About Botany Photo of the Day

About Botany Photo of the Day (Updated Jul 4, 2005)

Botany Photo of the Day is a weblog hosted by UBC Botanical Garden that features a plant-related photograph every day.

According to our web site statistics, each day more than 1000 web site visitors check out the latest photograph.

We'd like to expand the contributors to Botany Photo of the Day to include a user-submitted photograph once a week. There are a few reasons for this:

1) photographs by mostly me and a few other UBC staff and researchers will stylistically repeat over time - it's inevitable. Outside contributions will mix up the look and feel of the photographs.

2) it expands the geographic range of the photographs. While we do feature plants from around the world through the garden, they are still plants that grow in a Pacific Northwest maritime climate - we'd like to mix that up a little with plants that we can't grow here or grow natively elsewhere.


What you get out of it: fame and fortune, minus the fortune. You will be thanked by name as the contributor of the photograph, and if you have a weblog or web page, I'll likely link to it. If you write the associated blurb with the photograph, that will also be noted. It's a bit of a way to show off if you are particularly proud of an image you've taken.

What you need to know:

1) the photograph does need to be of a certain decent quality, which I suppose I am the judge of.

2) the photograph will be cropped or resized to match the dimensions required of the format

3) not every photograph submitted will be used - we'll feature roughly one a week. We like to talk about ourselves and the plants at UBC too much to do more.

4) please note that by submitting a photograph, you are granting UBC Botanical Garden a non-exclusive (it's your image, after all), single-use license to display the image on its Botany Photo of the Day site and its archives. You also allow UBC Botanical Garden to store the image on its server, solely for the purpose of the Botany Photo of the Day site and its archives. You retain sole copyright over the image, although it'd be great if you also licensed the image under the same Creative Commons license we use (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0). If not, we'll let people know that the image is not CC-licensed.

5) Read through the Photo of the Day entries to get a feel for subjects - plants, of course, but also natural landscapes and cultivated landscapes.

6) Of course, it must be your photograph or you must have permission from the photographer to use it for this purpose (and that person must also agree to license it as above license). If someone submits something that is not their photograph (and I post it), I personally get to bear the brunt of the fallout. This would not make me happy.

If you've already posted something to the boards that you'd like to submit, please just link to the thread (or let us know the thread title and the forum). That way we don't use up double the space in the database for the images.

To make a new submission, go to Botany Photo of the Day Submissions and click the Post New Thread button, start a new thread.

Here are the instructions for attaching photos:
Attach photos and files

Any other questions, please ask, in a reply to this thread. I might change some of the above rules if I've missed something.

 

OK, silly question...after looking, reading, and studying several areas, I'm still not sure where I would post or link a photo that I want to submit for consideration? I would appreciate your help.

Thanks,

Rex Bristol

 

Hello rxbristol,

2018apr20: Wendy Cutler here, doing some moderator maintenance. I am completely rewriting the instructions given in this posting, to be more clear for new posters, and to update the links. This info is in the first posting now, but was not when the question was asked and the original reply written.

There are submissions below in this thread, but they do not really belong in the About ... thread.

Please go to Botany Photo of the Day Submissions and click the Post New Thread button, start a new thread.

Here are the instructions for attaching photos:
Attach photos and files

 

Here are some photographs of cycads used in a landscape. I believe these are of Cycas revoluta (commonly called Sago palm), although they were not labelled. I took these photographs earlier this year at the Lili'Uokalani Gardens in Hilo, Hawaii. The close-up is of a female sago cone, which has been fertilized by a male sago and is now producing seeds.

Cycads are actually conifers, not palms. They are referred to as "living fossils" because they have survived since the age of the dinosaurs. There are now very few left in the world, and some are on the Endangered Species list. There is a conscious effort by members of the Cycad Society and others to preserve and progagate the remaining species for posterity.

For more information on these fascinating plants visit The Cycad Pages at http://plantnet.rbgsyd.gov.au/PlantNet/cycad/index.html

--Submitted by Lori Pickering, Garden of Eden Nursery (a cottage cycad nursery experimenting with the hardiness of cycads in B.C.)

 

Certainly looks like Cycas revoluta. I take it photos of nude gardening are out, as submissions are supposed to be of decent quality?

 

This is Tigridia pavonia Liliacea from my garden. They have been a joy all summer even though each bloom only lasts a day. Does anyone know how fast they multiply? I would love to learn more about this flower. Karie

 

I recently spent a week in Victoria and took a bunch of shots. as follows:

 

a few more

 

Beautyberry photographed in Connecticut, USA on November 21, 2005
Callicarpa bodineri var. giraldii 'Profusion'

Nikon D70s
28-200mm Sigma Hyperzoom
Focal length: 200mm
1/100 F/5.6

I have found this plant to be reliable and low maintenance. A true "What's that?" plant in your garden, its starting to gain some well deserved popularity.

