Send in your photos, matey! The tank goes down at the rate of one post per day, though I’m contemplating putting them up more spordadically when submissions are scant.
Today’s plant photos are from Tim Anderson, who took them on a trip to Queensland. His notes are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them. As you see, Tim’s a bit of a wag. But if you know the species names, please put them in the comments.
I blundered into these oddities while on a recent jaunt to sunny Queensland.
Carnivorous plants would rule the world if only they could make progress on evolving opposable thumbs.
The rare and elusive 32-winged green bat in search of its favoured prey, the Fur Elizard.
Deep in the Queensland rainforest, a squadron of Humpybong Flappy Palms takes to the air. Naturalists are unsure about when these creatures developed powered flight.
Frustrated by their inability to climb the South American Spiky Horror Tree, the local monkeys are reputedly on course to evolve thick-soled Wellington boots.
This here is the famous Australian Toilet-brush Tree. It is a mystery why natural selection would have produced this marvel 50 million years in advance of the flushable commode. Take that, Darwinistas!
The Amazonian Petticoat Palm always wows the crowd at the Rio Carnivale with its exquisite sense of rhythm in its signature samba performance.
Nature’s attempts to evolve the football have, thus far, fallen short of expectations.
I believe the name of the species in that first photo is “Hanging Condoms.”
“This here is the famous Australian Toilet-brush Tree.”
My Offend-O-Meter is in the red on this one.
I enjoyed your commentary about the pictures.
“Humpybong Flappy Palms”
Friday achievement : unlocked.
These are great photos (of beautiful plants) and commentary nearly worthy of Ze Frank. Excellent!
Fantastic! I especially love the Petticoat Palm dancer and the rainforest creatures trying to take flight.
I enjoyed the photos. I love to see tropical plants and foliage. Thank you for sharing Tim’s photos. I am no plant expert but I think the first photo is the pitcher plant or nepenthes.
Nice pix and cute comments!
Speaking of carnivorous plants, I just watched David Attenborough’s new show, “Green Planet” on PBS. The second episode has some wonderful bits on them. Besides simply beautiful photography, it features a lot of new photo techniques applied to the plant world and includes a how-we-did-it segment after each show proper. I highly recommend it.
“Green Planet” is simply fantastic!
(Thanks, Tim Anderson. I laughed despite myself.)
Yes, I watched that segment as well. Quite an interesting back-story of the fellow who developed the special camera gear.
More! More! More!
Thanks for the fun shots and funny comments. Imagine playing football with one of those barrel cacti…OUCH!
That had me chuckling! Sorry I can’t be much use with the ID’s, as there are no exoskeletons or jointed legs.
The “Toilet Brush Tree” could be Banksia spinulosa, the hairpin Banksia, aka “bush candles”. It’s a highly variable species distributed along the east coast of Australia to southern Queensland, and with some remnant populations further north.
Australian flora has lots of raspberries to blow at Darwinistas. We also have “Bottlebrush Trees” from millions of years before there were bottles.
Thank you, Tim, for making the world a little brighter!