Bij het grote publiek is hij onbekend gebleven, maar met zijn Amboinsche kruidboek behoort Georg Everhard Rumphius tot de groten in de geschiedenis van de plantkunde.

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Estas flores nos dan la invitación a una fiesta de colores y mucha belleza.

New Zealand fern unfurling.

Ceropegia Woodii (also known as string of hearts/chain of hearts) is probably a plant a lot of you are familiar with. Although it’s long and trailing vines look delicate, this Ceropegia is a very hardy indoor plant, securing it’s place as a household favourite for many. Native to South Africa, Swaziland and Zimbabwe, it was originally found hanging from a rock and growing in full sunlight. However, as a house plant they are highly tolerant to varying levels of light and watering. Most of us are used to seeing the heart shaped leaves in a soft green/silvery colour, but when placed in direct sunlight (which they will happily live in), they turn a deep shade of green. As a lot of household conditions don’t offer direct light, it seems that Ceropegia have adapted and don’t mind bright but indirect light or even semi shade. Depending on where your Ceropegia is housed, moderate watering is the way to go. When placed in indirect light/partial shade they can withstand long periods of draught, going as long as a month without water! If placed in full sun they will need more regular watering during the growing seasons (spring and summer), although always allow the top 3 inches of the soil to dry out before watering again. One thing Ceropegia find difficult tolerate is being left to stand in water. They are best potted into a mix of free draining and multi-purpose compost, and into a pot with sufficient drainage. Over watering can cause the tubers to rot and your plant to suffer. In the cooler months watering needs to be reduced heavily – if the plant isn’t in direct light (and it’s a rarity that we get bright winter light in the UK!) it’s best to wait until the leaves start to feel soft and look a little limp before watering again. Depending on the heat of your house this could be anywhere between 3 to 6 weeks, although central heating can take its toll. If your Ceropegia is happy, you will see it start to flower during the growing seasons. It has quite an unusual flower – long and thin, off white/pinky in colour, and with little brown petals. When happy they also tend to grow pretty quickly, sometimes reaching the floor in one growing season alone! Don’t worry though, if you find your plant growing too long you can give it a little haircut to encourage new growth and thickness. The best way to do this is to pinch off a stem, never more than a third of the plants length, directly above (if you were to turn the strand and hold it upright) or below (if your looking at the plant naturally trailing downwards) a leaf. To Propagate: Ceropegia often grow small, round, woody looking tubers along their stems which can be re-potted into fresh soil and placed in bright but indirect light until they root. The soil should be fairly free draining and left to dry out between waterings, as with the adult plant, so the tubers don’t rot. The rooting process can take up to 8 weeks but your new ceropegia will grow quite quickly from then, and can then be treated the same as an adult plant, slowly being moved into direct light if that’s where it will end up. You can also do the same process with a stem cutting of approx. 15cm in length although this method doesn’t always guarantee results. 

VINTAGE ART REPRODUCTION: Add style to any room's decor with this beautiful print, whether your interior design is modern or classic. MUSEUM QUALITY INKS AND PAPER: Printed on thick 192gsm heavyweight matte paper with archival giclee inks, this historic fine art will decorate your wall for years to come. ATTENTION TO DETAIL: We edit every artprint for image quality and true color reproduction, so it can look its best while retaining historical character. Makes a great gift! FRAME READY: Your unframed poster will arrive crease-free, rolled in a sturdy mailing tube. Many pictures fit easy-to-find standard size frames 16x20, 16x24, 18x24, 24x30, 24x36, saving on custom framing. Watermarks will not appear in the printed picture. Some blemishes, tears, or stamps may be removed from the final print.

Alpen-Flora für Touristen und Pflanzenfreunde Stuttgart :Verlag für Naturkunde Sprösser & Nägele,1904. biodiversitylibrary.org/page/10384144

Edwards's botanical register.. London :James Ridgway,1829-1847.. biodiversitylibrary.org/page/240386

We were hiking in Curt Gowdy State Park a few weeks ago when we met two leafless trees standing by a creek. “Are you an alder or a birch?” I asked the first (above). There was no reply. I posed the same question of the second (below), with the same result. Both stood silently except for an occasional whisper of branchlets in the wind. It was a valid question. Alders and birches are both in the birch family (Betulaceae). You might say they’re cousins -- different genera, with alders in the genus Alnus and birches in Betula. They’re enough alike to be confusing, especially when they don’t have leaves. I was pretty sure one of these trees was an alder and the other a birch, and I was hoping there was an easy way to tell them apart this time of year. I looked into it when I got home and found it’s not as simple as I had hoped. But it’s not that hard either. Both alders and birches are said to have smooth bark, but this is a little misleading. I think the authorities mean they don’t have furrowed bark. Many species of alder and birch have prominent lenticels -- prominent enough that the bark isn’t all that smooth. Lenticels are pores allowing gas exchange through bark. This is Tree #2. Alders and birches both have separate male and female catkins (flower clusters), with the two sexes on the same tree (monoecious). Fortunately their female catkins differ, and therein lies a way to tell the cousins apart. Tree #1 was dominated by male catkins ... the guys were in full bloom! If you look close, you can see small reddish female catkins near the top of the male ones (click on image below). Most useful to us were the old female catkins from last year, persisting as woody cones. They revealed the identity of Tree #1 -- it's an alder. [These aren’t true cones, found on conifers, but we’ll call them that anyway.] Darker woody "cones" are last year's female catkins. Tree #2 had lots of catkins as well. The male ones were immature -- still hadn’t opened. Young male catkins, roughly an inch long. High on the tree were scattered female catkins from last year. Their papery bracts gave them away. These are birch cones. They’ll soon fall apart and be gone. Tree #2 is a birch, with pendulous papery-bracted female "cones" (click on image to view). In the field I used my Rocky Mountain Tree Finder to key out the two trees. They are the mountain or thin-leaved alder (Alnus incana var. tenuifolia), and the water birch (Betula occidentalis). Both are fairly common along streams in Wyoming. Mountain alder (Tree #1); courtesy Zelimir Borzan, University Zagreb, Bugwood.org Mountain alder is sometimes called speckled alder, I suspect for the prominent lenticels. Water birch (Tree #2) in its prime, with mature female catkins. UFEI, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo The bark of water birch sometimes is a pretty red, contrasting nicely with the lenticels. At the base of the water birch we found an old leaf. It helped with identification. --- ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ --- These trees became the first observations in the newly-launched iNaturalist project Plants of the Southern Laramie Mountains.

Nouvelle flore coloriée de poche des Alpes et des Pyrénées. Paris,Klincksieck,1906-1912. biodiversitylibrary.org/page/10503925

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