 

Daniel, not a photo this time, but a possible resource link, if that's acceptable. A friend sent me a link to a great article on the hazards of wildflower seed mixes at:

http://www.uwnews.org/article.asp?articleID=7637

Maybe you can link it to a future photo?

Great shots, Jimmyq-- that one of the shelf fungi would make a nice wallpaper.

 

Re: Douglas-fir submission

Daniel-- just wanted to share these two photos of Douglas-fir cones taken May 7th. I can send larger images if necessary. I know you have bigger and better Doug-firs in BC than we do here, but hoped you might enjoy these. <grin>

My description of these is on my blog at Foothills Fancies. I was intrigued by the difference in maturity in a single day.

 

Dear Daniel,

Attached is a photo of a Sum and Substance hosta that I took this morning, after a rain shower. I love taking close-ups of these because of the incredible texture and bright colour. Hope it makes "Photo of the Day"!

Lisa

 

here is a photograph of my little coleus. who surprises me every day with its incredible resilience. the venation this photo reveals is spectacular and the colour so vibrant in the afternoon sun.. the image has not been digitally manipulated

 

This is Lotus argophyllus var. niveus, the Santa Cruz Island silver lotus. It was growing on gravel in a rocky canyon bottom. I was happy to find that May is a great time to be on Santa Cruz Island (off Ventura, CA) - I saw quite a few of the island's endemics. (I hope there is a photo visible! this is my first try)

 

"The Devil in Disguise"

"The devil in disguise" a natural variant of Ampelopsis brevipedunculata (Maxim.) Trautv. at Bailey Arboretum in Lattingtown, New York.

Some of you may have heard of "kudzu - the vine that ate the south." Allow me to introduce you to "porcelain berry - the vine that is eating Long Island" (New York).
Like burning bush Euonymus alatus 'Compactus' with its spectacular autumn color, this vine is a hard sell to get people to eradicate due to its pronounced invasiveness. I can't think of any plant that produces more stunningly beautiful fruit all at once. I don't see if coming up elsewhere in my garden so it must not be invasive. They don't see the thousands of acres of forest, where native plants are being supplanted by these invasive species. This vine appears to be a favorite of Japanese beetles - two invasive exotics battling it out!

 

Sequoia Sempervirens...

Recently, in Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park on a trail off Howland Hill Rd., just west of Stout Grove.

 

Attached is a submission for Photo of the Day - hope this is the way to submit as it wasn't totally clear.

This shot of a dahlia was taken as part of a series of flowers completed over the past year.

 

Zamia furfuracea emerging leaflet, covered in rusty brown hairs. The mature leaves retain some fuzz on the undersides of the leaves, which are very stiff. This is a small to medium-sized cycad native to the coastal regions of eastern Mexico, where it is subjected to salt spray; it is also known as Zamia maritima. This cycad is hardy to about -2 Celsius. It makes a great indoor plant, as well, as it can withstand the dry conditions. It used to be abundant in its natural habitat but is now rare due to cover-collecting.

 

Dinosaur food

Seeds of Zamia furfuracea. This is a disintegrating seed cone of Zamia furfuracea. The cone has ripened and split open, revealing the bright red seeds, which are ready for dispersal by birds and other seed-eating animals. 250 million years ago when cycads dominated the planet they were eaten by dinosaurs.

 

Oregon grape, growing in the foothills of the coast range. Surprisingly pretty amongst the clear cut.

 

Skunk Cabbage Lysichiton americanum, taken at Wildwood near Mt Hood.

 

This is a Hosta that my MIL gave me a couple of years ago, I have never bothered to identify it, but it really is striking, and quite happy here in central Virginia, tucked away to the north side of my front porch.

 

These are flowers of a common sage, very happy next to the asphalt of my driveway, where it takes searing sun during the summer here in Virginia.

 

Lastly, this is a wildflower/weed which has sprung up in the shade of a mid-sized red oak, thrilled to be growing in my pile of sandy loam which awaits being added to the newest garden bed. If anyone knows what this is just by this tiny flower, I'd like to know. This flower head is perhaps a little smaller than a US quarter.

 

I have several photos of my plants that can be included as photo of the day. The white flowers is jasminum sambac, the red one is desert rose (adenium obesum) and the orange flowers are the angel's wings begonia flowers.