Sunday, January 20, 2008

Flowers






I went for a Sunday walk today at Selmun Palace (pictures will eventually follow, but I'm way behind). It was a great day, people out, picnics and so forth. I decided to take photos the flowers I've been seeing, though I didn't run into the paperwhites or the poppies. I don't know what they are, generally, but perhaps others will know. I do know that the yellow flowers in the top picture, which are all over, are not native. The tall pink flowers in the 2nd to last are some version of snapdragon. I thought I knew what the blue flowers were until I touched them and discovered they were quite prickly, which was not like the ones back home.

I've now learned that the blue flower is borage and the yellow is cape sorrel.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

No the yellow flower is not native. It was brought over at the time when Malta was under the British. In fact we call it L-Ingliza (The English) or il-Qarsu (which means that it tastes slightly sour). Not so long ago Maltese children used to chew at it to taste the sour taste.

Mary said...

Yes,I'd read that somewhere. I did not know its two names. Sorrels are used in cooking/medicine, I believe. That sour taste suggests medicine more than cuisine!

When I was little in California there was this odd plant that ended up with very dry stalks with little brown flowers or leaves or seeds. My Mother called it Indian Coffee. It was her cure for diarrhea and tasted just awful. A much more pleasant memory is of honeysuckle. We'd nip the bottom of the flowers off and suck out the little bit of sweet nectar. At the University in Colorado, I sometimes picked the wild asparagus from along the irrigation ditches and cooked them up.

Unknown said...

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