Friday, October 15, 2010

Sweet almond verbena, gram blue butterfly and skipper butterfly

Welcome to another edition of garden bloggers bloom day. This is a monthly event hosted by Carol at May Dream Gardens. Visit her website for some intriguing flowers blooming all around the gardens.
This is my second year growing sweet almond verbena, botanic name aloysia virgata. This year i pruned it hard in the last december and the results showed in form of more blooms. I deadheaded every bloom and it kept blooming and blooming.
Every butterfly of the area and every bee visited these blooms having strong almond fragrance.

The first one is plain tiger butterfly with common name african monarch and biological name danaus chrysippus. A very common butterfly from asia and africa found abundant in lahore pakistan.


This is Small branded Swift Skipper with biological name Pelopidas mathias. No other insect is so fond of sweet almond verbena but this skipper butterfly. There were more than 15 beauties luring over the blooms at one time.


Another bee but i am not sure which one it is. She is the one which stays still in air for a long time.


This is gram blue butterfly with biological name (Euchrysops cnejus).She is mostly after pea related flowers but this time she could not resist the fragrance and nectar of these sweet blooms.


Another common bee of our area. She loves murraya and any sweet smelling plant. She is the last one to leave the flowers of this sweet almond bush.


And last but not least, this sweet smelling flowers are no other than cestrum diurnum also known as Din ka raja. Unlike its cousin cestrum nocturnum it releases its scent in daytime.


And this post is also included in the Blooming Friday hosted by Katarina at Roses
and Stuff
. Do visit her blog for some enchanting blooms.

For Fertilizer Friday visit Tootsie Time

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Floss Silk tree - budha

One of the few trees blooming in Lahore right now is floss silk tree also called as budha tree locally. One of the most beautiful tree, it blooms in September to November here in Lahore, Pakistan. Its botanical name is Ceiba speciosa previously Chorisia speciosa.

In Hindi it is called resham rui. The large spikes protect the trunk. Native to Brazil and Argentina it is drought tolerant here and starts blooming as soon as monsoon finishes.



For Macro Monday Visit Lisa's Chaos
For Mosaic Monday Visit Mosaic Monday
For Flowers from today, visit http://flowersfromtoday.blogspot.com/

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Bee pollinating waterlily

I had always thought how waterlilies are propagated in the wild. There are tons of wild water lilies in our province Punjab specially the white water lily. They are all tropical i guess. Finally i captured a bee doing this little work. I think she is trying to pollinate. Well, even if she is not, after all the hard work capturing these shots, believe me she is doing nothing but trying to steal the pollen. I wish someday i will see a butterfly on these waterlily blooms if butterflies do that.

Update: As indicated by "Dont bug me", it is a hoverfly and not a bee.
First she grabbed it.


Then she picked it and there she go.


This is blue tropical water lily i am growing on my terrace. It survived last winter without protection but got very weak. I am going to protect this waterlily with bubble polythene this winter for first time and see how good it is.

For Macro monday Visit Lisa's Chaos
For Mosaic Monday Visit Mosaic Monday
For Flowers from today, visit http://flowersfromtoday.blogspot.com/

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