Tag Archives: Ferns

The Numbers Game #39

A sign in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park
A dramatic sign at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.

The idea of The Numbers Game is to enter a number into the search bar of your computer and then post a selection of the photos that turn up. This week’s number is 160. Captions are on the photos. You can see more responses here.

Also, seven photos posted for Becky’s Squares: Seven. See more responses here.

Tropical leaves

A gecko on a heliconia leaf at Hawaii Tropical Bioreserve and Gardens
A Gold Dust Day Gecko on a heliconia leaf.

This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Leaves, Autumn or Spring.’ See more responses here. Here are some leaves from Hawai’i Tropical Bioreserve & Garden with captions on the photos.

Anthurium leaves at Hawaii Tropical Bioreserve and GardensAnthurium leaves at Hawaii Tropical Bioreserve and Gardens
Anthurium leaves seen from both sides.
Fern fronds at Hawaii Tropical Bioreserve and Gardens
If you have ferns, you’ve always got fronds!
The tree canopy at Hawaii Tropical Bioreserve and Gardens
Looking up into the canopy.

Here’s where my garden grows

A gecko on a wax ginger at Hawaii Tropical Bioreserve and Garden
A small Gold Dust Day Gecko climbs over a Wax Ginger. The small yellow parts are the flowers and the red mass is bracts.

This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Plant Life.’ See more responses here.

Here are a few plants seen on my last visit to Hawai’i Tropical Bioreserve & Garden. For more information about Hawai’i Tropical Bioreserve & Garden, go to htbg.com.

Foliage reflected in the lake at at Hawaii Tropical Bioreserve and Garden
There are plants on land and reflected in the water.

Hawaiian Garden Spiders

Hawaiian Garden Spiders and their webs

I noticed that in the front border of the house, the ferns and Mother-in-Law’s Tongue or Snake Plant (Sansevieria Trifasciata) needed weeding and cutting back as there was foliage up against the house, a handy highway for ants and centipedes and who knows what else. The only problem is that, at this time of year, this little garden is guarded by a wall of spiders.

These three Hawaiian Garden Spiders are just a few of that kind there, and they’re accompanied by the usual mass of crab spiders and one or two others I’m not familiar with. I wouldn’t mind moving the crab spiders, whose main activity seems to be to build webs in places that mean they’ll end up wrapped around my head. But the garden spiders, I have a soft spot for. The females are quite beautiful and the males, while drab and tiny, are very watchable as they try to mate with the mighty females.

I guess the weeds can wait for another week or two.

The scenery is greenery

Foliage at Hawaii Tropical Bioreserve and Garden

This week’s Sunday Stills Monthly Color Challenge is ‘Green.’ See more responses here. One of my favorite spots on the island is Hawai’i Tropical Bioreserve & Garden and I stopped by there again just last week. As luck would have it, I took a few photos – OK, more than 200; I can’t help it. Many of them – OK, all of them – featured some shade of green. It is a tropical garden after all. Here’s a selection.

All sorts of greens, all sorts of patterns!

Going green. That’s what fronds are for!

Why the long faces? things are looking up.

There’s a gecko in two of these photos. There’s probably geckos in all three, but two are visible.

For more information about Hawai’i Tropical Bioreserve & Garden, go to htbg.com.

Plant shapes

Lily pads in Hawaii

The current Friendly Friday challenge theme is ‘Shapes.’ See more responses here. Since I just paid another visit to Hawai’i Tropical Bioreserve & Garden, I thought some flower and foliage shapes would be appropriate. In the top photo, round lily pads float in the garden’s pond.

The squares show the coils within coils of a Hapu’u fern, a distinctly-shaped anthurium, the familiar curves of an orchid against a large, angular leaf, and the geometric precision of a Guzmania ‘Limones’ bromeliad.

The rectangles start with the distinctive shape of beehive gingers, then large, tropical, heart-shaped leaves, and the sinuous shape of a colorful heliconia.

The bottom photo shows feather-shaped leaves that even look like feathers!

For more information about Hawai’i Tropical Bioreserve & Garden, go to htbg.com.

Tropical leaves in Hawaii