Lava Tree State Monument

Lava Tree State Monument is a small park with a loop trail. The lava trees (molds of tree trunks formed when lava flowed through a forest) are older than the ones seen along Chain of Craters Road.  Many of them were upright – look like totems, the hollow from where the tree trunk once was not visible.

Many of the ohi’a lehu trees has ferns growing and other epiphytes growing on their shaggy trunks – those plants providing more green than the leaves from the tree.

I had not seen mushrooms or shelf fungus in Hawaii until Lava Tree State Monument…and here they were brilliant orange. They reminded me of dried orange peel.

Sometimes the trees must have been horizontal when the lava surrounded them.  Some of the lava trees are mini-communities of small plants, lichen and moss.

I was always startled by the orchids that thrive just about everywhere on the wet side of the island (i.e. the Hilo side…the Kona side is too dry for tropical plants except where extra water is provided by the resorts.

Some of the lava trees are overgrown but the black – almost shiny – lava makes a stark contrast to the green plants.

The route to the monument passes through Pahoa, the small town that was threatened by a lava flow in October-November 2014.

Previous Hawaii Posts:

• Getting to Hawaii
• Thurston Lava Tube and Kilauea Iki Trail
• Chain of Craters Road
• Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden

3 Free eBooks – October 2015

It was really hard to pick just three this month. So – two of the three are actually series. The Internet Archive’s new interface is a little different from the old one. I like to browse through (or read) the books online; clicking on the magnifying glass symbol on the far right of the display results in the book displayed in 2 page mode…and a page turn is just a click away.

Sharp, Helen. Water-color sketches of plants of North America and Europe, 1888 June – 1910 September. The sketches are packaged into 17 volumes and available on the Internet Archive here. I clipped a portion of the goldenrod page to include in this post. I recognized many of the plants. Evidently the sketches were used for teaching purposes.

Rattenbury, John. Living Architecture – Frank Lloyd Wright and Taliesin Architects. California: Pomegranate Communications, Inc. 2000. Available from the Internet Archive here. What an architectural feast! I picked the one I clipped because of the turquoise cladding at the top. Somehow that color is one of my favorites when the landscape is full of more muted colors.

Peterson, Bryan. Understanding Close-Up Photography. New York: Watson-Guptill Publications. 2009. Available from Internet Archive here. Photography is something I’ve come to enjoy a lot in recent years…and classes and books on the topic add to the techniques and compositions I want to attempt! It turns out that the Folkscanomy Photography collection available via the Internet Archive has quite a few books; take a look at the book covers here and simply select one to look at the book in regular Internet Archive format.

CSA Week 19

The week 19 share from the Gorman Produce Farm CSA was a full bag again this week. It was as large as last week (and I still have a few items in the refrigerator from last week…and I’m drying shredded radish leaves for use in soups through the winter).

In this week there is red leaf lettuce, arugula, chard (I chose the chard with the magenta stems), turnips (all white), red cabbage, bell peppers, banana peppers, 2 pounds of sweet potatoes, tatsoi, pac choi (traded my hot peppers for this), 1 pound of tomatoes, mustard greens, kohlrabi. I’m already thinking about making slaw of raw sweet potato, turnips, kohlrabi, and a watermelon radish from last week’s share. I’m enjoying the shredder attachment on my food processor!

I couldn’t resist including a close up of a chard leaf with this post. The color combination adds to the appeal of this vegetable in both salads and stir fries!

Longwood Gardens – September 2015

There were a few more photographs that I wanted to share from our road trip to Longwood Gardens last month. They don’t fit in any particular category.

I liked the colors in these buds. It would be a good photo to experiment with a blurring tool if I ever get around to spending the time to learn a photo editing tool. I’d blur everything except the bud!

I loved the curls and waxy colors of these leaves.

Light pink and green…with the bit of yellow…one of my favorite color combinations in flowers. The shape and orientation is unusual enough that I looked twice. I tried taking a picture from under the flowers – up into the flower that hangs downward – but I didn’t like the vantage point as much as this one from the side.

Pink and white….and a myriad of petals. This vantage point makes it easier to see that the petals curve inward the closer they are to the center.

The orange and green seemed like the typical October color scheme to me…but the plant was not typical at all. The color appears….and then elongates into a very unusual tub type flower.

I always make a point to visit this garden in the Conservatory. If I ever have a garden room – I would like this type of water feature in the floor – gently flowing with the plants surrounding it.

Sometimes a spot of sunlight just makes a plant glow.

The water in the Italian Water Garden fountains goes off and on in a sequence. I managed to catch the side fountains just as they reached the point of stopping for a few seconds…so the last drops of water were suspended in the air rather than a steady stream.

On the way out – I noticed a maple leaf….fall is coming!