WARATAH

Telopea speciosissima or the “waratah” is a native Australian plant with spectacular flowers. Robert Brown (1773-1858) named the genus Telopea in 1810 from specimens collected in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. Sir James Smith (1759-1828), a noted botanist and founder of the Linnaean Society in England, wrote in 1793: 'The most magnificent plant which the prolific soil of New Holland affords is, by common consent, both of Europeans and Natives, the Waratah. It is moreover a favourite with the latter, upon account of a rich honeyed juice which they sip from its flowers'.

The generic name Telopea is derived from the Greek 'telopos', meaning 'seen from afar', and refers to the great distance from which the crimson flowers are discernible. The specific name speciosissima is the superlative of the Latin adjective 'speciosus', meaning 'beautiful' or 'handsome'. 'Waratah', the Aboriginal name for the species, was adopted by early settlers at Port Jackson.

Telopea is an eastern Australian genus of four species. Two are confined to New South Wales, one to Tasmania and one extends from eastern Victoria into New South Wales. Telopea belongs to the family, Proteaceae, which is predominantly Australian and southern African. The Waratah is a stout, erect shrub which may grow to 4 metres. The dark green leathery leaves, 13-25 cm in length, are arranged alternately and tend to be coarsely toothed. The flowers are grouped in rounded heads 7 to 10 cm in diameter surrounded by crimson bracts, about 5 to 7 cm long. It flowers from September to November and nectar-seeking birds act as pollinators. Large winged seeds are released when the brown leathery pods split along one side.

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.

QUINN

Edmond Thomas Quinn (1868 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – September 1929 in New York City) was an American sculptor and painter. He is best known for his bronze statue of Edwin Booth as Hamlet, which stands at the center of Gramercy Park in New York City. His larger-than-lifesize bronze bust of Victor Herbert stands near The Pond in Central Park, New York City.

He studied painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts under Thomas Eakins. Following Eakins's February 1886 forced-resignation from PAFA, Quinn followed him to the Art Students League of Philadelphia, and later became that short-lived school's curator. In Paris he trained for a time as a sculptor in the studio of Jean Antoine Injalbert.

He exhibited regularly at the National Academy of Design, showing paintings in 1891, 1893, 1905, 1906 and 1907. He first showed his sculpture there in 1908, and annually for many years, usually portrait busts. He won a silver medal for his bronze sculpture of model Audrey Munson at the Panama-Pacific Exposition, San Francisco, 1915. He also exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (paintings: 1891, 1894, 1897; sculptures: 1899, 1901, 1905–06, 1908–10, 1914–16, 1921, 1923, 1925–26, 1928, posthumously 1930), and the Art Institute of Chicago.

He was elected an Associate of the National Academy of Design in 1920, and was a member of the National Sculpture Society, the Century Association, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Players Club, for whom he executed his statue of Booth. Quinn was recognized as being a fine portraitist whose work "shows taste and conscience." His portrait busts include Franklin Hooper, Sylvester Malone, Edwin Markham, Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, Padraic Colum and Eugene O'Neill. His half-length, oil-on-canvas portrait of Attilio Piccirilli, the sculptor whose studio executed many works of American Beaux-Arts masters, is in the National Academy of Design, as are his painted portraits of Furio Piccirilli and Sherry E. Fry The National Portrait Gallery has a large number of his portrait busts.

Quinn was found drowned off Governors Island, New York City in September 1929, a suicide. Quinn had tried to kill himself four months earlier by drinking poison. Quinn's papers are at Yale University.

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and also part of the ABC Wednesday meme.

L: Edwin Booth (1926), Hall of Fame for Great Americans, Bronx, New York City.
R: Victory (1921), World War I Memorial, New Rochelle, New York.

YARRA RIVER VIEW

View down the Yarra River towards the East and 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.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

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

HOME TIME

Coming back home on the evening commuter train - it's a good time of the day...

This post is part of the My Sunday Best meme.

HORSE AT SUNSET

This post is part of the Saturday Critters meme,
and also part of the Camera Critters meme.

SUN-LIGHT

This post is part of the Skywatch Friday meme.

SOAP ALOE

Aloe maculata (synonym Aloe saponaria; commonly known as the soap aloe or zebra aloe) is a Southern African species of aloe in the Asphodelaceae family. Local people in South Africa know it informally as the "Bontaalwyn" in Afrikaans, or "Lekhala" in the Sesotho language. It is a very variable species and hybridises easily with other similar aloes, sometimes making it difficult to identify.

The leaves range in colour from red to green, but always have distinctive "H-shaped" spots. The flowers are similarly variable in colour, ranging from bright red to yellow, but are always bunched in a distinctively flat-topped raceme. The inflorescence is borne on the top of a tall, multi-branched stalk and the seeds are reputedly poisonous. This species was previously known as Aloe saponaria (a name that came from the Latin "sapo" meaning soap, as the sap makes a soapy lather in water - the juice from the leaves is traditionally used as soap by indigenous people).

Its currently accepted name, according to the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI), is Aloe maculata ("maculata" means speckled or marked). Taxonomically, it forms part of the Saponariae series of very closely related Aloe species, together with Aloe petrophila, Aloe umfoloziensis, Aloe greatheadii and Aloe davyana.

The Soap Aloe is highly adaptable and is naturally found in a wide range of habitats across Southern Africa, from Zimbabwe in the north, to the Cape Peninsula in the south. Specifically, it is native to southern and eastern South Africa, south-eastern Botswana and Zimbabwe. In addition, it is now planted around the world as a popular landscape plant in warm desert regions – especially in the United States, where it is the most popular ornamental aloe in the Tucson, Arizona area, and is also popular in California. It is very common in Australia as a garden plant.

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.

PAINTING

Painting| ˈpeɪntɪŋ |noun [mass noun]

The action or skill of using paint, either in a picture or as decoration: Pastels require a different approach to painting.

• [count noun] A painted picture: The oil painting depicted a seascape.

An artist at work in Fitzroy's Rose St Artists' Market. 

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and also part of the ABC Wednesday meme.

SUNRISE

Sunrise in Melbourne reflected by the waters of the Yarra River.

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.