Digital images instead. Just because. Well, partly because the books that hold the slides have these wicked snaps on them that were obviously designed to be snapped open by steel-fingered robots, and partly just because I can show this.
Crocus baytopiorum
And this.
Adonis amurensis
But mostly because the digital images are more interesting than the slides. The majority of slides were taken because I wanted pictures of plants, for books and slide shows; the digital images were pictures that Cindy wanted to take, and that made a difference.
Chionodoxa luciliae in blue grama
Crocus minimus
Crocus pestalozzae
Crocus minimus
Crocus minimus
Crocus corsicus. the way to tell the difference between this and C. minimus is to dig up a corm and look at the tunic
Bolophyta tetraneuris. The Arksanas River feverfew. I’m probably the only gardener on the planet who thinks this is exciting
Douglasia nivalis, again
a brown flowered stock, Matthiola sp., I got from Panayoti, and I think I’ve lost it now. typical stock-scented flowers
Some pediocactus.
Pediocactus simpsonii. Blooms very early here, March or April; flowers are scented of roses
Pediocactus knowltonii
Pediocactus paradinei
P. simpsonii
P.simpsonii
P. simpsonii
Then some obligatory Cute Puppy Pictures. We got Chess in 2002 from a place down by Pikes Peak, which is how I started this post. (The US government no longer uses apostrophes with place names, as in Pikes Peak, Grays Peak, Torreys Peak, etc. Maybe to counteract all the apostrophes used with plurals these days, who knows.)
I think Chess is the one on the left in the last picture. Like I didn’t want to scoop them all up into my arms and take them home, but some were already spoken for. He threw up in Cindy’s lap on the way home, which I thought was really, really funny, because Slipper had down exactly the same thing two years earlier.
Ending the post, before it becomes obvious that I don’t have much to say and am just posting so I can reach the magic number of 250 (at which point I understand I get a small villa on the Italian Riviera with acreage and a knowledgeable garden staff), one of the last remaining watercolors. I’m thinking of offering this to the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, along with one other. Out of the 29,000 plus accessions there, Cindy’s are the only ones in watercolor pencil.
Penstemon clutei and Hyles lineata
the miserable gardener 
What a stunning watercolor. Wow. The sphinx moth is just beautiful.
What pollinates those early-flowering pediocactus, I wonder.
Solitary bees pollinate the pediocactus. (I looked this up, just now, in Hochstatter’s book on pediocactus.)
The work on the moths, etc., took ten times longer than the plants. It kind of drove me crazy. I wanted plant pictures, she wanted to add bugs. I decided it was easier to let her do what she wanted to do.
You’ve been holding out on us, you so and so: these are some of the very best! What other treasures have you hidden away, you Harpagon! You sure as hell better invite me to that accursed villa (I never got one and I’m way past that! You get one and I’ll be royally p%$$ed! Watch your visitor numbers climb when I put this on the Facebook Pedio page. (I mean cactus, not phile…that is not one of my many blemishes). You Matthiola “septentrionalis” (not sure I buy this name) is much better colored than my grayish one, which actually produced seed this year. And those feathered crocus, further frilled and feasted by the waning winter sun are INCRementallyEDIBLE! Your face may soon join Lonsdale’s on my dartboard!
Uh huh. The Pediocactus paradinei and knowltonii “went to their long home”, as Farrer said, a while ago. No idea why. Though there is a P. knowltonii here now, another one. I had a colony of knowltonii, and they were seeding around ….really….and then a few winters ago they were all gone. So I’m starting over. Tiny flowers, though.
Today’s post was number 250.
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I find that brown stock to be exceptionally appealing!
I think it’s either Matthiola anchoniifolia, or M. montana. (I think plants labeled as M. montana, with pink flowers, are really M. trojana; got this from a Turkish wildflower website.) Lost it, but have seeds now, ready to be sowed.