Cordyline fruticosa) which rarely blooms but its leaves always give color to my garden kind of like the leaves of the Crotons! 🙂

Ti Plant (Cordyline fruticosa) in Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

And then shots of the whole plants from both above and below (I’m on the side of a hill). A rich, deep red swath of my garden! 🙂

Continue reading “New Color Bursting Forth . . .”
Posted on

Strange Cobwebs

Coming down the driveway in early morning I noticed something white in the tops of my neighbors Red Palms or Palmas Roja, an ornamental plant, not a tree and snapped this shot on the cell phone . . .

Then I go get my camera and go for a closer look seen in the next three photos with not a single spider seen anywhere! I will try to research these online to learn more about them, but it looks like a huge “spider city” is being built! 🙂

Continue reading “Strange Cobwebs”