Christmas Bells

Christmas Bells
Christmas Bells - Blandfordia nobilis

Monday, October 08, 2007

Tree Peonies - coming along fine

With the "Springtime in Robertson" festival in full swing, I regret that have not reported on the progress of the Tree Peonies in my yard. Today I start to redress this oversight.

Firstly we have the famous Australian variety of Tree Peony "Destiny". This is a cropped image of the "eye" of this lovely flower. It shows the lovely deep magenta-red "carpel" (the female part of the flower) and the red stamens and the golden stamens. This variety has deep red "flares" (markings) on the petals, which reveal its ancestry as coming from the famous species Paeonia rockii.
As far as I know this is the variety "Fushakin". Forgive me if I am slightly uncertain, but the names I have came from a grower whose namings are notoriously unreliable. This variety has a small flare inside the mid-pink petals. The carpel is dark red.
This is Godaishu, the largest-flowered Tree Peony I own. It is a lovely white Tree Peony, with the faintest blush-pink wash inside the flower. The leaves of this Tree Peony are distinctively green, unlike many which have purplish tones within the basically grey-green leaves. This photo shows a Bee walking towards the treasure trove of pollen on the stamens in the centre of the flower.
Here you can see that Godaishu has a white carpel inside the ring of golden stamens.
And the Bee trembles in excitement as it approaches the stamens which bear the pollen. You can clearly see the Bee's left wing, but its abdomen is vibrating faster than I could capture in the low light conditions in which this photo was taken.

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