SPRING GREEN

Spring morning in the Darebin Parklands in Melbourne after a rainy and cold night.

This post is part of the Skywatch Friday meme,
and also part of the Friday Greens meme.

IXIA - CORN LILY

The genus Ixia consists of a number of cormous plants native to South Africa from the Iridaceae family and Ixioideae subfamily. Some of them are known as the corn lily. Some distinctive traits include sword-like leaves and long wiry stems with star-shaped flowers. It usually prefers well-drained soil. The popular corn lily has specific, not very intense fragrance. It is often visited by many insects such as bees. The Ixia are also used as ornamental plants and cut flowers.

Ixia viridiflora, also known as "Turquoise Ixia", is a tall member of the genus Ixia. It comes from around the Tulbagh in South Africa, Cape Province. It has small corms under the ground. This corn lily is a very rare plant. Its habitats are often destroyed by human influence so the conservation status of this interesting flower is vulnerable and is tending to worse.

The plant gets the name "Turquoise Ixia" from the really spectacular blue-green turquoise colour of the flowers, which is a rare colour for flowers. They are grouped in long inflorescences and are traditionally star-shaped like in most corn lilies. They have a black-purple centre. The ovary is 3-locular. This flower is pollinated by specific scarab beetles known as monkey beetles of the tribe Hopliini. The Turquoise Ixia has very good ornamental traits with its beautiful inflorescences but is very rare in cultivation because of its conservation status.

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.

LEONIDIO, GREECE

Leonidio (Greek: Λεωνίδιο) is a town and a former municipality in Arcadia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality South Kynouria, of which it is a municipal unit. It is considered a traditional settlement.

The town of Leonidio, with a population of 3.826, emerges from a spectacular landscape, bound by two abrupt mountainsides enclosing the town from the north and south. The River Dafnon passes through the town, and it is crossed by three bridges. The town is capital of the Tsakonia region, notable for its cultural and linguistic particularities, and the settlement itself offers striking and picturesque architecture. It is now a protected architectural site and there are very strict regulations for building within the town limits.

The convent of the Virgin of Elone is built on a craggy cliff near Leonidio and the first church there dates from the 1300s. The present convent is built on the ruins of the first church and dates from 1809.

Plaka is the picturesque port of Leonidio, situated 4 km east of the town. It is sustained mainly with the help of tourism, but a small fishing fleet is also based there. There is a beach and the port has a number of taverns and bars immediately adjacent to the sea. Every August the "Tsakonian Eggplant Festival" is hosted here, attracting well-known chefs from across Europe and achieving ever-growing popularity.

This post is part of the Travel Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Wednesday Waters meme,
and also part of the Outdoor Wednesday meme,
and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme,
and also part of the ABC Wednesday meme.

SKYROS, GREECE

Skyros (Greek: Σκύρος) is an island in Greece, the southernmost of the Sporades, an archipelago in the Aegean Sea. Around the 2nd millennium BC and slightly later, the island was known as The Island of the Magnetes where the Magnetes used to live and later Pelasgia and Dolopia and later Skyros. At 209 square kilometres it is the largest island of the Sporades, and has a population of about 3,000 (in 2011). It is part of the regional unit of Euboea. The Hellenic Air Force has a major base in Skyros, because of the island's strategic location in the middle of the Aegean.

The north of the island is covered by a forest, while the south, dominated by the highest mountain, called Kochila, (792 m), is bare and rocky. The island's capital is also called Skyros (or, locally, Chora). The main port, on the west coast, is Linaria. The island has a castle (the kastro) that dates from the Venetian occupation (13th to 15th centuries), a Byzantine monastery (the Monastery of Saint George), the grave of English poet Rupert Brooke in an olive grove by the road leading to Tris Boukes harbour. There are many beaches on the coast. The island has its own breed of Skyrian ponies.

This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Travel Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme.

FLINDERS ST STATION

Flinders Street railway station is a railway station on the corner of Flinders and Swanston Streets in Melbourne, Australia. It serves the entire metropolitan rail network. Backing onto the city reach of the Yarra River in the heart of the city, the complex covers two whole city blocks and extends from Swanston Street to Queen Street. Flinders Street is served by Metro's suburban services, and V/Line regional services to Gippsland. It is the busiest station on Melbourne's metropolitan network, with some 92.6 million passenger movements recorded in 2011/12.

It was the first railway station in an Australian city and the world's busiest passenger station in the late 1920s. The main station building, completed in 1909, is a cultural icon of Melbourne, with its prominent dome, arched entrance, tower and clocks one of the city's most recognisable landmarks. It is listed on the Victorian Heritage Register. The Melburnian idiom "I'll meet you under the clocks" refers to the row of clocks above the main entrance, which indicate the time-tabled time of departure for trains on each line; another idiom, "I'll meet you on the steps", refers to the wide staircase underneath these clocks. Flinders Street Station is responsible for two of Melbourne's busiest pedestrian crossings, both across Flinders Street, including one of Melbourne's few pedestrian scrambles.

