Gleanings of the Week Ending November 9, 2013

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Cool Plants for Kids: 8 that Explode, Eat Bugs, or Stick to You -  Cool plants for more than just kids: puffballs, jewelweed, beaked hazelnut, pitcher plants (below), sundew, burdock, beggarticks, Norway maples.

London’s Wasted Heat - It’s intriguing to realize that there are places in London - and probably most cities - where heat could be used rather than vented. The trend should be toward ‘less waste’ and this is certainly one area that could be worth pursuing.

US Preterm Birth Rate Drops to 15-Year Low - But the US still gets a ‘C’ grade when it comes to preterm birth rates. It’s very sad for the individual children fighting to overcome the impact of preterm birth and preterm births cost about 12 times more than an uncomplicated healthy birth. For the report card for each state - see the March of Dimes site.

Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week #51 - I always like the collections of bird photographs. My favorite in this batch is the common kingfisher with outspread wings….but I also enjoyed how many of the birds in this set were finding something to eat.

Norwegian Vikings Purchased Silk from Persia - Trade has been going on for a long time….sometimes longer than our ‘history’ has realized.

9 ways mushrooms could drastically improve the world - From a TED talk by Mohamed Hijri

Breathtaking Autumn Colors Viewed Atop Oberg Mountain - These image from Minnesota were posted in early October….I just got around to taking a look at them.

Saharan Star Dunes - These dunes are formed when the wind changes directions…swirling.

US Cities In Which The Fewest People Drive To Work - Biking…walking…mass transit - is it a surprise that New York, Washington DC, Boston and San Francisco are at the top of the list?

Gartner's dark vision for tech, jobs - The upcoming wave of machines replacing people now is entering into Gartner’s projections….it is within the near term rather than outside the span of our lifetimes. 

Longwood Gardens Pitcher Plants - September 2013

In a short hallway off the fern passage at Longwood Gardens there were planters dense with pitcher plants.

I remember being intensely interested in insectivorous plants when I was in elementary school. They were so different than anything I had ever seen in north Texas where I lived. One year I found some in a catalog and managed to convince my mother to order them for me. I got tiny plants: a Venus Fly Trap and a Pitcher Plant. The Venus Fly Trap did not last very long but the Pitcher Plant endured for about 6 months.

They never got as big as the plants at Longwood and they never flowered. It still is thrilling to see them - and know what they are - in the gardens I visit.

Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden

It was a cold day in early May when I walked around the

Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden

near Richmond VA. Peonies were the high point - along with pitcher plants growing in profusion near the water’s edge and sweet gum leaves seen from the vantage point of a tree house. The peonies were the flowers that seemed to have their own inner glow on a cold cloudy day.

The tulips were almost past their prime but their colors were still interesting. The double (maybe triple) white one in the picture below was quite a surprise both in colors and the number of petals.