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.

FLINDERS ST STATION

Flinders Street railway station is a railway station on the corner of Flinders and Swanston Streets in Melbourne, Australia. It serves the entire metropolitan rail network. Backing onto the city reach of the Yarra River in the heart of the city, the complex covers two whole city blocks and extends from Swanston Street to Queen Street. Flinders Street is served by Metro's suburban services, and V/Line regional services to Gippsland. It is the busiest station on Melbourne's metropolitan network, with some 92.6 million passenger movements recorded in 2011/12. It was the first railway station in an Australian city and the world's busiest passenger station in the late 1920s.

The main station building, completed in 1909, is a cultural icon of Melbourne, with its prominent dome, arched entrance, tower and clocks one of the city's most recognisable landmarks. It is listed on the Victorian Heritage Register. The Melburnian idiom "I'll meet you under the clocks" refers to the row of clocks above the main entrance, which indicate the time-tabled time of departure for trains on each line; another idiom, "I'll meet you on the steps", refers to the wide staircase underneath these clocks. Flinders Street Station is responsible for two of Melbourne's busiest pedestrian crossings, both across Flinders Street, including one of Melbourne's few pedestrian scrambles.

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.

YARRA RIVER TRIPTYCH

The Yarra River or historically, the Yarra Yarra River, (Aboriginal: Birrarung, and Wongete) is a perennial river in east-central Victoria, Australia. The lower stretches of the river are where the city of Melbourne was established in 1835 and today Greater Melbourne dominates and influences the landscape of its lower reaches. From its source in the Yarra Ranges, it flows 242 kilometres west through the Yarra Valley which opens out into plains as it winds its way through Greater Melbourne before emptying into Hobsons Bay in northernmost Port Phillip

 The river was a major food source and meeting place for indigenous Australians from prehistoric times. Shortly after the arrival of European settlers land clearing forced the remaining Wurundjeri to neighbouring territories and away from the river. Originally called Birrarung by the Wurundjeri, the current name was mistranslated from another Wurundjeri term in the Boonwurrung language; Yarro-yarro, meaning "ever-flowing".

Here is the River at Collingwood as it winds its way through the Yarra Bend Park. On either side are images of paths along the left and right banks of the river. It's lovely to see the bright greens of late Spring and the river filled with the good rains we've had lately.

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.

AT CHURCH

Quiet moment of prayer and reflection in St Francis' Church.

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.

DUCK POND

At the Darebin Parklands again, watching with fascination the habits of the Pacific Black Ducks (and some ring-ins)...

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,
and also part of the Weekend Green meme.

LIGHTNING

After a few hot days and dry weather, we have had a thunderstorm and some rain in Melbourne this evening. Lightning and thunder are always spectacular, but I was glad we got some rain, with the forecast predicting that some more is on the way.

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

PASSIONFLOWER

Passiflora edulis is a vine species of passion flower that is native to Brazil, Paraguay and northern Argentina. Its common names include passion fruit (US), passionfruit (UK and Commonwealth), and purple granadilla (South Africa). It is cultivated commercially in tropical and subtropical areas for its sweet, seedy fruit and is widely grown in several countries of South America, Central America, the Caribbean, Africa, Southern Asia, Israel, Australia, Hawaii (Liliko'i) and United States. The passionfruit is round to oval, either yellow or dark purple at maturity, with a soft to firm, juicy interior filled with numerous seeds. The fruit is both eaten and juiced; passionfruit juice is often added to other fruit juices to enhance flavour.

The "Passion" in "passionflower" refers to the passion of Jesus in Christian theology. In the 15th and 16th centuries, Spanish Christian missionaries adopted the unique physical structures of this plant, particularly the numbers of its various flower parts, as symbols of the last days of Jesus and especially his crucifixion:

The pointed tips of the leaves were taken to represent the Holy Lance.

The tendrils represent the whips used in the flagellation of Christ.

The ten petals and sepals represent the ten faithful apostles (excluding St. Peter the denier and Judas Iscariot the betrayer).

The flower's radial filaments, which can number more than a hundred and vary from flower to flower, represent the crown of thorns.

The chalice-shaped ovary with its receptacle represents a hammer or the Holy Grail

The 3 stigmas represent the 3 nails and the 5 anthers below them the 5 wounds (four by the nails and one by the lance).

The blue and white colours of the flowers represent Heaven and Purity.

