Beautiful! That’s a waterfall I haven’t seen except in pictures.
2 Likes
Boy, there’s a lot of amazing photos in here. This thread inspired me though to take a trip up a local landmark that I haven’t done in quite some time.
Just North of where I live is a hill (an extinct volcano) that’s popular with walkers and I used to go up this often when I was younger but it’s been many years since I last did so. It’s only about 90 minutes to the summit for me from my house and it’s actually a really nice walk.
A view from near the beginning of the trail up to it.
A couple of pics of the trail up to it. It’s a really nice walk as it zig zags a bit and takes you across fields and through forest canopies.
You get some great views of East Scotland from up there. Perfect place to have your lunch.
Local village at the base.
Visibility isn’t great but at the top left corner is Edinburgh, just across the Firth of Forth (Forth Estuary)
To the West is its sister hill which is taller - and steeper!
12 Likes
I’m actually from Edinburgh originally but I don’t live there now. Grew up about 10 minutes walk from the green spire in the left of your picture. The castle and the volcanic rock it sits upon is a truly awesome sight overlooking Princes Street. Beautiful city all round with its old architecture and I do enjoy a good walk around when I’m through there.
5 Likes
Awesome! It’s definitely a beautiful city. I would love to go back and see more.
1 Like
Gorgeous! Are the little white dots sheep?
4 Likes
Today’s picture is from the road from Boulder up into the Rocky Mountains (Route 119 I think). My mom lives near Boulder so I’ve been past this rock several times, and I just love the tiny little tree growing at the top. It was quite foggy that day.
11 Likes
Yeah, they’re sheep.
2 Likes
12 Likes
Not too far from me. And yes, the Flat Irons are magnificent.
(doubly impressed you managed to spell Chautauqua without managing it!)
3 Likes
And now for something completely different: closeups!
(edit to add names: hummingbird sage; flannel bush; calla lily; flowering plum tree; oxalis)
10 Likes
A few interesting flowers from the greenhouse at work:
Passion flower:
Pineapple flower:
Takes about 2 to 3 years to get the one flower after planting the top of a pineapple or one of the buds that sometimes grows below the flower.
And the pineapple almost ready to harvest 3 months after the flower:
I don’t see how pineapples are not way more expensive, even in ideal conditions it takes 2 years to get one pineapple, then you cut down the plant and start over with a new one.
11 Likes
I love passion flowers, they are so weird and beautiful.
Fun fact for everyone: they are not related to the passion fruit plant, but are so named for the passion of the christ, because the round part with pointy bits supposedly resembles the crown of thorns.
I don’t see how pineapples are not way more expensive
“Eggs are complicated, they should cost like $100!”
4 Likes
Passion fruit does come from a type of passiflora, there are hundreds of varieties of the vine with all different colors and shapes of leaves and flowers. Odd thing is, the vines that make the pretty flowers make terrible tasting fruit. The good tasting fruit varieties come from vines that make less flashy looking flowers.
1 Like
Oh, did not know that! Now I’m questioning the whole etymology I read about 
Does that mean both the flower and the fruit name come from the crown of thorn things??
1 Like
Crown of thorn is a different plant, it makes lots of tiny red or yellow flowers, pretty flowers but a very nasty plant, we had some in the greenhouse but we got rid of it. It’s also a vine like plant that spreads like crazy. Passion flower vines don’t have thorns, the one that makes the pretty blue flowers has leaves that look like small marijuana leaves.
We have one version that has leaves that mimic a butterfly, and makes drops of sap on the vine that look like eggs, apparently the butterfly that it’s trying to repel will move on to another plant if it thinks another butterfly has already laid eggs.
2 Likes
Oh, and you are correct about the passion flower name, some monk(s) a long time ago did name all the parts of the flower after biblical stuff.
1 Like
Itasca at sunset. These are the headwaters of the Mississippi River, near Bemidji, Minnesota. If you want to be truly insufferable, you can go here and wade across and then tell people you crossed the Mississippi River on foot.
10 Likes
Everyone, fabulous photos! Though it’s easy to make nature look gorgeous, as evidenced below:
View from my favourite sitting log in High Park (October 2020 - the colours won’t be turning for another 2-3 weeks here.) This is where I like to sit and spy golden eagles.
Moody Berlin Tiergarten - not B&W, just gloomy (February 2020)
Lough Tay, Ireland (February 2020)
Haloed wildflowers in the Wicklow mountains (February 2020)
Where the hermit St. Kevin lived, shortly before I learned I’d share his name and his fate (February 2020)
Montserrat! I’ve been! With my high school back in the day (March 2003)
Fun fact: These last photos were taken a day after both my 17th birthday and the day the US invaded Iraq - there were helicopters and armed guards EVERYWHERE, and we were TERRIFIED, but the pictures came back nice!
EDIT: I can already tell this is a thread I’m at risk of absolutely FLOODING, so nobody hesitate to tell me to keep the lens cap on and let someone else have a turn!
12 Likes
