A little bike ride

[ruskinPalms]

Hi all, it got nice this afternoon so I went for a little bike ride and took my camera for a change. Nothing too rare here, but some interesting shots of stuff that has naturalized to the area.

Foxtails in inlet of little manatee river. This is brackish water.

[ruskinPalms]

US 41 crossing the little manatee:

http://i71.photobucket.com/albums....rge.jpg

A flowering tree of some kind - feel free to ID stuff  

[ruskinPalms]

shots of sabals and other stuff:

[ruskinPalms]

Volunteer queen palm:

[ruskinPalms]

These will get big and beautiful some day:

Bananas etc. If you look close you can see Norfolk Island Pines in the distance:

[ruskinPalms]

Giant BOP and second one has neat cactus and leafless plumeria:

Royals:

[ruskinPalms]

Everyone loves a hot date!

Queens do curve away from eachother:

[spockvr6]

(ruskinPalms @ Jan. 19 2007,14:41)

QUOTE

These will get big and beautiful some day:

Oh yes!  I think they will find that nearby water quite to their liking.

[ruskinPalms]

Variety of ficus, bamboo and other goodies:

[spockvr6]

(ruskinPalms @ Jan. 19 2007,14:41)

QUOTE

Bananas etc. If you look close you can see Norfolk Island Pines in the distance:

Thats a great photo....man do I wish I had something like that in my backyard

[spockvr6]

(ruskinPalms @ Jan. 19 2007,14:42)

QUOTE

Royals:

Whoops!  Someone planted the one on the right too high I think ???

They are fattening up nicely.

[ruskinPalms]

Huge, curvy queens with a jet in the picture:

Kinda like where's waldo here - can you find the bizmarkia?

[ruskinPalms]

Enterlobium (spelling?) that was trying to get ID'd from seed pods in the other sub forum. I've been tempted to plant one of these for canopy because they grow very fast and can maybe take to the low 20's F.

[ruskinPalms]

Treveller's trees - kinda ratty from the wind with Bizzies!

[ruskinPalms]

More bizmarkias:

[ruskinPalms]

Fat trunk:

[ruskinPalms]

A clump of stuff:

[ruskinPalms]

Pretty good sized Ficus benjamina:

[ruskinPalms]

Now starts the area that I call "The Jungle" it is a large ravine, drainage thingy that makes its way to the Little Manatee eventually. Lots of neat things have naturalized to this area including queen palms and date palms. It IS possible to have a cold hardy jungle look. Starting from the fringes:

Not sure what this is but pretty:

Ginger?

[ruskinPalms]

Looking down into the ravine:

[ruskinPalms]

These vines go from the very bottom to the top of the canopy:

[ruskinPalms]

[ruskinPalms]

Queen palm forest - more on that later:

[ruskinPalms]

[ruskinPalms]

From the other side of the ravine:

[ruskinPalms]

Full life cycle here for queen palms:

[ruskinPalms]

[ruskinPalms]

I fought my way into the jungle -

Babies:

[ruskinPalms]

[ruskinPalms]

Bananas in the middle of a field. Probably swampy near them. I saw few guys in pickup truck harvest a lot of bananas from them in December or so.

[redant]

Nice Pictures, burn the ones of the queens reproducing all over the place before the Eco-nuts get hold of it.

The flowering tree looks like a Hong Kong orchid tree, now listed as a non-desirable, not very invasive but slightly.

Thanks for the tour!

[amazondk]

Looks like  a nice bike trip.  Nice to some Florida pictures.

dk

[gsn]

Not sure what this is but it's pretty

Nice pics

I'm pretty sure that is a formosa AZALEA! Blooming much to early in the year. My mothers george tabors (pink) are also blooming. They usually bloom around the end of FEB, give or take a week according to temps.

[Alicehunter2000]

It's amazing what a difference a half a zone (5 degrees F.) makes! Whilst you see L. Chinesis, Sabals, W. Robusta, Butia's, Philodendron, and banana here in 9a. We don't see the "naturalized queens" and giant (?) vines and certainly not Royals :0. The queens may become naturalized here in the future as the last few years have seen an explosion of these in peoples yards. I hope to push the zone here with both queens and bizmarkia. I even hope to start planting R. rivularus as they are uber-cheap and we have plenty of freshwater bodies along the panhandle coastline.

[Kom Thai Palm]

Very nice place Ruskin, also beautiful picture too. You make me wish a bike more than ever. Now Florida is first place I hope to take ride tour, just once.

Thanks very much

[philinsydney]

I love that ravine.

I'm not convinced about the Norfolk Island Pine; it looks rather more like one of the more slender New Caledonian Auracaria species.

[ruskinPalms]

I honestly don't know what those piney things are. I am putting in a bit of a closeup from the photo. There are few species that grow here with similar characteristics. Whatever they are, they pretty tall given the amount of lightning around here! Yes, that ravine is very surprising once you look inside, it doesn't look like much from the outside. I surprised the large date palm growing at the bottom of it in slowly running water! My pictures really don't do it justice. Really, I think it is a good example of how to get the cold hardy jungle look. This ravine has seen some low freezes in the past I am sure. Syragus with oaks seems to make an awsome tropical looking, cold hardy canopy after a few of those big leafed vines are thrown in.

[spockvr6]

(ruskinPalms @ Jan. 20 2007,20:20)

QUOTE

I honestly don't know what those piney things are. I am putting in a bit of a closeup from the photo.

Sure looks like a Norfolk Island Pine to me.

[philinsydney]

This photo is supposed to highlight what I think is the difference between NIPs and New Caledonian pines (A. columnaris?)

[philinsydney]