GLORIOUS SUNSET

Sunset in Werribee, enjoyed on a walk by the riverside nature reserve. It was good to have a respite from the cool and rainy weather with a return of the fine and warm conditions more appropriate for the beginning of Summer.

This post is part of the Skywatch Friday meme,
and also part of the Friday Photo Journal meme,
and also part of the Orange you Glad It's Friday meme.

AGAPANTHUS

Agapanthus praecox (Common Agapanthus, Blue Lily, African Lily, or Lily of the Nile) is a native of Natal and Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. Local names for this species include agapant, bloulelie, isicakathi and ubani. Most of the cultivated plants of the genus Agapanthus are hybrids or cultivars of this species. The plant is reportedly naturalised in Great Britain, Madeira, the Canary Islands, Eritrea, Ethiopia, St. Helena, Victoria, Norfolk Island, New Zealand, Mexico, Honduras, Costa Rica and Tristan da Cunha.

Agapanthus praecox subspecies orientalis (shown here) occurs in Eastern Cape and southern KwaZulu-Natal. It has up to 20 poisonous, strap-like leaves per plant which are arching and are not leathery. These range in length from 20 to 70 cm long and 3 to 5 cm wide. Flower colour ranges from various shades of blue to white.

Shiny black seeds are produced in three-sided capsules. These have perianth segments which are less than 50 mm in length. Agapanthus praecox subsp. orientalis is highly regarded for being tough in sun and heat, long-flowering, and is a favourite for many councils in Australia for the landscaping of roads and other public areas which do not get watered. The plant is still widely planted but in some areas it is considered a weed, and planting has been discontinued, although it is not generally regarded as highly invasive.

In Melbourne these plants grow luxuriantly and bloom for several weeks around Christmas. They are a common garden plant, but are also planted on nature reserves and verges along roads.

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.

VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA

Victoria (abbreviated as Vic) is a state in southeastern Australia. Victoria is Australia's most densely populated state and its second-most populous state overall (at the end of 2015 Victoria's population was an estimated 5,996,400). Most of its population lives concentrated in the area surrounding Port Phillip Bay, which includes the metropolitan area of its state capital and largest city, Melbourne, Australia's second-largest city. Geographically the smallest state on the Australian mainland, Victoria is bordered by Bass Strait and Tasmania to the south, New South Wales is to the north, the Tasman Sea is to the east, and South Australia is to the west.

Named in honour of Queen Victoria, who signed the division's separation from New South Wales, the colony was officially established in 1851 and achieved self government in 1855. The Victorian gold rush in the 1850s and 1860s significantly increased both the population and wealth of the colony, and by the time of the Federation of Australia in 1901, Melbourne had become the largest city and leading financial centre in Australasia. Melbourne served as federal capital of Australia until the construction of Canberra in 1927, with the Federal Parliament meeting in Melbourne's Parliament House and all principal offices of the federal government being based in Melbourne.

The city of Melbourne has many attractions, including shopping, the Crown Casino, Melbourne Zoo, Melbourne Museum, Melbourne Aquarium, Melbourne Docklands, Southbank and St. Kilda. Melbourne is also the home of cultural and sporting icons such as The Arts Centre, National Gallery of Victoria and the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) which held the 1956 Summer Olympic Games.

The historic cities of Ballarat, Beechworth, Bendigo, Castlemaine, Maldon and Daylesford which were all towns built on the goldfields during the 1850s. Natural attractions include The Twelve Apostles on the Great Ocean Road, Wilson's Promontory, The Grampians, Buchan Caves, Gippsland Lakes and the penguins on Phillip Island. The Dandenong Ranges just east of Melbourne has the Puffing Billy Railway and Healesville Sanctuary.

The Murray River which is the state's northern border, has towns including Echuca and Mildura. Boating, fishing and other water sports are popular along the river. Geelong, south west of Melbourne on Corio Bay, has many beaches, and hosts the Australian International Airshow. Nearby is the Bellarine Peninsula, which has many famous beaches such as Bells Beach, Torquay and Queenscliff. The Mornington Peninsula is well known for its beaches and wineries. The Victorian Alpine Region in the Australian Alps is popular for skiing with resorts at Falls Creek, Mount Hotham, and Mount Buffalo.

This post is part of the Outdoor Wednesday meme,

and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme,

and also part of the ABC Wednesday meme.

MELBOURNE'S GRAND PAST...

The architecture of Melbourne is characterised by an extensive juxtaposition of old and new architecture. The city is noted for preserving a significant amount of Victorian architecture and has some of the largest in the country. Additionally, it features a vast array of modern architecture, with around 60 skyscrapers over 100 m in the city centre which have deliberately been set back from thoroughfares and streets to preserve historic architecture—leading to the title of "Australia's most European city".

The juxtaposition of old and new has given Melbourne a reputation as a city of no characterising architectural style, but rather a city possessing an accumulation of buildings dating from the present back until the European settlement of Australia. The city is also home to Eureka Tower (2006), which was the tallest residential tower when measured to its highest floor for some time. Here are some Victorian gems, landmarks of our city.

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.

Como House, South Yarra 1840s

Royal Exhibition Building, Carlton, 1880 (World Heritage Site)

Melbourne General Post Office, begun 1859

Melbourne Town Hall, 1870, and St Paul's Cathedral, 1891

Melbournia Terrace, Carlton, 1876

Victorian Parliament House, 1855

Royal Terrace, Sth Yarra, 1890

St Patrick's Cathedral, begun 1858

OUR "LITTLE WINTER" #2

The rain and cold continue and it's very hard to imagine we are just beginning our Summer here in Melbourne. We had to turn the space heater on today, especially after venturing out in a short break from the rain showers, only to be drenched by a downpour a few minutes later. Although the "Stormaggedon" predicted by the Bureau of Meteorology didn't really eventuate, we did see very heavy rain, some flooding and low temperatures. It seems that they will last a little while more. Let's hope for a hot and dry Christmas to be spent at the beach!

