RIPPON LEA ESTATE

Located only 20 minutes from Melbourne’s CBD, Rippon Lea Estate is one of the last of Australia’s grand suburban estates. It is a grand property that is National Heritage listed and a visit there is like peeking through a window that allows you to travel back in time and offers a unique glimpse into the lifestyles of the wealthiest Australians of the Victorian era.

Rippon Lea Estate consists of a lavish urban mansion, a large garden, orchard and associated outbuildings (including the stable complex, the lodge, the conservatory and glasshouses, the fernery, the porte-cochere, the 1930s swimming pool, and the 1930s ballroom). The property has integrity as an uncommonly large and intact suburban estate, which survived subdivision and encroachment by suburbia.

In 1868, Marian and Frederick Sargood bought 11.3 hectares (23 acres) of scrub land at Elsternwick, naming it after Frederick’s mother Emma Rippon (Lea is an old English word for meadow). Frederick had arrived in the colony as a 15 year old, first working for the Public Works Department and then joining his father’s expanding clothing and drapery importing firm which supplied soft goods to the diggers. Like many of the merchants active during the gold rush, Sargood made his fortune and Rippon Lea was the result of his newfound prosperity.

This post is part of the ABC Wednesday meme,
and also part of the Outdoor Wednesday meme,
and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme.

MELBOURNE BY NIGHT

Having the Yarra River course its way through our city is quite marvellous as it affords beautiful vistas along its length. By night, some magical reflections can be seen in the City as the lights come on. These views are taken from Southbank, an entertainment and residential precinct.

This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Ruby Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Travel Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme.

AQUARIUM

Sea Life Melbourne Aquarium is a Southern Ocean and Antarctic aquarium in central Melbourne, Australia. It is located on the banks of the Yarra River beside and under the Flinders Street Viaduct and the King Street Bridge. The attraction is a Sea Life Centre owned by Merlin Entertainments.

This post is part of the Mosaic Monday meme,
and also part of the Macro Monday meme,
and also part of the Through my Lens meme,
and also part of the Seasons meme.

POPPY TIME

Poppies are one of the favourite wild Spring flowers and with their bright eye-catching colour they justify one their common names "blind-eyes"... There are many different kinds of poppies, here are four of them from our garden.

This post is part of the My Sunday Best meme,
and also part of the My Sunday Photo meme,
and also part of the Photo Sunday meme.

Papaver rhoeas (common names include common poppy, corn poppy, corn rose, field poppy, Flanders poppy or red poppy) is an annual herbaceous species of flowering plant in the poppy family, Papaveraceae. 

The Iceland Poppy (Papaver nudicaule) is a boreal flowering plant. Native to subpolar regions of Europe, Asia and North America, and the mountains of Central Asia (but not in Iceland!).

The opium poppy, Papaver somniferum, is the species of plant from which opium and poppy seeds are derived. Opium is the source of many narcotics, including morphine (and its derivative heroin), thebaine, codeine, papaverine, and noscapine

Papaver dubium is a species of poppy known by the common names Long-headed Poppy and Blindeyes. It is a very undemanding species which prefers sandy soils without lime.

PURPLE SWAMPHEN CHICK

The Australasian swamphen (Porphyrio melanotus), family Rallidae, is a species of swamphen occurring in eastern Indonesia, the Moluccas, Aru and Kai Islands, as well as in Papua New Guinea and Australia. It is also found in New Zealand where it is known as the Pūkeko, derived from the Māori language. The Australasian swamphen previously was considered a subspecies of the purple swamphen (Porphyrio porphyrio).

For such a bulky bird, the Swamphen is an accomplished flier and will readily take to the air to escape danger. In flight, the long legs and elongated toes trail behind or hang underneath the body. Purple Swamphens are proficient swimmers, but prefer to wander on the edges of the water, among reeds and on floating vegetation.

The diet of the Purple Swamphen includes the soft shoots of reeds and rushes and small animals, such as frogs and snails. However, it is a reputed egg stealer and will also eat ducklings when it can catch them. The Purple Swamphen uses its long toes to grasp food while eating.

Purple Swamphens are generally found in small groups and studies have shown that these consist of more males than females. More than one male will mate with a single female. All family members, and occasionally the young from a previous brood, share in incubation and care of the young. The nest consists of a platform of trampled reeds with the surrounding vegetation sometimes being used to form a shelter. Often two broods will be raised in a year.

This post is part of the Weekend Reflections meme,
and also part of the Saturday Critters meme,
and also part of the Camera Critters meme,
and also part of the I'd Rather Be Birdin' meme.

VIVALDI SKIES

Springtime is upon us.
The birds celebrate her return with festive song,
and murmuring streams are softly caressed by the breezes.
Thunderstorms, those heralds of Spring,
roar, casting their dark mantle over heaven, 
Then they die away to silence,
and the birds take up their charming songs once more.

This post is part of the Skywatch Friday meme,
and also part of the Friday Photo Journal meme,
and also part of the Weekend Green meme.

MELBOURNE STREET TREES 190 - BLACK LOCUST

Robinia pseudoacacia, commonly known as the black locust, is a tree of the genus Robinia in the subfamily Faboideae of the pea family Fabaceae. It is native to the southeastern United States, but has been widely planted and naturalised elsewhere in temperate North America, Europe, Southern Africa, Australia and Asia and is considered an invasive species in some areas.

A less frequently used common name is false Acacia, which is a literal translation of the specific epithet. It was introduced into Britain in 1636. With a trunk up to 0.8 m diameter (exceptionally up to 52 m tall and 1.6 m diameter in very old trees), with thick, deeply furrowed blackish bark. The leaves are 10–25 cm long, pinnate with 9–19 oval leaflets, 2–5 cm long and 1.5–3 cm broad. Each leaf usually has a pair of short spines at the base, 1–2 mm long or absent on adult crown shoots, up to 2 cm long on vigorous young plants.

The intensely fragrant (reminiscent of orange blossoms) flowers are white to lavender or purple, borne in pendulous racemes 8–20 cm long, and are edible. In France and in Italy Robinia pseudoacacia flowers are eaten as beignets after being coated in batter and fried in oil.

The fruit is a legume 5–10 cm long, containing 4–10 seeds. Although the bark and leaves are toxic, various reports suggest that the seeds and the young pods of the black locust are edible. Shelled seeds are safe to harvest from summer through fall, and are edible both raw and/or boiled. Due to the small nature of Black Locust seeds, shelling them efficiently can prove tedious and difficult.

The name locust is said to have been given to Robinia by Jesuit missionaries, who fancied that this was the tree that supported St. John in the wilderness, but it is native only to North America. The locust tree of Spain (Ceratonia siliqua or Carob Tree), which is also native to Syria and the entire Mediterranean basin, is supposed to be the true locust of the New Testament.

This tree is a garden escapee and finds itself close to the waters of the Darebin Creek in the Parklands in the Melbourne suburbs. 

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.

QUIETUDE

Stop, look, reflect;
Listen in the stillness
For the echoes of the quietude...

This post is part of the ABC Wednesday meme,
and also part of the Outdoor Wednesday meme,
and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme.