Showing posts with label nature art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nature art. Show all posts

Saturday, October 19, 2024

The Autumn Crocus ...

“Child of the pensive autumn woods!

So lovely, though thou dwell obscure and lone …

Where shall I ever find

So rare a grace? In what shy solitudes? …”

            ~ “The Autumn Crocus”

              ~ Robert Laurence Binyon

             ~ English poet, dramatist & art scholar

                 ~ 1869 ~ 1943

Afternoon sunlight softly dances around an Autumn Crocus that emerges as a beacon of hope amidst the fading colors of fall on a beautiful early September day on the cusp of autumn at Trexler Memorial Park, Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Colchicum autumnale, commonly known as autumn crocus, meadow saffron, naked boys or naked ladies, is a toxic autumn-blooming flowering plant that resembles the true crocuses, but is a member of the plant family Colchicaceae, unlike the true crocuses, which belong to the Iris family. It is called “naked boys/ladies” because the flowers emerge from the ground long before the leaves appear. Despite the vernacular name of “meadow saffron,” this plant is not the source of saffron, which is obtained from the saffron crocus, Crocus savitus ~ and that plant, too, is sometimes called “autumn crocus.”


 

Saturday, August 31, 2024

Splish Splash ...

“Splish splash, I was taking a bath …

I was a rolling and a-strolling

Reeling with the feeling

Moving and a-grooving

Splishing and a-splashing, yeah …”

       ~ “Splish Splash”

     ~ 1958 novelty rock song performed & co-written by the wonderful Bobby Darin; it was Darin’s first hit and the song helped to give him a major boost in his career

A Muscovy Duck is reeling with the feeling, moving and a-grooving, splishing and a-splashing in the Monocacy Creek on a beautiful late May afternoon at Monocacy Park, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania ~ a real splash of spring!