Rise of the Amorphophallus

Amorphohallus bulbifer Stems and New Leaves

Sometime in mid-July, just when we have lost hope that they will come back, these Amorphophallus bulbifer emerge from the ground almost overnight. The foliage and mottled stems are striking to look at. Three years ago we posted about the A. bulbifer and the stray Arisaema consanguineum that is mixed in. The A. consanguineum comes up a full month to two months before the A. bulbifer.

We’ve never seen these A. bulbifer bloom. Then again, they might be a little shy given what their generic name means. According to Quattrocchi amorphophallus has it origin in the “Greek amorphos ‘shapeless, deformed, without form’ and phallos, ‘a penis, wooden club,’ referring to the shape of the spadix.” We promise not to stare too long.

We got a few bulbils (where the specifc epithet comes from) from the Missouri Botanical Garden back in the 1990s and they have since steadily spread.

Amorphohallus bulbifer Stems and New Leaves – These Are Really Just One Big Leaf

Pillars Park, Bees Mural, Capitol Hill

On my way to Terra Plata I caught a glimpse of this mural, a collaboration between Northwest School and local artist Derek Wu. A women (Marz Martinez our research reveals) rips open the gray and reveals buzzing bees. What does it all mean?

Plymouth Pillars Park is just across Boren Ave from the mural. The small park overlooks the city and contains four columns from the Plymouth Congregational Church which was demolished in 1966. Ah, progress. But at least we have the bees across the street.

Let There Be Bees   

Nearby Plymouth Pillars Park  (left) and Tunnel Boring Machine (right)

Sedona, Center for the New Age - Mural

We were walking on our way to Elote one hot night when we stopped to snap this photo of a mural on the side of the Center for the New Age in Sedona, Arizona The building is located on Oak Creek in the shade of huge sycamores. We have never been inside the center - though the aura pictures blipped on our skeptics’ radar. (Most of the example aura pictures we’ve seen look like a photo of people wearing colorful clown wigs.)

Yes, the appetizer at Elote called “Elote” was delicious. Elote is Spanish (Mex) for corn. The appetizer is fire roasted corn with spicy mayo, lime and Cotija cheese - was delicious. Wonder if your aura would be different after eating a bowl of it?

The Tanks Roll Across the Fremont Bridge - Mural

In the basement of the building that now is home to the Dubliner, Frame Up Studios, Pie, and Bluebird, Hotel Hotel there are other small businesses where you can get a tattoo, a haircut, a wax, and eat Russian dumplings. Most of this building’s first floor and basement used to be home to a City People’s Mercantile. There is a sort-of inner courtyard of the building that used to be where City People’s kept their plants for sale. Now it is just an undefined sort of space. But it does have this mural of what looks like - and we have labeled - tanks rolling over the Fremont Bridge.

Binomen Art - Yucca

Yucca Spelled With Blossom Parts

This clump of yucca was featured previously in the Kähler and Yucca gloriosa ‘Variegata’. This year it bloomed in the summer, which is odd, because the plants have bloomed all times of the year except summer in the past. When they bloom in cold weather the flowers get soggy and the spike doesn’t last long. This time, the flower spikes lasted a long time and were greatly appreciated by the bees.
Of course, yucca is a member of the Agave family. Quattrocchi gives the generic name origin as:

“The vernacular name in Peru or in the Carib for manihot or cassava, misapplied to these plants, yucca for Manihot esculenta.”

The specific epithet is because this yucca can stab you so gloriously! Seriously, we are still nursing slash marks on the arms from merely trying to clean out debris that collected in the inner parts. Oh well.
The generic name is spelled out here with cut up blossoms which have a very faint smell to them. The petals and most parts of the flower are waxy to the touch.

Yucca Spelled With Blossom Parts (left) and Yucca gloriosa ‘Variegata’ Spikes (right) 

Yucca gloriosa ‘Variegata’ Spikes (left) and Inside a Yucca Blossom (right) 

Billy King’s Market Memories Mural

  
Ah, a trip to the market. One of us was more excited to go to DeLaurenti and one to see the Billy King mural in the Pike Place Market. (“Not Pike Market!” a friend and longtime Seattleite corrects us every time.)

The mural is about 12 feet by 15 feet on a southeastern facing cement wall. Location? You can come at it from below, climbing up from Western Avenue using the set of stairs that continue from the Pike Street Hill Climb. Or, you can go find Rachel the pig and go down the nearest stairs heading toward the water and past the bathrooms.

King says that the mural captures his memories of the market beginning in the late 1960s, in “spirit and essence”. It is bright and full of produce and people. The people, to our eyes, look quizzical and most stare at the viewer as if to ask: “Are you gonna buy some produce?” Today, it was just some good cheese at DeLaurenti, thank you.

Here is the Kickstarter site that raised funds for the mural, which was completed in 2011.

View of Market Memories as you come up from Western Avenue (left), Someone walks by (right)

A tourist(?) stares at you (left), the Market Memories Mural 1 of 1! (right)