This post is part of the Monday Mellow Yellows meme,
and also part of the Blue Monday meme,
and also part of the Through my Lens meme,
and also part of the Seasons meme.

OLD TIMES

This horse and carriage combination is a familiar sight in Melbourne City where tourists and locals are tempted to take a trip down memory lane using the conveyance of yesteryear...

This post is part of the Saturday Critters meme,
and also part of the Camera Critters meme,
and also part of the Weekend in Black and White meme.

SATURDAY SILHOUETTES #66

Welcome to the Saturday Silhouettes meme! This is a weekly meme that looks at SILHOUETTES in photography.

SILHOUETTE |ˌsɪlʊˈɛt| noun: The dark shape and outline of someone or something visible in restricted light against a brighter background.
ORIGIN - late 18th century: Named (although the reason remains uncertain) after Étienne de Silhouette (1709–67), French author and politician.

This post is also part of the Skywatch Friday meme,
and also part of the Orange you Glad It's Friday meme.

Please add your contribution below, using the Linky tool.

As this is a small but select meme, please visit other contributors and add a comment - they like comments about their work as much as you do!

BROMELIAD

The Bromeliaceae (the bromeliads) are a family of monocot flowering plants of around 3,170 species native mainly to the tropical Americas, with a few species found in the American subtropics and one in tropical west Africa, Pitcairnia feliciana.

The family includes both epiphytes, such as Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides), and terrestrial species, such as the pineapple (Ananas comosus). Many bromeliads are able to store water in a structure formed by their tightly-overlapping leaf bases. However, the family is diverse enough to include the tank bromeliads, grey-leaved epiphyte Tillandsia species that gather water only from leaf structures called trichomes, and a large number of desert-dwelling succulents.

The largest bromeliad is Puya raimondii, which reaches 3–4 m tall in vegetative growth with a flower spike 9–10 m tall, and the smallest is Spanish moss. Only one bromeliad, the pineapple, is a commercially important food crop. Bromelain, a common ingredient in meat tenderiser, is extracted from pineapple stems. Many other bromeliads and their hybrids are popular ornamental plants, grown as both garden and houseplants.

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme,
and also part of the Friday Greens meme.

HEARTSEASE

Viola tricolor, known as heartsease or love-in-idleness, is a common European wild flower, in the Violaceae family, growing as an annual or short-lived perennial. It is the progenitor of the cultivated pansy, and is therefore sometimes called wild pansy; before the cultivated pansies were developed, "pansy" was an alternative name for the wild form.

V. tricolor is a small plant of creeping and ramping habit, reaching at most 15 cm in height, with flowers about 1.5 cm in diameter. It grows in short grassland on farms and wasteland, chiefly on acid or neutral soils. It is usually found in partial shade. It readily self-seeds and will happily grow throughout one's whole garden.

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.

KIAMA, AUSTRALIA

Kiama is a township 120 kilometres south of Sydney in the Illawarra, New South Wales, Australia in the Municipality of Kiama. At the 2011 census, Kiama had a population of 12,817 people. One of the main tourist attractions is the Kiama Blowhole. The seaside town features several popular surfing beaches, caravan parks and numerous alfresco cafes and restaurants. Its proximity to the south of Sydney makes it an attractive destination for a large number of day trippers.

The Kiama area includes many attractions, being situated on the coast south of the Minnamurra River, and to the west lie the foothills of Saddleback Mountain and the smaller less discernible peak of Mount Brandon. Also to the west is the town of Jamberoo with pasture-land in between, which contains many historic buildings and dry stone walls. Also of note is Seven Mile Beach to the south, a protected reserve. Kiama has several well-known surfing beaches, including Surf Beach, 'Mystics' and Boyds' Beach, as well as other more protected swimming beaches situated in coves between headlands such as Black Beach, Easts Beach and Kendalls Beach. Kiama Harbour forms one of several coves between headlands.

This post is part of the Wednesday Waters meme,

and also part of the Outdoor Wednesday meme,

and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme,

and also part of the ABC Wednesday meme,

and also part of the  Travel Tuesday meme.

ISOLA BELLA, SICILY

The Isola Bella ("Beautiful Island") in Sicily, Italy, is without doubt Taormina’s most beautiful beach. It is a pebble beach, set at the foot of the town, fronting the islet of the same name clothed in lush vegetation. The islet is linked to the mainland by a narrow strip of beach which is covered by water at high tide (this strip of land is called a "tombolo").

This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Travel Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme.

