Captain Cook's Voyage and Banks' Florilegium

Went to see "Captain Cook's Voyage and Banks' Florilegium" at Bunkamura the other day. In the late 1700s, Cook took a party, including naturalist Joseph Banks, on a voyage to Polynesia, New Holland (Australia), New Zealand, and Batavia (Jakarta, under the Dutch), primarily to observe the transit of Venus. Along the way, Banks and other naturalists recorded hundreds of plants. 

(Image courtesy of the University of Michigan Library.)

Andreas Cellarius' Celestial Chart from the late 17th century. It was used to guide Cook and co on the journey to observe Venus.

It was interesting to see just how many of the plants they recorded 250 years ago still exist today, in more or less the same form. There was an exhaustive amount of information on each plant, such as a note on sweet potatoes and how mere contact with the flowers could cause dysentery, and often death. (They grew amid filth in trade-ravaged Batavia.) 

(Image courtesy of this page.)

The plants were initially recorded in watercolor, after which copper line engravings were made. Black and white prints of the engravings were issued in the early 20th century, but the beautiful drawings that we respond to today weren't actually created until the 1980s! 

(Image courtesy of the National Museum of Australia.)

These flowers (called scaevola), recorded in Botany Bay in Australia, surprised me: I thought they came only in white and were native to Hawaii. For proof, a photo I took in Hawaii last summer:

Despite the softness of the drawings, there is a precision to the line engravings that make it look like the leaves in particular were painted with cellular-level precision. The exhibit continues until Sunday, March 1. I can imagine people dismissing this exhibit as just "pretty flowers", but there was certainly a lot more to it than it let on! 

Rainbow Shower Tree and Other Plants

The rainbow shower tree, my favorite.

The ends look like asparagus.

They look beautiful even when half dead on the ground.

A flower caught in a spider web.

Closeup of a naupaka flower.

Hibiscus flowers that I rescued from an over-zealously trimmed shrub. They do very well in just water!

Closeup of hibiscus with Easy Macro.

Nature Hike on Apulit Island

Another activity on Apulit Island: a quite strenuous nature hike, very at odds with the placid beach shore. Amusingly, our laid-back guide was so used to it, he padded along on flip-flops while I was huffing and puffing in sneakers.

For me, the best part of the hike was encountering new plants and creatures.

A lizard, quite different from all the geckos that patter around the cottages.

This ladder was not part of the hike. The island was Japan-owned until around 6 years ago, and during the two years that the island was closed due to repairs, locals from neighboring islands created this man-made ladder so they could climb up to the top of the mountain to catch the ever-profitable swallow's nests made from their spit.

Leaves stuck in a spider's web.

A tree that looks like it's covered with barnacles. Apparently it is so rare that it doesn't even have a scientific name, just something in the local language.

Bamboo trees growing in sideways. In Japan, I think they only grow vertically.

Another flimsily-constructed ladder, this time made for the nature hike. Check the guide's flip-flops!

We saw lots of these large red beetles.

Bamboo like barbed wire.

Doctoring My Marimo, Part 3

 

My marimo had recovered quite well after I stopped placing it in direct sunlight, but it was split in two and looked quite unattractive.

Therefore, I took some thread and am trying to shape it back together into a ball. 

It looks a bit ragged, and I would like to clean out the stray bits of algae at the bottom of the bottle but it seems a shame to throw them away, considering how long it takes for marimo to grow.

 I plan to leave it like this for a year or so and see where it ends up.

Plants that Caught My Eye

The beautiful rainbow shower tree is always a welcome sight. It really says something about Hawaii that this tree is simply planted on sidewalks and parking lots. I imagine a Hawaiian flying to Tokyo and being shocked by the lack of natural life, and in certain areas, the endless array of gray buildings.

They also come in yellow.

 

 Amazingly, these trees are propagated by graft, because they do not produce any seeds!

The noni plant. The fruit apparently smells horrible, but is known for its medicinal effects.

An unexpected little burst of flower.

Naupaka kahakai, a plant native to Hawaii.

I was initially drawn to the unusual half-flowers, and lo, it has its own Hawaiian legend:
"In ancient times, one version goes, there was a beautiful Hawaiian princess known as Naupaka. One day, the villagers noticed that Naupaka looked very sad. They told her parents, who approached Naupaka and asked her what was troubling her.

'I have fallen in love with a man named Kaui,' replied the princess.' But Kaui is not of noble birth—he is a commoner.' According to Hawaiian tradition, it was strictly forbidden for members of royalty to marry people from the common ranks.

Distressed, Naupaka and Kaui traveled long and far, seeking a solution to their dilemma. They climbed up a mountain to see a kahuna who was staying at a heiau (temple). Alas, he had no clear answer for the young lovers. 'There is nothing I can do,' he told them, 'but you should pray. Pray at this heiau.'

So they did. And as they prayed, rain began to fall. Their hearts torn by sorrow, Naupaka and Kaui embraced for a final time. Then Naupaka took a flower from her ear and tore it in half, giving one half to Kaui. 'The gods won’t allow us to be together,' she said. 'You go live down by the water, while I will stay up here in the mountains.'

As the two lovers separated, the naupaka plants that grew nearby saw how sad they were. The very next day, they began to bloom in only half flowers."

Without seeing what the flower looks like in bloom, it's heard to research the name of this plant.

Spotted this tree from the backseat of the car.

Procuring Free Coconut Water

A coconut I dragged back to my place from the beach in Waikoloa, Hawaii.

I knew from past experience that breaking open a coconut is much harder than it looks, but it was still quite strenuous as a task. Fortunately, the Big Island is covered with sharp lava rocks. I bashed the coconut against them for about 20 minutes and sawed away with a bread knife to get to the hard inner shell in the center.

You can see the white part of the coconut slowly becoming visible.

I poured out the coconut water and carved out as much of the white skin as possible.

Filtered it, and as an extra-cautionary measure, heated it up...

...and voila!

Pretty Shots of Plants

This fluff was absolutely everywhere, but perhaps by being so visible it could be less lethal than the invisible pollen that wafts around Tokyo in spring.

A plant coming out of the wall.

I won't pretend these photos are rather purposeless.