It's been a fairly typical Rochester winter after the extremely warm and dry winter of 2011-2012. That means that, on April 1, 2013 (that would be today) we had snow flurries this morning. Oh the simple joys!
To counter that sad reality, I'm going to post some cheerier pictures that I took at the Lamberton Conservatory in Highland Park (Arboretum) last week. I'm going to keep verbiage to a minimum (stop clapping your hands! I can hear you from here!)
The bright spring flowers are from the seasonal room, which has things like pointsettias in the Christmas season, etc. Here we go - keep your fingers crossed that everything works!
The Norfolk pine is a permanent resident, I believe (it'd be heck to try to move!)
Paperwhites...
A branch of the Norfolk Pine. It's as soft as it looks! VERY excellent!
We are entering the subtropical room, and, although I'd melt on a regular day in here, whilst it's cold, the warmth feels lovely. Sooo, here we are!
Hibiscus, the extra showy relative of the Rose of Sharon that many people have in their yards. And calla lilies, I believe, although they are the wild relative of the ones we see frequently.
I like hibiscus - what can I say? Giggles.
Bismark Palm. This frond is about 3 feet top to bottom.
These turtles live in the man-made stream with two waterfalls that runs through the tropical room. These are all piled together to get heat from a lamp directly above them. Talk about a traffic jam at rush hour! They must have been climbing and pushing at 3 mph (speedy for a turtle)
A wider view of them taken a few minutes later.
This is one of a multiplicity of button quail (this is an adult) living at the Conservatory. I originally had read (far too quickly) that, although these are called quail, they are, in fact, related to the Grus (crane family). DNA sequencing has finally confirmed that the button quail is related to shore birds, but that is it an extremely ancient order of that family, with similar fossils coming from the Ogilocene Epoch, 33.9 - 23 million years ago.
If you look around, you'll see bromeliads all over. There are a great many different ones, such as this blushing number below.
The bromeliad below is in full bloom, which may last for several months, but may also not happen for several years at a time.
This is the croton Iceton it's quite large and very colorful. The leaves are splendid!
Another hibiscus...yup, I know. But there were a lot of different hibiscus plants! And, while photobucket is down AGAIN...I'm going to end this post with some outside pictures of the sky because it was lovely the day I took these pictures. Now to see if Photobucket has returned.
But first - these azaleas were in the same room as the other colorful flowers. The warmth of the conservatory rooms, of course, made them bloom a bit before their outside planted kindred. But it's nice to see 'em!
Another bromeliad. The center of the plant is where the blossom will form. It's a slow process - but I'll check back tomorrow or Wednesday to see how far things have come.
The tree is a permanent resident, but the forsythia isn't. Back in the first room again...I wander...
Some folks were calling this a redbud, and it certainly looks like it should be, although the others that I've seen have very upright postures. It's lovely, none the less...
Sky!
More sky - I need to retouch to get the phone lines out...sorry!
Cropping will take care of the sign. I should have done this earlier, but I wanted to get some pictures posted!
I hope you've enjoyed looking at the pictures! I have, oh, possibly, three million more...Aren't you excited?
Have a great rest of the day!
