A sign of spring

A sign of spring

Plum blossoms began to bloom. Spring seems to be one step closer.

Japan Cypripedium, an endangered species

The photo has been originally uploaded by Yuichi Momma's photostream in flickr


According to the RRL issued by Ministry of the Environment (Japan), the Japan Cypripedium has been specified as an endangered species.

It is said that the place where this plant grows wild disappeared mostly in Japan.

However, we can look at a state of that this plant has grown in colonies in one private botanical garden.
The owner of the botanical garden is an old man who is 85 years old.
In order to protect this plant from extinction, he makes efforts to protect and  grow this plant more than a decade.

As a result, the plant was able to increase a thousand or more now.

about Nirin-sou

The photo originally uploaded by Yuichi Momma's photostream in flickr

I'd like to tell you about Nirin-sou (or called wind-flower in English) in the botanical approach today.

This flower is called "Nirin-sou" in Japanese that is one of species in genus of Anemone. The scientific name is anemone flaccida.
As for the characteristic of this plant, two flowers bloom at the same time from one stem.　In other words, the most of this plant grows two flower stalks ( or scapes) from one stem as you can see in the image.

image on left : the place where Nirin-sou grows in colony.

image on right : up-closed image of Nirin-sou. Diameter of this flower is 2 cm at most, and it has five pieces of white sepals which look like petals. This plant has no petal that is another characteristic of this plant.

The flowering time will be end of March to beginning of April in the local area where I live.

Golden Guinea for your Happy Sunday!!

Golden Guinea for your Happy Sunday!!, originally uploaded by photoholic image.

The bright yellow flower associates the British gold coin GUINEA.
According to the Royal Horticultural Society, the plant shown in above is called Kerria japonica 'Golden Guinea'.

It is slightly troublesome to take the photograph of this flower.
The flowers of Kerria bloom on the weak arching branches that sway even in the light breeze.
Therefore, particularly, it is hard to focus on a flower of kerria in case of manual focusing lens.
So, I had to wait a little while for breeze to stop completely.