Hibiscus

When you hear the name Hibiscus, you may imagine a red flower in a travel brochure of tropical island. Yet still, a kind of flowers belong to Hibiscus group = in the Malvaceae family is amazingly common and flowering everywhere.

This is a Hollyhocks. (seems to be Althaea rosea)

—– incidentally, this plant is a sister of Marshmallow (Yes, that soft white sweets) = the sweets used to be made using a sap from the roots of the Marshmallow.

And this one seems Hibiscus synacus.

But this one seems to be a very different garden valiety though, still pretty like a Hibiscus.

And you may remember this small flower in a grass patch, like a weed desperately clinging to the ground. Still, this one belongs to the Hibiscus family.

It’s somewhat interesting to think about that what sort of the fate or history pushed this plant to cling and survived on a rather poor dry ground ? —– Was that only a niche she found ? (We all knows, life is hard — she must be a rather lucky one, as she has achieved to make a flower at least !) —– by the way, did you know that the Hibiscus plant is Cannivorous = in the night, their stigma catch and strangulates a small insct and suck their body fluid out. = That’s what I heard, but not know the truth.

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Scarlet Pimpernel (’19)

Photo above were taken by the NZ-B lens.

I might have put as many posts of Scarlet Pinpernel after Cherry flowers. = I got a soft spot to this flower since I was very young. Easy reading villain’s novels kind is quite popular among the Japanese young boys (along side the robot comics) so, they are from Maurice Leblanc’s Arsene Rupin to even Alexander Duma or Scarlet Pinpernel. Still, Until I came to the west, I never seen this flower. —– So, the first sudden encounter was rather shock to me, especially it was the most unexpected kind of the place like an unassumed corner of the grass patch.

The photos here, the left was taken by a homemade, so-called Yashica-Macro and the right was by NZ-B lens.

Scarlet Pinpernel is a strang flower. Even if I got their seeds (very tiny) they never germinates from its seeds. Neither they came out the same place next year. —– How they were planted there = who put the seeds there is totally in a mystery ?

And they are very sensitive to the weather / humedity = when it was hot and dry, they close their flowers. = to see, fully open flowers, you got to see them on the morning.

The size of this flower is about 7 mm, in other words, to take picture of this flower filling a ful-frame needs to have a magnification of x3~x5. The photo above, left was the homemade lens called NZ-B, covering infinity to x0.6 on the Nikon Z7 body. And the right was called Yashica-Macro, originated from a broken Yashica-Kyocera compact camera, (the lens barrel and a part of the lens were used) having a magnification of about x3. (The draw back of those homemade lens is, they can be used as a manual focus lens though, they don’t have iris = always fully open. = focused point is very shallow. —– don’t worry, I got number of ordinally macro lens as well. 😀 )

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Poisonous Lychees

My interest in the plant started for the poisonous plant, not a beautiful flower kind. It was somewhat different but more practical type of magic to Harry Potter’s fantegy, which related to Ninja = and Ninja connected to Robot, then to Electronics. They fascinated me when I was a kids.

Among those poisonous plant, some of them are affecting the brain. A rather common plant of Mahonia is quite potent poison to the brain. And eat the nuts of the ancient Cicaid plant would destroy the brain long after = may start to show the effects after 15, 20 years with the dementia-like symptom. —– Then I learned that common Lychee fruits also poisonous to the brain. >>> ​https://jen.jiji.com/jc/eng_afp?k=20190613038733a​

Encephalitis from lychees kills 31 children in India– official

At least 31 children have died in northern India in the last 10 days from a deadly brain disease believed linked to a toxic substance found in lychee fruit, health officials said Wednesday.
The deaths were reported from two hospitals in Bihar state’s Muzaffarpur district, famed for it lush lychee orchards, officials said.
The children all showed symptoms of Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES), senior health official Ashok Kumar Singh told AFP, adding most had suffered a sudden loss of glucose in their blood.
The health department has already issued an advisory for people to take care of their children during the hot summer when day temperature is above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit), Singh said.
At least 40 other children complaining of similar symptoms were being treated at intensive care units.
We are trying our best to save them, said S.P. Singh, the chief medical officer of Sri Krishna Medical College and Hospital.
The outbreaks of the disease have happened annually during summer months in Muzaffarpur and neighbouring districts since 1995, typically coinciding with the litchi season.
Known locally as Chamki Bukhar, the disease had claimed a record 150 lives in 2014.
In 2015, US researchers had said the brain disease could be linked to a toxic substance found in the exotic fruit.
They also said more study was needed to uncover the cause of the illness, which leads to seizures, altered mental state and death in more than a third of cases.
Outbreaks of neurological illness have also been observed in lychee-growing regions of Bangladesh and Vietnam.

(2019/06/13 11:19)

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Funki’s dream or nightmare ?

Whether I’ve seen this, heard this sometime, somewhere or was that in a dream, illusion, nightmare —– ? ? ? I’m not sure at all ——

It’s from the collection of my friend Funki Porchini —– I didn’t know he created this 2011 such long time ago.

And I don’t know how he created this image ? ? ? Whether he used any optics or was it done by purely digital ? ? ?

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Beach Rose (2)

I’m not a fun of cultivated garden rose yet I got a soft soft spot with Beach Rose. Beach Rose originated from north eastern side of the asia, China, Japan, Siberian sea shore. There was a popular misconception that the Beach Rose spread while riding on the sea wave —– but they came to the west by the human hand. Anyway the Beach Rose of which Japanese calls Hamanas makes impenetrable dense bush on the beach. And this Hamanas is a long cherished flower to the back-pack traverors — since they appeared in the many books, poems, sang in the songs — yet still, we could not see them often because this plant was not easy to handle with its dense sharp thorn = we had to go to the Hokkaido to see the Hamanas in a huge landscape. So, I dreamed like my far inspiring roman when I was in my secondry school boy —– and it took another 5 years for me to see the real flowers.

