Now you have to realize that I have spent the majority of my life in a concrete jungle. The only nature we would see would be the occasional plants that may decorate a medium strip in my home town.
In the inner city, you have no trees, no plants or flowers and no animal wildlife. We have our share of human wildlife, but I will save that for another post. I remember the occasional trip to the Boston Common. There we could see some color and what a contrast from the traffic, triple deckers and poles that made up my hometown.
This would be the type of garden we would have on our front stoop at home:
Trees in the city have a city purpose, where else can we put the yellow caution tape?
Or how about a night walk to experience nature at it's best, if you look closely down this street, you will see a tree at the end of the road:
Now down here, my senses are out of control. I am not a flowery type of guy, but the sight and smells of the different flowers, plants and trees has my mind confused. (My wife says that’s not hard). The smells reminded me of walking into a Yankee candle store up east, " some of the candle "flavors" were so very foreign to me.
Experiancing the flowers down South, I had the same expression I have for most of my new encounters here…What the ……is that?
Take this flower, the Southern Magnolia. Now this flower is tough and feels like leather, in bloom it looks fantastic.
On any dirt road down south you can see azaleas bursting out!
Or you can't talk about the south without mentioning Spanish moss!
Or the ever popular palm trees:
Nothing like a stroll at the beach down here with these as a backdrop!
Geesh! I do sound a little flowery here…let me put in a “man plant” so I can feel better.
I give you the pitcher plant:
Pitcher plants are carnivorous plants whose prey-trapping mechanism features a deep cavity filled with liquid known as a pitfall trap. It has been widely assumed that the various sorts of pitfall trap evolved from rolled leaves, with selection pressure favouring more deeply cupped leaves over evolutionary time. However, some pitcher plant genera (such as Nepenthes) are placed within clades consisting mostly of flypaper traps: this indicates that this view may be too simplistic, and some pitchers may have evolved from flypaper traps by loss of mucilage.
Pitcher plants are not indigenous to the south, I just feel a whole lot better posting it here.
With all this yammering about the South and the beautiful flora, I must say that I do miss the trips I use to take as a kid up north to look at the foliage:
I don't see this down here.
