Image of the day

[cohan]

The campanula/symphyandra is lovely, whatever the name.  Certainly the other symphyandra keep themselves going by self-sowing, but never obnoxiously.
The weather here is dreadful, blistering hot and humid, yet there are a few things that are looking as is they are enjoying themselves: physarias, astragalus, eriogonums.  Also, all the daphnes are starting to rebloom.  Just a few pictures taken this morning.......

Looking great, Anne, love the Erio...
 no heatwave here--we got as high as mid-high 20'sC (maybe 80F for a few hours) for just a few days, now back to 16C as highs (11C as a high, Friday!) with lows down to 3C..... 20 again by the weekend.... wildflowers seem happy with the non-stop rain this year, and I've only watered seed pots once or twice after late May!

[Booker]

Just back from the beautiful Dolomites ... just one of the zillion stunning views.

[Booker]

Lichen ridge in the same area.

[RickR]

Wow, Cliff!  That gigantic boulder with the trees perched on top is amazing!  And I'm sure the picturesque rock is securely "staked" down by all the tree roots finding there way from the top down into terra firma!

[Lori S.]

Beautiful scenes, Cliff!  Thanks for posting them.  The first photo, in particular, looks otherworldly! 

[cohan]

Just back from the beautiful Dolomites ... just one of the zillion stunning views.

beautiful, Cliff! Is this area grazed?

[Booker]

Just back from the beautiful Dolomites ... just one of the zillion stunning views.

beautiful, Cliff! Is this area grazed?

Hi Cohan,
No, this particular area is too boggy for grazing ... the marshes are full of orchids, Parnassia palustris, Allium schoenoprasum (by the thousands), Pyrola rotundifolia, etc, etc.  Looking left, right or behind gives equally beautiful, but completely different views.

[Hoy]

I have a lot of stuff to catch up with!
The Dolomites seems to be a wonderful place, Cliff!

Here are a taste of another wonderful place - and very different from anything I have experienced previously
The tepuy Roraima on the border of Venezuela - Guyana - Brazil; fog and clouds often appeared quite suddenly!

[RickR]

Holy Moly, Trond!  Those rock formations are MASSIVE !!!

Those are really trees under that "umbrella rock"?

[Lori S.]

I'm glad you asked that, Rick.  I was confused by the scale in that photo, and couldn't decide if they were small plants or huge trees... are those trees??

[Hoy]

I'll show more rocks and plants later when I get time and a better internet connection. The trees are small trees or large shrubs - here's a photo to show the scale: (This is one of the larger specimens)
- and we are about 2700m above sea level.

[Lori S.]

Well, speaking of otherworldly!    What an amazing place, Trond!

Edit:  Oh, and as I mentioned this and showed the photos to Stuart, I was reminded that the area you are visiting was the site of Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World... do let us know if you come upon any dinosaurs.    Stuart had a comic book, apparently, that featured American GIs fighting Allosaurus in this area... (I only had wimpy comic books... Richie Rich, Little Lottie, Casper, Archie... none of them ever fought dinosaurs... sigh.)

[RickR]

I studied that umbrella rock photo and concluded that those must be trees since the leaves were so tiny in the pic.  I guess I was sort of right, but not what I had envisioned.  Still, an awesome place, and with several sizings that seem out of place according to my norms.  Weird! (but cool)

[cohan]

Love the tepuis, Trond! I've seen a couple programs on tv, and did some searching after, but there is not much on the plants (they mention the vegetation of course, but not much detail on what's there), so I'm looking forward to your pics.. how did you get up there--hike/climb? helicopter?

[Hoy]

Love the tepuis, Trond! I've seen a couple programs on tv, and did some searching after, but there is not much on the plants (they mention the vegetation of course, but not much detail on what's there), so I'm looking forward to your pics.. how did you get up there--hike/climb? helicopter?

I'll come back with a report when I get home and get access to  my broadband. Now I only have a phone as modem and it is hopeless to load pictures properly. Besides I have not resized the pics yet and neither named the plant species - hopefully I manage to name some of the plants.

It is several tepuis and most are inaccessible without real mountain climbing or helicopter. Roraima is one of the easier - you hike two days through a undulating savannah, cross a couple of rivers without bridges; the third day you climb 1000m up in a very steep scree mostly covered with a kind of rainforest and enter a plateau at about 2700m. Here you spend 2 nights and one day exploring the nature before climbing down and hike back to civilisation in two days. It is a limited number of people up there at the time but some come for a half day trip by helicopter.

It is a strange world up there and even the colours are different. I could easily have spent weeks there exploring the place (it is 31km²).