Still As Life

We had visitors over this evening for dad's birthday (he's 45 now), and logically, as happens with such a cool plant, the bat plant came up in conversation so off we went to show it in flower. Being dark and all meant it was an interesting mission down to the back garden through multiple spider webs to find it.

I grabbed some more photo's while we were down there as the second flower is open now. The third one isn't out yet, but it should be soon. Sadly I will probably be back up in Brisbane when it does come out, but that's alright.

For whatever reason, I'm not entirely sure anymore, a conversation came up about snakes during the night. Now as we were seeing off our guests, mum yells out that there is a snake, and we all (or me anyway) think she is joking, given the recent talk about all the snakes, and I couldn't see one in the direction she was looking. Lo and behold though, there is this sizable carpet snake sitting up on the drainpipe.

When I say sizable, I mean, reasonable, compared to some of the carpet snakes we've had here, this one is tiny. As far as I know, this is the first snake that we've seen around here in a while as well, so it was quite a surprise to see one at all, especially so close to the house that it was almost in it.

It ended up finding its way up over the gutter and going down the drainpipe which would take it down to the back of the house where it could get out again. I guess with all the wet lately, the frogs are out and about and would make a perfect meal for a growing young carpet snake like this one.

Whenever I see carpet snakes, I can't help but think of the gigantic one we had down the backyard once. It was easily long enough to get close to going from one side of a road to the other, and thick enough to eat a small dog without making much of a lump. Luckily they are non venomous or it would make such big ones all the more frightening to behold.

Labels: special interest

Okay, so perhaps my prediction/hope for a big flood was slightly off as it has pretty much stopped raining and there are patches of blue sky here and there. The weather forecast is much the same through to Tuesday. So unless we are really lucky, it isn't going to flood. Oh well.

Dad has this really obscure plant in his yard called a Giant Bat Plant. They are from Malaysia, and dad's one seems to be really thriving, it's leaves are huge, the full 750mm by 350mm with no trouble at all.

With all the rain and humidity over the past couple of week's, it's not only come to flower, but it is going to have three flowers at once!

It has one fully open now, another will be near fully open tomorrow, and a third one that will be fully open within the next few days as well. These flowers last over a week each, so it will be quite stunning to see once it has all three of them out. The most I've seen it with at once was two and they only just overlapped by a day or two before the first one died.

As you can see in the photo's the flowers are very obscure. They have like a big white and purple leaf over the top of them which opens to reveal these obscure purple flowers and long whisker type fronds.

This flower comes out on a long stem above all of the large leaves.

I think part of the reason it does so well here is because it is a very tropical climate, and where it is located is well in the shade almost all day by a combination of larger tree's and in particular, reasonable sized fern fronds that allow some light through, but not in large quantities. It is also quite humid here most of the year round which to my understanding, Bat Plant's really like. Lismore is also generally quite wet compared to places even only two hours away from here, such as Brisbane, which also no doubt encourages it.

I'll get some more photo's over the next few days when the other two flowers are out. It should be really stunning, as you can probably imagine seeing just one flower.

Labels: special interest

Upon reading an article on Google.org recently related to an Associated Press story about a rise in infectious diseases due to climate change, I couldn't help but chuckle to myself.

The article outlines how rising temperatures are increasing the worldwide spread of infectous diseases. Particularly the increase in cases of chikungunya fever in Italy and spreading throughout Europe where it was previously only common in Africa and Asia.

I know this doesn't really seem like a funny thing, but the reason I couldn't help but chuckle is because this is only logical. When the humidity in a room increases, a loaf of bread in the room will get mouldy much quicker. So it makes sense that when the atmosphere in general is maintaining heat and the humidity is building, that diseases, viruses and other fungi would also start to spread quicker. Yet it took an Associated Press article for this to even become widely realised.

Labels: special interest