On February 20, 2007, tens of thousands of people packed Sydney Harbour's foreshore to witness a historic reunion of two queens of the sea. The Queen Elizabeth 2 and the Queen Mary 2 greeted each other with the sound of their whistles as the QE2 sailed past her sister ship docked at the Garden Island navy base.
The Queen Mary 2, one of the world's largest passenger cruise liners, majestically sailed through the harbour shortly before dawn, followed by a flotilla of boats and watched by thousands onshore. Too tall, at 23 storeys high, to sail under the Harbour Bridge and too long to berth at the International Terminal at Circular Quay, the $1 billion grand lady of the sea, on her maiden visit to Sydney, docked at the naval base.
In the evening, her sister ship, the QE2, was also welcomed by large crowds as she sailed through the harbour to dock at Circular Quay. As she passed near Garden Island, the QE2 sounded its whistles, prompting a similar response from her big sister and rapturous applause and cheers from those watching on the foreshore. It was a sight not seen in Sydney since the two ships' predecessors - the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth - greeted each other in the harbour as troop carriers in 1941.
The 345-metre-long QM2 weighs in at 151,400 tonnes and caters for up to 3090 passengers with the help of 1253 crew.
This post is part of the Wednesday Waters meme,
and also part of the Waterworld Wednesday 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.
The galah, Eolophus roseicapilla, also known as the rose-breasted cockatoo, galah cockatoo, roseate cockatoo or pink and grey, is one of the most common and widespread cockatoos, and it can be found in open country in almost all parts of mainland Australia.
It is endemic on the mainland and was introduced to Tasmania, where its distinctive pink and grey plumage and its bold and loud behaviour make it a familiar sight in the bush and increasingly in urban areas. It appears to have benefited from the change in the landscape since European colonisation and may be replacing the Major Mitchell's cockatoo in parts of its range.
The term galah is derived from gilaa, a word found in Yuwaalaraay and neighbouring Aboriginal languages.
This post is part of the Saturday Critters meme,
and also part of the Camera Critters meme.
A few shots of the Yarra River by night on Boathouse Drive. The Morell Bridge was completed in 1899 by John Monash and J. T. N. Anderson, it is notable for being the first bridge in Victoria to be built using reinforced concrete. It was a rather cold night and I was shooting quickly without a tripod, hence the grainy images.
This post is part of the Weekend Reflections meme,
and also part of the Weekly TopShot meme.
Strolling into the local fruiterer's shop one can see why this is also called a GREENgrocer! There's green apples, avocadoes, capsicums, cucumbers, limes and okra, amongst other things...
This post is part of the Friday Greens meme.
Turnera subulata is a species of flowering plant in the Passifloraceae family known by the common names white buttercup, sulphur alder, politician's flower, dark-eyed turnera, and white alder. Despite its names, it is not related to the buttercups or the alders. It is native to Central and South America, from Panama south to Brazil. It is well known in many other places as an introduced species, such as Malaysia, Indonesia, several other Pacific Islands, the Caribbean, and Florida in the United States. It is commonly cultivated as a garden flower.
This plant is a perennial herb growing from a thick taproot and woody stem base. It reaches a maximum height around 80 cm. The leaves are roughly oval in shape with toothed edges. The undersides are glandular and coated in white hairs. The upper surfaces may be somewhat hairy, as well. The leaves are up to 9 cm long. Flowers occur in the leaf axils, borne in calyces of hairy, glandular sepals. The petals are rounded to oval, the longest exceeding 3 cm. They are white or yellowish with darker bases. The dark patches at the bases are nectar guides. The centre of the flower is rough, said to feel like a cat's tongue. The fruit is a hairy capsule containing seeds with white arils. The seeds are dispersed by ants, who are likely attracted to their high lipid content.
This plant has uses in traditional medicine. It is used for skin, gastrointestinal, and respiratory ailments. In Brazil, the plant is made into cough syrup, and the roots are said to be good for dysmenorrhea. Laboratory tests showed it has some inhibitory activity against various fungi, such as Candida glabrata, Aspergillus flavus, A. niger, A. fumigatus, Penicillium chrysogenum, and Candida albicans.
This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.
Saraca thaipingensis is medium sized, evergreen tree with a wide-spreading crown, which grows to a height of 7 m or more. Leaves are simple pinnate, large, with up to 8 pairs of opposite, 20-40 x 6-12 cm leaflets but without a terminal one. Young leaves are cream-coloured, hanging limply in tassels for a few days before they stiffen and turn green.
Flowers are 1-2 cm across, faintly fragrant, in dense bunches that arise from the trunk and main branches. They are light pinkish yellow turning deep yellow with a dark crimson eye spot which darkens to blood-red. Most of the flowers in a cluster are functionally male, the others bisexual. Pods are large, 30-45 x 6-10 cm, thin, flat and leathery. They turn purple with maturity, splitting into two coiled halves to expose the flat, black seeds.
This is an attractive flowering tree for parks and gardens. When in bloom, the tree attracts masses of nectar feeding sunbirds like Purple-throated (Nectariniua sperata), Crimson (Aethopyga siparaja), Olive-backed (Cinnyris jugularis) and Brown-throated (Anthreptes malacensis) as well as the Asian Brown Flycatcher (Muscicapa dauurica).
The tree is native to Peninsular Malaysia, but is cultivated in a number of tropical countries. The specimen here was photographed in the Singapore Botanic Gardens.
This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Trees & Bushes meme,
and also part of the Ruby Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme,
and also part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.
A banana is an edible fruit, botanically a berry, produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus Musa. The fruit is variable in size, colour and firmness, but is usually elongated and curved, with soft flesh rich in starch covered with a rind which may be green, yellow, red, purple, or brown when ripe. The fruits grow in clusters hanging from the top of the plant.
Almost all modern edible parthenocarpic (seedless) bananas come from two wild species – Musa acuminata and Musa balbisiana. The scientific names of most cultivated bananas are Musa acuminata, Musa balbisiana, and Musa × paradisiaca for the hybrid Musa acuminata × M. balbisiana, depending on their genomic constitution.
Musa species are native to tropical Indomalaya and Australia, and are likely to have been first domesticated in Papua New Guinea. They are grown in at least 107 countries, primarily for their fruit, and to a lesser extent to make fibre, banana wine and banana beer and as ornamental plants. Worldwide, there is no sharp distinction between "bananas" and "plantains". Especially in the Americas and Europe, "banana" usually refers to soft, sweet, dessert bananas, particularly those of the Cavendish group, which are the main exports from banana-growing countries. By contrast, Musa cultivars with firmer, starchier fruit are called "plantains".
In other regions, such as Southeast Asia, many more kinds of banana are grown and eaten, so the simple two-fold distinction is not useful and is not made in local languages. The term "banana" is also used as the common name for the plants which produce the fruit.This can extend to other members of the genus Musa like the scarlet banana (Musa coccinea), pink banana (Musa velutina) and the Fe'i bananas. It can also refer to members of the genus Ensete, like the snow banana (Ensete glaucum) and the economically important false banana (Ensete ventricosum). Both genera are classified under the banana family, Musaceae.
This post is part of the Monday Mellow Yellows meme,
and also part of the Macro Monday meme,
and also part of the I Heart Macros meme,
and also part of the Food Friday meme.
