What a nice walk to accompany my breakfast! Fairy mullein: we have loads in our garden in Portugal but I first came across it in Germany, where it is called either king candle, if it has just one upright flower stem, or queen candle if it has branching flower stems that look like a candelabra. I have no idea what your red flower with the lobed leaves is... I have saved your picture of the ghost trees to enjoy all over again. Thank you!
We have a flower similar to that one but I can't remember the name either. Liiike some kind of wattle thing. (herp derp, wikipedia says it's a waratah.) It actually reminds me of a paintbrush but the leaves are different for that too.
I actually wanted to say about the pines - I remember we went on a school trip to the pine forest back when that sort of thing was allowed (we built an 'Indian' fort and the bus got bogged and that wasn't a disaster necessitating suing the school, so it was really a long time ago) and there were some trees like that but rather than a blight it was actually some kind of worm bug thing that ate the green bits and left the skeleton. Since our area used to rely on pine farming, it was quite a catastrophic thing... but we were all allowed to hold skeleton leaves and it was not terrible.
This one isn't an insect because it continued doing its damage through the winter, and our winters are too cold for insects to do much except hibernate in hidden places... the ends of pine branches would be too exposed. It's probably a fungus, in this case, although we do have several local conifer diseases caused by insect or mite parasites. There isn't much large-scale pine farming in my area because a lot of it is too wet for logging pine and is better suited to slower-growing but more valuable hardwoods, but in some places pine is a very important industry.
*Daffy Duck voice* That'th not duckweed! It'th rabbitweed!
Can't identify? Have no fear, I can help! :D *cracks brain knuckles* I believe that is the blossom of the Howard Fringle's Dentist plant (Homunculus Vulva), named after Howard Fringle's dentist. Nobody knows the name of the dentist, only that he regularly attended to the teeth and gums of Howard Fringle, the clerk who filled out the form at the United States Wild Plant and Flower Registry, and he inserted that temporary name on the form until somebody could phone the dentist's office and get the proper details. Unfortunately the telephone wasn't to be invented for another 25 years, by which time everybody had forgotten about it.
I watch the red kites hunting in the fields behind my house regularly, they have two methods of diving, a long swoop, and a sudden dive like the one you describe here. They're incredibly graceful, for big ginger birds.
I think they are Bubba frogs. People CALL them bullfrogs but that is just because they meant to say "Bubba frog" and slipped.
If that's not what that flower is called, that is still what I am going to call it from now on. Actually, I think I am going to make a sign and go stick it by the bush that says "This flower is called Howard Fringle's Dentist Plant unless someone can tell me otherwise" and leave a box for suggestions.
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Fairy mullein: we have loads in our garden in Portugal but I first came across it in Germany, where it is called either king candle, if it has just one upright flower stem, or queen candle if it has branching flower stems that look like a candelabra.
I have no idea what your red flower with the lobed leaves is...
I have saved your picture of the ghost trees to enjoy all over again. Thank you!
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It actually reminds me of a paintbrush but the leaves are different for that too.
I actually wanted to say about the pines - I remember we went on a school trip to the pine forest back when that sort of thing was allowed (we built an 'Indian' fort and the bus got bogged and that wasn't a disaster necessitating suing the school, so it was really a long time ago) and there were some trees like that but rather than a blight it was actually some kind of worm bug thing that ate the green bits and left the skeleton. Since our area used to rely on pine farming, it was quite a catastrophic thing... but we were all allowed to hold skeleton leaves and it was not terrible.
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Are they Bubba Frogs? They sound like it.
*Daffy Duck voice* That'th not duckweed! It'th rabbitweed!
Can't identify? Have no fear, I can help! :D *cracks brain knuckles* I believe that is the blossom of the Howard Fringle's Dentist plant (Homunculus Vulva), named after Howard Fringle's dentist. Nobody knows the name of the dentist, only that he regularly attended to the teeth and gums of Howard Fringle, the clerk who filled out the form at the United States Wild Plant and Flower Registry, and he inserted that temporary name on the form until somebody could phone the dentist's office and get the proper details. Unfortunately the telephone wasn't to be invented for another 25 years, by which time everybody had forgotten about it.
I watch the red kites hunting in the fields behind my house regularly, they have two methods of diving, a long swoop, and a sudden dive like the one you describe here. They're incredibly graceful, for big ginger birds.
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If that's not what that flower is called, that is still what I am going to call it from now on. Actually, I think I am going to make a sign and go stick it by the bush that says "This flower is called Howard Fringle's Dentist Plant unless someone can tell me otherwise" and leave a box for suggestions.
Rabbitweed has ears.
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