BURANO, ITALY

Burano is an island in the Venetian Lagoon, northern Italy; like Venice itself, it could more correctly be called an archipelago of four islands linked by bridges. It is situated near Torcello at the northern end of the Lagoon, and is widely known for its fine lace work, which is very expensive because it is extremely time-consuming to make.

Burano is also known for its small, brightly painted houses, which are popular with photographers and artists. The colours of the houses follow a specific system originating from the golden age of its development. If someone wishes to paint their home, one must send a request to the local government authority, which will respond by making notice of the certain colours permitted for that lot.

Other attractions include the Church of San Martino, with a leaning campanile and a painting by Giambattista Tiepolo (Crufixion, 1727), the Oratorio di Santa Barbara and the Museum and School of Lacemaking.

The mosaic at the end of the post is by Christine Brallier and depicts the colourful houses of Burano.

This post is part of the Monday Mellow Yellows meme,
and also part of the Blue Monday meme,
and also part of the Through my Lens meme,
and also part of the Seasons meme,
and also part of the Our World Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Ruby Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Travel Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme.

K9s

Two best friends...

This post is part of the Saturday Critters meme,
and also part of the Camera Critters meme,
and also part of the Our Beautiful World meme,
and also part of the My Sunday Photo meme,
and also part of the Photo Sunday meme.

SATURDAY SILHOUETTES #65

Welcome to the Saturday Silhouettes meme! This is a weekly meme that looks at SILHOUETTES in photography.

SILHOUETTE |ˌsɪlʊˈɛt| noun: The dark shape and outline of someone or something visible in restricted light against a brighter background.
ORIGIN - late 18th century: Named (although the reason remains uncertain) after Étienne de Silhouette (1709–67), French author and politician.

This post is also part of the Skywatch Friday meme,

and also part of the Orange you Glad It's Friday meme,

and also part of the Weekend Reflections meme.

Please add your contribution below, using the Linky tool.

As this is a small but select meme, please visit other contributors and add a comment - they like comments about their work as much as you do!

WET

Water drops in the leaves of a fumitory plant (Fumaria officinalis).

PLUM BLOSSOM

Prunus cerasifera is a species of plum known by the common names cherry plum and myrobalan plum. It is native to Europe and Asia and naturalised in scattered locations in North America. Wild types are large shrubs or small trees reaching 6–15 m tall, with deciduous leaves 4–6 cm long. It is one of the first European trees to flower in spring, often starting in mid-February. The flowers are white and about 2 cm across, with five petals. The fruit is a drupe, 2–3 cm in diameter, and yellow or red. It is edible, and reaches maturity from early July to mid-September. Cultivated cherry plums can have fruits, foliage, and flowers in any of several colours. Some varieties have sweet fruits that can be eaten fresh, while others are sour and better for making jam.

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.

JERUSALEM

Jerusalem located on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea, is one of the oldest cities in the world. In the ancient cuneiform, Jerusalem was called "Urusalima", meaning "City of Peace", during the early Canaanite period (approximately 2400 BC). It is considered a Holy city to the three major Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Israelis and Palestinians both claim Jerusalem as their capital, as the State of Israel maintains its primary governmental institutions there while the State of Palestine ultimately foresees the city as its seat of power; however, neither claim is widely recognised internationally.

During its long history, Jerusalem has been destroyed at least twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, and captured and recaptured 44 times. The part of Jerusalem called the City of David was settled in the 4th millennium BCE. In 1538, walls were built around Jerusalem under Suleiman the Magnificent. Today those walls define the Old City, which has been traditionally divided into four quarters (known since the early 19th century as the Armenian, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Quarters). The Old City became a World Heritage Site in 1981, and is on the List of World Heritage in Danger. Modern Jerusalem has grown far beyond the Old City's boundaries.

Despite having an area of only 0.9 square kilometres the Old City is home to many sites of seminal religious importance, among them the Temple Mount and its Western Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Dome of the Rock, the Garden Tomb and al-Aqsa Mosque.

Today, the status of Jerusalem remains one of the core issues in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Nevertheless, all branches of the Israeli government are located in Jerusalem, including the Knesset (Israel's parliament), the residences of the Prime Minister and President, and the Supreme Court. The international community does not recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital, and the city hosts no foreign embassies. Jerusalem is also home to some non-governmental Israeli institutions of national importance, such as the Hebrew University and the Israel Museum with its Shrine of the Book. In 2011, Jerusalem had a population of 801,000, of which Jews comprised 497,000 (62%), Muslims 281,000 (35%), Christians 14,000 (around 2%) and 9,000 (1%) were not classified by religion.

This post is part of the Travel Tuesday meme,

and also part of the Outdoor Wednesday meme,

and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme,

and also part of the ABC Wednesday meme.