Garies, Namaqualand, Northern Cape, South Africa, Wild Flowers by Martin Heigan

Namaqualand wild flowers (north of Capetown, South Africa) by Martin Heigan -- see his Photostream at Flickr.

Hat tip to CaryGEE.

Floridata is a Great Gardening Website with Text and Photography

Floridata describes itself as:

"[A] photographic encyclopedia of landscape plants, an online plant & nature reference, and a gardening marketplace."

Floridata is a great gardening site with all kinds of text and photographic plant information.

Zantedeschia: The Calla Lilies are in bloom again

"The Calla Lilies are in bloom again" is a famous cinema line by Katherine Hepburn from the film Stage Door (1937 - see the video excerpt of those lines below). Below that -- from our own garden -- are also our photos of Zantedeschia, the Calla Lily albo maculata (the pristine white calla), a flower also called Lily of the Nile or Arum Lily.

From various postings at the Wikipedia (Zantedeschia, Zantedeschia aethiopica), Floridata.com and AmericanMeadows.com we put together the information that:

Zantedeschia aethiopica, family Araceae, is native to southern Africa but is not a true arum, lily or calla. It is found painted in great quantities in many of Diego Rivera's paintings.

Zantedeschia is toxic to touch and poisonous for ingestion so care should be taken in handling the plant and flowers.

Botany: Earth and its Grasses: Evolution by the Grassroots - Opinionator Blog - NYTimes.com - Olivia Judson

Olivia Judson at Opinionator Blog gets into basic Botany with a nice piece on Planet Earth and its Grasses at Evolution by the Grassroots, inter alia:

"The role that early grasslands may have played in human evolution is hotly debated. For a good overview of the status of different hypotheses, see Bobe, R. and Behrensmeyer, A. K. 2004. “The expansion of grassland ecosystems in Africa in relation to mammalian evolution and the origin of the genus Homo.” Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 207: 399-420."

Flowers to Attract Hummingbirds

Flowers to Attract Hummingbirds

by Marie Iannotti, at Marie's Gardening BLog

Planning a Vegetable Garden

Planning a Vegetable Garden
by Marie Iannotti, About.com Guide to Gardening

Internet offers gardening delights without digging

Internet offers gardening delights without digging