Hortensia

Hortensia (Hydrangea) - Botanical illustration

Flowering Lime Tree

Flowering Lime Tree (Tilia, Linden, Basswood Tree) - Château de Rolle, Lac Leman, Switzerland in June

Clematis

Clematis - illustration by Jan Voerman Jr.（Dutch, 1890-1970) - Watercolor on paper

Incorporated Bike

January 2012 - A boy left his bike chained to a tree when he went away to war in 1914. He never returned, leaving the tree no choice but to grow around the bike. Incredible that this bike has been there for 98 years now!

photography by Todd Bates on Flickr

Rhus typina flower

Rhus typina (stughorn sumac, Essigbaum)

The red flower of the shrub is about 18 cm long.

Rhus typina

Rhus typhina (stughorn sumac, Essigbaum)

Flowering shrub grows up to 5 m tall. 

Ginkgo Leaves

Ginkgo Trees Stand Test of Time

“Living fossil” is an informal term used by biologists to describe species that lack living relatives.  While you might not personally think being called a fossil is a compliment, these organisms are actually quite impressive survivors.  The Ginkgo biloba tree, for example, is strange and unique amongst contemporary plants but incredibly similar to fossils dating back to the Permian, almost 270 million years! This means that even though every single other lineage of the Ginkgo’s relatives changed and adapted beyond recognition or died out, there are still Ginkgo trees growing today that would be indistinguishable from trees from hundreds of millions of years ago. If that fails to impress you, consider this: in Hiroshima, Japan there are still a handful of Ginkgo trees that survived the dropping of the atom bomb in 1945 living to the present day! If these hardy trees can withstand a disturbance of an A-bomb’s magnitude, it is no wonder they have managed to remain viable when so many other ancient plants could not.

Guest post written by Reggie Henke