March's Nature Notes

Weather Report: It’s that transition between dry season and rainy season.  Occasional heavy, crazy storms interspersed between really hot, sunny days.  Anybody’s guess which one you’re gonna get. J

 

 

We’ve seen a couple of neat things we hadn’t noticed before in our neighborhood this month.

 

 

This is called a Christ Thorn.   It’s a strikingly good name for it, don’t you think?  Those thorns are intimidatingly long.  It also struck me how the flowers are a dark reddish-pink, which made me think of the blood shed for our sins.  Very apropos that we found it during the season of Lent.

 

 

Okay, these plants aren’t new.  They were one of the first ones we noticed when we moved into this house last year.  (I mean, how can you miss a plant with pink or polka-dotted leaves?!)

  

 

Later we identified them as “caladiums” or “Heart of Jesus” (I think taken specifically from the pink variety).   What we didn’t notice is that this is a flowering plant! 

 

 

We noticed the flower one morning and originally thought it might be a ceriman, but on closer inspection we found they were actually part of the caladium plant, and confirmed this in our plant book. 

 

 

We took a closer look at some of the other caladium plants around the yard and found most of them had a bud that could very easily house a flower of this shape and size. 

 

 

Isn’t it cool how you can learn something new about the most familiar things in your surroundings when you stop to take a look?

 

Click Here for More Nature Study Posts from Around the World!