(This photo above was taken by 110 Pentax 24mm lens on Nikon Z7 — rest of the photos here were taken either by Helicoid (B) or ZM-2 lens)

Whatsoever, I’ve been seeing this rose in the past 18 years, since I came here. —– blaime, When I came here, I was a young(er) man. Ha ha ha.

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Flower of Bamboo 竹の花

I found a report of the bamboo flowering in the many corners of Japan from north to south.   The Bamboo said to open their flowers only once in every 100 years, 120 years.  And after the flower, all the plant dies leaving only their seeds behind.  It seems it is their tactics of the survival as the species when they noticed that they are going to die, so, they made flowers and the seeds.  As a plant, I don’t think they got any thinking let alone any delusion or fantasy, they only follow the Dharma = the rules of the nature.  If the nature is going to have the problem, it’s the problem to us too. —– I don’t know why this news caught my eyes among the mountain of the Youtube viz.   Still in my view, there is no such things like a coincidence = there must be the important to be noticed. —– If it would be a kind of natural disaster, there could be a certain area of Japan, not from all over Japan = if is it like the trouble of climate change ? —– in that case the news should come even from the Philippines or China as well.  There are many spooky stories such as, before the ship sank, all the rat run away (rat knows the fate of the ship, before-hand) or strange behaviour of the animal before the earthquake etc. —– Something very serious might happen soon. 

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Japanese Emperor Akihito abdicates

(Although no English, Global News viz has more detailed images)

The Emperor of Heisei era abdicated.

He did a great job over 30 years of his reign.  I hope he and the Empress Michiko have peaceful quiet life now on.    Load Buddha bless them.     (Though, he was not a Buddhist but the head of Shinto = In deed he was the descendant of the Amateras.)

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The late Cherry (or Ex-Cherry ?)

It’s not nice to say “used to be cherry” —– so, Ex-Cherry ?

A woman said it’s not fair, they got a full bloom every year —– m m m, rather tricky to say any word here. 

(Those photos were taken by a lens from a toy camera on Nikon Z7 —– It was a single plastic lens, equivalent of  28mm, F13,  fixed focus )

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Japanese New Era is coming

Well well, not for tomorrow’s April fool, but Japan is going to have the new name of the Era for coming new Emperor.    Japanese calendar system has the name of each Era with each Emperor’s throne.  Which is the continuing tradition of the past 2500 years, started on the time of the legend of Emperor  Jinmu.  So that the coming new Emperor Naruhito is its 256th Emperor.  = in other words, the current Emperor Akihito’s (He is going to cede the throne to his son Naruhito on 1st of May)  Heisei Era will end tomorrow.  (I remember the day, when I went to see the wedding parade of Prince Akihito and his bride, Michiko in their hose drawn coach. — I think I was a secondary school boy then) 

—– anyhow, on this last day, I should clear the stacked photos of Heisei while it is still in its era.

(Those photos were taken by ZM2 lens and Helicoid B lens on Nikon Z7)

On the end Japan got their new name of the era as Reiwa (令和) —– long live to them.    🙂   🙂   🙂

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ZM2 Lens – Spring Walk

First visitor here tonight was from USA, seeking Plum Flower.   So, I’ll show you many Cherry flowers, Plum Flowers.

You may not believe though, all those photos here were taken by just one lens,  (homemade ZM2 lens, on Nikon Z7 camera — ISO 100, AV setting)  Slight difference of the focus, the lens can produce quite different kind of image !

This plant called Japonica Japan was originated from Japan as its name suggests, and a cousin of Quince, or relative of Pear.   Incidentally, a name Nipponia Nippon which meaning is the same (Nippon is the formal name — Japan is a nick name after Marco Paulo) was for national birds Toki who has been nearly extinct and revived to about 150 now.

Ever cute Snow drop, Japanese name is Yukiwari-so (雪割草) which mean the flower who sprout out the snow !

I found this variety of cherry first time in this country.  Still no idea of its name.

And this is somewhat close to the plum. (But not Japanese Ume 梅 —– I don’t know why Ume didn’t come here.)

And this is Daphne —– somewhat related to Cloves though, the story was very complicated = lots of misunderstanding.  (You might have seen a furniture made by a wood called Mahogany but never know what its tree looks like.) 

Same as that, the wood for burning incense Agarwood 沈香 was a mystery to the Japanese for many hundreds of years, and people mistook this plant was related to Cloves 丁字 (hence Japanese misnamed this Daphne as 沈丁花－－－on both case the letter 丁 represents the shape of nails which is a shape of the Cloves as well and the smell of this flower is the same to the Cloves though) those plants are in fact totally different plant. 

Since Agarwood can be sold for very high price, the tree has been pushed to near extinction = now they are protected and the genuine wood is hard to come by, so that, there said to be a lots of fake in the market. ( = a wood dripped into an artificial incense was sold to the tourists.)

Crocus is a relative of the Saffron.  (So, don’t eat them)

(In fact, Daffodil is also poisonous — if you eat = Who eat ?)

I guess this cherry seems to be originated from Yama-zakura.  — but not sure of its multi-petal flowers.

So, it was a nice walk and shootings.

Those three photos were somewhat an extra.  I met Ms.S and Mr.M as a next door of one of the cherry flower’s place.  They got very fancy bicycle with motor. (And those photos were for them to copy from here)

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