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

OUR "LITTLE WINTER"

In the aftermath of dire warnings by meteorologists mid last week for an approaching "Stormaggedon", heavy rain did indeed hit Melbourne on Saturday evening causing flash floods and hundreds of calls to emergency services. There were more than 1300 call outs to the emergency services overall with 133 received by the control centre in just an hour from 5.30pm

The storm front hit the state on Friday, with the northeast the worst affected as Euroa, Myrtleford and the Buckland Valley facing severe flooding. Some of the rainfall totals seen are well and truly an entire summer’s rain almost in just a 24-hour period. Creeks and rivers swelled and low-lying areas in both City and country were inundated.

The storm was accompanied by a drop in temperature, especially considering that the last few days of November were marked by very high temperatures: Melbourne had six consecutive days over 30 °C, equalling the city's record for such a run of days from 1896 There was a total of 12 days over 30 °C during November 2017, well above the average of around three days, and exceeding the previous record of ten such days in November 1902 and 2009! On Friday, 1/12, the maximum was 25˚C, followed by Saturday's maximum of just 17˚C. Night-time temperatures plummeted to 10˚C, very low, for a Melbourne summer.

The photos below are from the swollen Darebin Creek at the Parklands in Fairfield. If you want to compare these photos to what a normal Summer level of water in the Creek is, see here.

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.

AUSTRALASIAN SWAMPHEN

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).

In New Zealand and Australia populations have expanded due to the creation of new artificial lakes and ponds. Birds are often seen singly, or in groups of two to three, foraging for food beside motorways or roadside ditches, and collecting grit. A study showed that the preferred grit colour is red (followed by yellow and lastly blue) even though red grit is less common. Roadkill is a cause of mortality.

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

PARKLANDS SUNSET

Sunset at the Darebin Parklands in suburban Melbourne.

This post is part of the Skywatch Friday meme,

and also part of the Friday Photo Journal meme,

and also part of the Orange you Glad It's Friday meme.

MELBOURNE WEEDS 10 - HAWKWEED

Hieracium, known by the common name hawkweed and classically as hierakion (from ancient Greek ιεράξ, hierax 'hawk'), is a genus of the daisy family Asteraceae (or Compositae), and closely related to dandelion (Taraxacum), chicory (Cichorium), prickly lettuce (Lactuca) and sow thistle (Sonchus), which are part of the tribe Cichorieae. Hieracium species are native to Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, Central America and South America. They have been introduced to Australasia and are accorded weed status.

Hawkweeds, with their 10,000+ recorded species and subspecies, do their part to make Asteraceae the second largest family of flowers. Some botanists group all these species or subspecies into approximately 800 accepted species, while others prefer to accept several thousand species. Since most hawkweeds reproduce exclusively asexually by means of seeds that are genetically identical to their mother plant (apomixis or agamospermy), clones or populations that consist of genetically identical plants are formed and some botanists (especially in UK, Scandinavia and Russia) prefer to accept these clones as good species (arguing that it is impossible to know how these clones are interrelated) whereas others (mainly in Central Europe and USA) try to group them into a few hundred more broadly defined species.

The single genus Hieracium is now treated by most European experts as two different genera, Hieracium and Pilosella, with species such as Hieracium pilosella, Hieracium floribundum and Hieracium aurantiacum referred to the latter genus. Many members of the genus Pilosella reproduce both by stolons (runners like those of strawberries) and by seeds, whereas true Hieracium species reproduce only by seeds. In Pilosella, many individual plants are capable of forming both normal sexual and asexual (apomictic) seeds, whereas individual plants of Hieracium only produce one kind of seeds. Another difference is that all species of Pilosella have leaves with smooth (entire) margins whereas most species of Hieracium have distinctly dentate to deeply cut or divided leaves.

Hawkweeds have mostly yellow, tightly packed flower-heads of numerous small flowers but, unlike daisies and sunflowers in the same family, they have not two kinds of florets but only strap-shaped (spatulate) florets, each one of which is a complete flower in itself, not lacking stamens, and joined to the stem by leafy bracts. As in other members of the tribe Cichorieae, each ray corolla is tipped by 3 to 5 teeth.

Erect single, glabrous or hairy stems, sometimes branched away from the point of attachment, sometimes branched throughout. The hairiness of hawkweeds can be very complex: From surfaces with scattered to crowded, tapered, whiplike, straight or curly, smooth to setae; "stellate-pubescent" or surfaces with scattered to crowded, dendritically branched (often called, but seldom truly, "stellate") hairs; and "stipitate-glandular" or surfaces with scattered to crowded gland-tipped hairs mostly. Surfaces of stems, leaves, peduncles, and phyllaries may be glabrous or may bear one, two, or all three of the types of hairs mentioned above. Like the other members of the Chicory tribe, hawkweeds contain a milky latex.

The young, tender plants are collected and eaten as salad greens or boiled and eaten as a vegetable.

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme,

and also part of the Weekend Green meme.

UP, UP & AWAY...

Melbourne is a city that is currently going through an extreme development phase and an ongoing skyscraper boom. Considering the CBD and Southbank, especially, Melbourne looks to become a world-class, mega-tall metropolis. In the near future, Melbourne will compete with cities like Chicago, Seoul, Singapore, Tokyo in terms of having a large number of buildings of 200+ metres tall. As the effects of this boom are becoming increasingly visible and the strain on the city's infrastructure is clearly evident, the controversy is raging regarding the benefits and drawbacks of hyper-dense, supertall overdevelopment...

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