THISTLE

Cirsium vulgare (spear thistle) is a species of the genus Cirsium, in the family Asteraceae, native throughout most of Europe (north to 66°N, locally 68°N), Western Asia (east to the Yenisei Valley), and northwestern Africa (Atlas Mountains). It is also naturalised in North America, Africa, and Australia and is as an invasive weed in some areas.  It is the national flower of Scotland.

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.

BY THE RIVER

The Werribee River is a perennial river of the Port Phillip catchment that is located on the plain West of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The headwaters of a tributary, the Lerderderg River, are north of Ballan near Daylesford and it flows across the basalt plain, through the suburb of Werribee to enter Port Phillip. A linear park follows the Werribee River along much of its course. In total the Werribee River completes a journey of approximately 110 kilometres.

The river flows through the Werribee Gorge State Park before being utilised for irrigation of market gardens at Bacchus Marsh, then through Werribee where it is crossed by the Maltby By-pass. It then flows through the Werribee Open Range Zoo in Werribee Park, and finally the small coastal settlement of Werribee South before entering Port Phillip.

This post is part of the Wordless Wednesday meme,

and also part of the My Corner of the World meme.

BUSHFIRES

Unfortunately, this Travel Tuesday is a sad one as it concerns our current nationwide emergency with tens of bushfires still burning across Australia.

The 2019–20 Australian bushfire season involves a series of bushfires that are currently burning across Australia, predominantly in south-east Australia. The 2019–20 bushfire season is of notable intensity compared to previous seasons as it has burned an estimated 8.4 million hectares (21 million acres; 84,000 square kilometres; 32,000 square miles), destroyed over 2,500 buildings (including over 1,300 houses) and killed 25 people as of 5 January 2020.

The bushfires are regarded by the NSW Rural Fire Service as the worst bushfire season in memory. In December 2019, the New South Wales Government declared a state of emergency in New South Wales after record-breaking temperatures and prolonged drought exacerbated the bushfires. It was estimated that close to half a billion animals in New South Wales were killed by the ongoing fires.

In eastern and north-eastern Victoria large areas of forest burnt out of control for four weeks before the fires emerged from the forests in late December, taking lives, threatening many towns and isolating the towns of Corryong and Mallacoota. A state of disaster was declared for East Gippsland. Significant fires also occurred in the Adelaide Hills and Kangaroo Island in South Australia. Moderately affected areas were South Eastern Queensland and areas of southwestern Western Australia, with a few areas in Tasmania and the ACT also being impacted.

For several days now, Melbourne has choked under hazy, yellow-grey skies with smoke from East Gippsland drifting over the city. This is a minor inconvenience compared to the staggering loss of life and property in fire-ravaged areas and the immense ecological disaster that has occurred.

You can help the thousands of victims who have lost loved ones, property and the roofs over their heads, here. 

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.

LAST YEAR...

A mosaic encapsulating moments of the month from 2019. In these difficult and trying times, my best wishes to you and those dear to you for a New Year filled with peace, health and happiness.

This post is part of the Mosaic Monday meme,
and also part of the Blue Monday meme,
and also part of the Seasons meme.

SUMMER

This post is part of the My Sunday Best meme.

NEIGHBOUR'S CAT

This post is part of the Saturday Critters meme.

SMOKY SKY

Currently in Melbourne, we are experiencing very bad air quality, and there is a choking smell of burning with widespread hazy conditions as the smoke from the devastating East Gippsland bushfires drifts across hundreds of kilometres to reach the City. Here you can see the hazy outline of the city skyline across the Port Phillip Bay.

You can help the thousands of victims who have lost loved ones, property and the roofs over their heads, here.

This post is part of the Skywatch Friday meme.

BOTTLEBRUSH

Callistemon is a genus of shrubs in the family Myrtaceae, first described as a genus in 1814. The entire genus is endemic to Australia but widely cultivated in many other regions and naturalised in scattered locations. Their status as a separate taxon is in doubt, some authorities accepting that the difference between callistemons and melaleucas is not sufficient for them to be grouped in a separate genus.

Callistemon species have commonly been referred to as bottlebrushes because of their cylindrical, brush like flowers resembling a traditional bottle brush. They are mostly found in the more temperate regions of Australia, especially along the east coast and typically favour moist conditions so when planted in gardens thrive on regular watering. However, two species are found in Tasmania and several others in the south-west of Western Australia. At least some species are drought-resistant and some are used in ornamental landscaping elsewhere in the world.

Melaleuca pallida, commonly known as lemon bottlebrush, is a plant in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae and is endemic to eastern Australia. (Some Australian state herbaria use the name Callistemon pallidum). It is an upright shrub with thin, spreading branches, silvery new growth and pale yellow, sometimes pinkish bottlebrush flowers. Callistemon pallidum is a hardy plant, adaptable to many soils but needs full sun.

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.

ZHUKOVSKY

Stanislav Yulianovich Zhukovsky (Polish: Stanisław Żukowski, Russian: Станислав Юлианович Жуковский) (1873–1944) was a Polish-Russian painter, and a member of Mir iskusstva.

Zhukovsky was born in Yendrikhovtsy (Jędrzychowice), Grodno Province. He was a student of Isaac Levitan and a graduate of the Moscow School of Painting. Zhukovsky became a celebrated landscapist working in a unique style which projected impressionistic methods and skills as well as his interpretation of the tradition of the Russian realist school. He established his own art studio in Moscow where he mentored students, including later to become a celebrated avantgardist Liubov Popova and a young Vladimir Mayakovsky who was then working as a poster artist.

As a painter, Zhukovsky left a legacy from capturing Russian landscapes and pre-revolutionary sites and the interior of Russian estate houses. His social predisposition left him skeptical of the Bolshevik revolution, and in 1923 he left Soviet Union for his ancestral homeland Poland, then already an independent country. After the German occupation of Poland, during the World War II he was arrested by the Nazis and held at the prisoner transit camp (Durchgangslager) at Pruszków where he eventually died in 1944.

This post is part of the Wordless Wednesday meme,

and also part of the ABC Wednesday meme,

and also part of the My Corner of the World.

"March Evening" (1912)

"The Past - Room in an Old House" (1912)

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2020!

Fireworks over the Yarra River in Melbourne 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.