Marja-Leena Rathje
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a volunteer


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This datura emerged in my pot of sweet bell peppers, not quite as large as the one that grew in another pot three years ago.

As it did back then, it still makes me think of some prehistoric giant plants, ready to take over the world, maybe coloured by a book that I'm currently rereading some twenty years later: Rumors of Spring by Richard Grant. Highly relevant in today's troubled ecology, I must say, even as it is fantasy/science fiction.

Marja-Leena | 24/08/2010 | 13 comments
themes: Books, Nature, Photoworks


13 comments

beautiful, tender photographs of a brave volunteer

I just read a little about the book and already want to go and live in the Grand Bank Forest. Naturally, I'd really be hoping to meet an Ent once I got there. The world could use more of that race right now.

Fire Bird, thank you.

Susan, I'm in the middle of the book and so far the only existing forest is portrayed as rather scary as it suddenly starts to grow. It's both funny and serious in portraying some people as blaming science - sound familiar?

Beautiful photos. I think your macro work is becoming more emotionally charged?

Jean, thanks so much, I hope that means I'm getting a little better with the challenges of the macro lens and able to think about the image more than the camera.

Wonderful, and how generous of it to grow unasked. For a moment when I just saw the top of the first picture I took it for a snowscape!

A real wealth of images of nature to be found here.

What beautiful images, Marja-Leena! I think Jean is onto something.

Lucy, certain volunteers are very welcome in our gardens, aren't they? This one is so unusual.

Beth, thanks, I'm pleased that you think so!

Another lovely set of images. You inspire me. (And I owe you an email!)

A close look is always rewarding. None more so than these photographs. Datura seems such a tropical plant, and yet there you are in what seems to us to be the frozen north.

MB, thank you! Looking forward to that email :-)

Joe, yes, this plant seems quite tropical. Even in our relatively mild west coast winters, it's not hardy but the seeds seem to be, at least in the compost that later goes into the various pots. I also save some of the seeds and start plants some years.

I haven't read the book but imagine if there were giant equivalents of pitcher plants that swallow their prey! *shudder*

Anil, that would make me shudder too. So far in my reading nothing like it has happened yet.