The flower has been given names related to this symbolism throughout Europe since that time. In Spain, it is known as espina de Cristo ("Christ's thorn"). Older Germanic names include Christus-Krone ("Christ's crown"), Christus-Strauss ("Christ's bouquet"), Dorn-Krone ("crown of thorns"), Jesus-Lijden ("Jesus' passion"), Marter ("passion") or Muttergottes-Stern ("Mother of God's star"). Outside the Christian heartland, the regularly shaped flowers have reminded people of the face of a clock. In Israel they are known as "clock-flower" (שעונית) and in Greece as "clock plant" (ρολογιά); in Japan too, they are known as tokeisō (時計草, "clock plant"). In Hawaiian, they are called lilikoʻi; lī is a string used for tying fabric together, such as a shoelace, and liko means "to spring forth leaves".

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.

TREES

"Trees are the earth's endless effort to speak to the listening heaven." - Rabindranath Tagore

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.

Save our planet's trees! Reuse, Repair, Recycle!

THE QUEEN VIC

The Queen Victoria Market (also known as the Queen Vic Markets or the Queen Vic, and locally as '"Vic Market"') is a major landmark in Melbourne, Australia, and at around seven hectares is the largest open air market in the Southern Hemisphere. The Market is significant to Melbourne's culture and heritage and has been listed on the Victorian Heritage Register.

The Market is named after Queen Victoria who ruled the British Empire, from 1837 to 1901. The Queen Victoria Market is the only surviving 19th century market in the Melbourne central business district. There were once three major markets in the Melbourne CBD, but two of them, the Eastern Market and Western Market, both opened before the Queen Victoria, closed in the 1960s. It also forms part of an important collection of surviving Victorian markets which includes the inner suburban Prahran Market and South Melbourne Market.

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.

SEASONAL FRUITS

As our weather warms up more and more, the fruiterers' shops begin to be filled with delectable fruits of the season: Berries of all sorts - strawberries, raspberries, blueberries; stone fruits - plums, apricots, peaches, nectarines; exotics -mangoes, kiwis, bananas, custard apples, pineapples... Forget the vitamin tablets, eat your fruit!

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,
and also part of the Macro Monday meme.

CONSTRUCTING UP

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 with construction going up, Up, UP...

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.

A PADDLING OF DUCKS

The Pacific Black Duck (Anas superciliosa) is mostly mid-brown in colour, with each feather edged buff. The head pattern is characteristic, with a dark brown line through the eye, bordered with cream above and below and a dark brown crown. The upper wing colour is the same as the back, with a bright glossy green patch in the secondary flight feathers. The white underwing is conspicuous in flight. Young Pacific Black Ducks are similar to the adults in plumage.

The Pacific Black Duck is closely related to the Mallard, A. platyrhynchos, introduced into Australia from the Northern Hemisphere. The two species are very similar in habits and occupy the same niche in the two regions. The two species will interbreed in situations where Mallards have been released.

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.

FLYING FRIENDLY SKIES

Find the plane in Photo #1!

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

ROSE TIME IN MELBOURNE

The roses are blooming in our garden at the moment and the cool change that came through yesterday greatly relieved the rose bushes after the few very hot days that we have had. Although a few blooms were scorched, the cool weather and rain revived the plants and the flowers are coming back. Here are some of the ones that are looking good at the moment.

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.

Rosa "Lady of Shalott"

Rosa "Ingrid Bergman"

Rosa "Dream Come True"

Rosa "Queen Elizabeth II"

Rosa "Camille Pissarro"

Rosa "Mr Lincoln"

SUNRISE IN SUNSHINE

Sunshine is a suburb of Melbourne, Australia, lying 11 to 13 km west of the CBD, located within the City of Brimbank local government area. Sunshine recorded a population of 9,768 at the 2016 census. Sunshine, once a town and Garden city outside Melbourne, is today a residential suburb with a mix of period and post-War homes, with a town centre that is an important retail centre in Melbourne's west. It is also one of Melbourne's principal places of employment outside the CBD with many industrial companies situated in the area, and is an important public transport hub with both V/Line and Metro services at Sunshine station and a major bus interchange.

Sunrise seen here in the nature reserve on the banks of the Kororoit Creek, which defines one of the borders of the suburb.

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

MELBOURNE SUNSETS

If you like sunsets, we get some beautiful ones Downunder and Melbourne has its fair share of spectacular skies...

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.