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Category: miscellaneous

Namib Desert’s northwest (#13 in series: obviously-tough)

Published March 4, 2024 by Pelidoug

Namib Desert’s northwest (#13 in series: obviously-tough)

 

This post and the next two in this series are devoted to striking examples of plants that have evolved/adapted to survive in the least-rainy part of the Namib Desert.

The featured image’s stark centre of attention is (I am almost sure) a particularly hardy member of the geranium family.

It is probably one of the “Sarcocaulons” – members of what was formerly the generally-recognised genus Sarcocaulon.

Since 1996 these plants are usually numbered as members of the genus Monsonia.

One species – which may or may not be the one pictured above – contains a highly flammable resin which persists even when the plant is “dead”…or “dead”-ish.

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Namib Desert’s northwest (#3 in series: atop its edge “2”)

Published February 24, 2024 by Pelidoug

Namib Desert’s northwest (#3 in series: atop its edge “2”)

 

 

Our vantage point and the time/date were essentially “as per immediately-preceding post”, but instead of looking due west, to the Atlantic, this post has heads and camera turned in other directions.

To our east, south and north, the view was almost 100% “dunescape”.

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Aspects of Etna (#14 in series: Etna’s cableway)

Published February 15, 2024 by Pelidoug

Aspects of Etna (#14 in series: Etna’s cableway)

 

 

Construction of a cableway on Mount Etna began in the 1950s.

The first version began operations in 1966.

Etna first  “intervened” in 1971, destroying the cableway’s upper section.

Various other eruptions have since wreaked varying degrees of destruction, resulting in repeated closures, rebuilds and realignments.

Since the spring of 2023, the cableway and its (new) cable cars have been as they appear in my photo.

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October 30 2023: Darling Range flora, “up close” (#14 in series, with musical bonus & Australian tour alert)

Published December 19, 2023 by Pelidoug

October 30 2023: Darling Range flora, “up close” (#14 in series, with musical bonus & Australian tour alert)

 

 

 

One of the nigh-infinite pleasures of walking in southwestern Australian forest/woodland/bush:

once “attuned”, you begin to notice that the “forest floor” – when viewed at or near ground level, up close – often looks like a multi-layered, uncommonly-colourful “forest”, in its own right.

read moreOctober 30 2023: Darling Range flora, “up close” (#14 in series, with musical bonus & Australian tour alert)
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