Showing posts with label columbine. Show all posts

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Flowers of murree hills - aquilegia, chestnut tree and wild flowers

All shots taken in Murree hills and Nathia gali, Pakistan. some flowers are wild while some are grown by home gardeners. The first one is aquilegia or columbine. A passionate gardener in nathiagali is growing these beautiful columbine flowers.

Indian Horse Chestnut tree with botanic name Aesculus indica is a common tree of murree hills. The umbrella shape leaves are beautiful and the flower spikes add to the beauty.

Another columbine flower planted by a gardener in nathia gali. Columbines grow naturally in hilly areas. They do not tolerate the southern heat of plains thus they are mostly treated as annuals in our southern plains. There are some cultivars though which are perennial in lahore and other subtropical areas.

This pink flowering shurb is a common sight in galiyat in murree. Flowers are from fabacea family (Pea family) and my first guess is Himalayan indigo, Indigofera heterantha. Any confirmation about the ID will be highly appreciated.

This is a wild flower grown in many parts of murree hills. This one i shot in the nathia gali road side. Not sure about the ID though.

For more flowers from around the world, visit Today's Flowers
For macro monday, visit Lisa's Chaos
For Mosaic monday, visit Dear Little Red House

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Flowers of gazania, aquilegia, crape jasmine and millettia

Talking of spring flowers annuals, only few are flowering right now. Heat is coming in fast and only drought tolerant plants are blooming. Some annuals in the shade are also showing their flowers. I would call it the remnants of spring. The first one is gazania. A drought tolerant plant which blooms till mid summer here.

This aquilegia is in shade in my soil bed and only gets few hours morning sunlight. Columbine flower is an annual in lahore though some gardeners manage them as perennials.

This is Tabernaemontana divaricata, crape jasmine which is called chandni locally. A perennial, it blooms almost all summer enduring summer heat. Sadly neither the single flowers nor the double ones are fragrant. But i heard that there are some fragrant crape jasmines as well.

Talking of trees, here comes another species of millettia. It is probably millettia pinnata also called pongam tree native to india, pakistan, japan , thailand, malaysia. It another variety of sheesham having beautiful flowers. Flowers clearly show they are from Fabaceae (pea) family.
This is the close up of flowers.