June 10 2020 - How Many Flowers?

Irises come in every colour.  Yesterday's visit to the Laking garden at Royal Botanical Gardens was a tumultuous gathering of colours.  How many flowers were blooming?  There are over 1,000 types of irises in the collection.  There likely are least 20 stems on every planting.  Each stem has at least one flower in bloom.  So we were looking at something in the range of 20,000 flowers yesterday.  It is satisfying to see so many flowers. There are lots of theories on why humans love flowers.  One article says this: One clue is that flowers stimulate the same sensory apparatus that humans use for assessing the quality of fruits. Fruits often have colors similar to flowers, and one theory suggests that trichromatic color vision in primates has evolved to better detect and evaluate edible fruits. From an olfactory perspective, floral volatiles are chemically similar or even identical to those emitted by fruits, and thus smelling a flower may possibly bring to mind a ripe, sweet fruit. Psychology Today's article says  it more simply:  dopamine. Dopamine is triggered by the expectation of a reward. Flowers were a huge reward signal in the world our brain evolved in because they marked the coming of abundance after a hungry winter. Today we have enough to eat all year round so we don’t consciously link flowers with food. But the blossoming of a flower triggers the sense that something special is coming because it triggers dopamine. Isn't it nice to know we can look at flowers and get the same effect as a physical  fitness class. Here are two views of the Laking Garden.

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Esperanto Pirates Flying the Flag

How to design a flag...that was one of Ronnie Hoffman's upcoming ideas. We can combine that with his interest in conlangs:  the Esperanto community has its own flag - a Green Star.  It was first proposed as the symbol of mutual recognition among Esperantists in 1892.  The colour green was considered a symbol of mutual recognition. There seem to be three major steps in flag design: 1. Choose the shape of your flag.  Most flags are either rectangular or square.  Triangular works well for a pennant flat, while a rectangle works for a sports flag. 2. Choose a simple design. Some of the most common flag designs are bicolors, tricolors, and quarters, or use stripes, panels, and borders. The flag can also be a solid color with a unique symbol in the center. Alternatively, you can place a rectangle in the upper left hand corner called a canton (like on the American flag) that includes a symbol. 3. Use 2 or 3 colours. The most common colors found on flags are black, blue, green, red, white, and yellow. Do you know that the Gilbert and Sullivan musical "The Pirates of Penzance" has been recorded in Esperanto?  Which flag would we choose in this situation?  The Esperanto or Jolly Roger flag - the one with a skull and crossbones? There were actually numerous pirate flags.  That happened during the Golden Age of Piracy in the 1700's.  This seems an odd way of describing stealing and killing.  You can see the famous flags, their originators, and information about them HERE.  The two pirates who are first attributed with naming their flag "Jolly Roger" were Bartholomew Roberts and Francis Spriggs.  Because their flags were so different, it is thought that the name was in common use before them.  The wikipedia entry HERE has even more flags.   The custom of Piracy ships was to not fly the Jolly Roger.  They used a variety of different flags, and would fly false colours or no colours.  The Jolly Roger would be raised, often with the warning shot.  The flag was flown to given warning so that ships could surrender without resistance.  A number of sports teams have the Jolly Roger symbol as part of their flag - football team the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for example, and numerous other teams have also adopted the symbol for their flags.  What about this?  The early development team of the Apple Macintosh used a pirate flag to maintain a "rebellious" spirit. Our picture today is a a more calming and reflective one - a close-up of plants at the Royal Botanical Gardens.

RBG Rock Garden

I finally got to the Royal Botanical Garden's newly renovated Rock Garden yesterday on a beautiful November day with the sun lowering in the afternoon sky. It took a few years, and quite a bit of money to renovate the gardens.  It boasts a grand modern entrance building, and accessible walkways down to the rock garden.  It is significantly revamped.  As I looked at various areas, I could see how different it is now.  Even with the mature trees still in their places, the renovation is profound.   The water was emptied from the ponds so the full effect is missing in the late fall.  Still the autumn colours are showing in the Japanese maples, dogwoods, viburnums and the grasses. The landscape architect firm was Janet Rosenberg Studio.  I looked for reviews by the professional trade to see what the verdict is.  I found one article in Canadian Architecture covering the basic overview of what was accomplished. Nothing else so far.  I wanted to know if the result has elevated the rock garden to star status. A sunken garden has the potential to be pure magic. So it was great to see the re-do of the ponds and paths as they were in poor shape.  The new ponds and waterways are the major features and they are empty now, so I may have to wait till spring to get the full effect of the fountains, waterfalls and bridges.  It might be possible to capture some snow images - I checked to see if the Rock Garden is open in winter and daily hours are posted, so we'll see what happens.