We are almost at the end of February 2021 and thought today with St David's day being on Monday we would enjoy daffodils.
I know they are a favourite flower amongst many of you and they seem particularly welcome this year, with so many people feeling warn down by lockdown and the awful news of the virus. They are bright cheerful and nodding and their trumpets, herald better times ahead of us. They are indeed a breath of fresh air.
I expect many of you have seen some of the wild daffodils of Gloucestershire if you have headed beyond Ross- on- Wye and towards the M42. They can carpet the ground like a golden and green carpets in the dappled shade of woodland and in the green fields. Quite gorgeous! They were picked once in large bunches for the inner cities to enjoy and were harvested and sent on the trains to London, Birmingham and beyond.
I thought you might enjoy seeing a time lapse film of opening daffodils, which are quite fast and move quickly. Don't blink so you don't miss anything!
We travel home now... almost to enjoy the Vale of Glamorgan's only wild daffodil wood in South wales. I am guessing many of you have been here? Matthew and Jeanne have you?
This isn't daffodils, but thought you might enjoy this slowed filming, a time lapse again of a very rare Moonflower opening on 20th February 2021 and then it decline at the Botanical Gardens in Cambridge, possibly for the first time ever in the UK.
"The Moonflower is an epiphyte, which means it relies on another plant as an anchor point. The stems of this particular cactus do not resemble any ordinary cactus. They are flattened, smooth and leaf-like and create an intricate swirling pattern as they wind their way around their host tree trunk. In the Amazon rainforest, they do this to maintain a position above the seasonal inundation of flood waters from the Amazon and its tributaries. These waterways are important to the dispersal of this cactus as the seeds float, and this allows them to be carried away from the parent plant to find another tree crevice to lodge and grow in.
When it eventually flowers, the process begins by the breaking bud emitting a sweet smelling fragrance (allegedly with the same floral notes as those used in one of the popstar Rihanna’s perfumes according to nature writer and broadcaster Richard Mabey!) just as it begins to open and throughout its flowering, to attract the night flying hawkmoth. Two hours after it has fully opened, its scent changes to a more rancid smell, before closing up for good at sunrise."
Alex Summers, CUBG Glasshouse Supervisor, is responsible for growing and nurturing this rare and unusual cactus in the Tropical House at the Botanic Garden. He says:
“I’m so excited to see and share this most unusual flowering. It’s very rare to have this plant in our collection and we believe this is the first time the Moonflower has flowered in the UK.
I noticed the flattened stems, or pads, which swirl around the trunk of our Water Chestnut had sent out a flowerbud in late November – which was a lucky spot as it’s almost 12 feet up in the air and could have so easily been missed! But it has only recently increased radically in size which means a flowering is imminent.”
Well hope you enjoyed this if you had not view it before. have great Saturday make time to relax and look forward to the daffodils!
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