Floral Art: Pink Gum and Bloodwood

This Eucalyptus species is a smooth-barked gum and for the botanical purists it is not a pink gum, nor a blue gum nor a bloodwood. For the artists it is a ruffled bark in glamourous threads ready to set the bush party alight with desire.

Beautiful Effect. I wonder if Marilyn has seen it... (I'd expect she'd have commented)

Dear Bartowian, I am sure Marilyn will have seen this but she probably hasn't read the comment. I could have some creative fun with the common names of many of our plants and trees. Especially as they first got their names from immigrant Europeans who seemed not to have an ability to use established local names that indigenous people used, and they hadn't developed a systematic way of creating new names for flora new to them. silky oak, iron bark, apple gum, tallowwood, blue gum, black wattle, scribbly gum, rusty gum, she oaks, bull oak, blackbutt, brush box..... Ian

...chuckle... every time I see a documentary about African pygmies and hear their conversations (with the many clicks and other unfamiliar sounds) I've been left to wonder if I could master THAT close enough not to feel a need to rename everything myself...

heck, immigrants into the US routinely got their names mangled three different ways every Thursday by their earlier arrived 'cousins' performing some bureaucratic function (did it to me, too! I've got the papers to prove it!). I hate to think what they do to immigrants from more "exotic" places (languagewise)... quite frankly, I've concluded that one is wise to simply adopt a name for oneself that represents no language challenge to the locals in a country one visits; I use a different (first) name in the Latin world from the one in the anglo or German. I'd need a new/different one to survive in an Asian culture, no doubts -- but I wouldn't know how to pick one (yet).

I hadn't seen it up close, but now I have. Oooooooooo so lush! I'd like to wear that collection of colours (except no more than just a touch of yellow, but I guess this would be a bit scratchy.

If I'm not properly serious, it's because I've just given a group of church women a photo tour of churches on six continents. That's a lot of travel for a bit more than half an hour, and I'm tired!

Marilyn, Don't be concerned about the scatchiness. One of our forest giants is the satinay, so I am sure that this may come in satin, if that is your desire.

Did the photo tour include St Andrew's, Sydney? Next year you will have to do it again with St Patrick's, Parramatta, for I will do that assignment. Ian

Marilyn! so glad you caught up. Great colours, eh?!!? :-)

and 6 continents? next time do just "The Painted Churches of CentralTexas", you'll be less tired and there's lots of good food to be had most of those places, too! ;-)

Come one, come all, Ian! It's really a nice, civilized place, Texas is...

our PBS station even has produced a 1-hour documentary that's very well done --->_

I admit, bartowian, that the Texas church links make things look more interesting than I anticipated. I've very limited Texas experience--a meeting in San Antonio and looking around there, then heading for the Oklahoma border.

Yes, Ian, the "show" included the St. Andrew's picture, also the St. Patrick's, Adelaide, exterior shot I've posted and also two interior and one stained glass shot of St. Pat's. Wish I'd had a chance to visit more!

apologies, Ian, for (ab)using your photo-space to chat...

Marilyn, I knew nothing about Central Texas when I got there, just stereo-typical info about Texas in general -- and was quite surprised by what all could be found there: very little of the same red-neck atmosphere of Northern and Central Florida (though it's still alive and flourishing in the eastern swamps today, along the LA-border) which, in fact, I had returned to the U.S. to 'recover' from: the disappointment: "this cannot be what America is all about" and "there's got to be more about this country, so let's give it another try to find what that is". Unbeknownst to me (and most people), Central Texas had been the refugee heaven for German emigration during the 18-hundreds, particularly the intelligentsia and revolutionaries who had to flee Europe for their life. After Steven F. Austin's father had started a business of settling newly-founded towns with Central European ethnicities (German, Czech, Swedes mostly) in the plains north of a line between Galveston and San Antonio, those then were like a magnet in later decades for their fellow countrymen who needed/wanted to flee the poverty, hunger and persecution during the later 19th century years. San Antonio became a German city, for all practical (business) purposes then, believe it or not, and the constitution of the republic of Texas was as progressive as could be for those times, because of the pressure and influence of the social revolutionaries amongst them (there even were small communities we might call "communes" today, some with non-religion based idealogies). Anyways, a visit to the libraries, archives and museums of Austin --plus the Latin-American Institute attached to the LBJ-Library and the surrounding countryside would surely be enjoyed and enjoyable by you (and Ian, too)...

Thanks, bartowian. I didn't know the history of the German emigration but I was aware of its results. I didn't know about the other groups. I also knew you were an Ian, but thanks to your conversation here, I now wonder where you are an Ian!

And Ian, now that I've seen this, feel free to delete any of this excursion that you wish.

Marilyn

Dear Marilyn, First of all I have no intention of deleting any of this very special and interesting conversation, for I value it. There is no sense in which my space has been either (ab- or) used, but thankyou for your generosity of spirit. Thankyou bartwoian and Marilyn for this discussion. As you may have picked up along the way or from the spelling of my surname, there is a German-Polish-Danish(Holsteiner) background for a stream of my ancestry too, as there is for many Australians in Queensland and South Australia especially, but also elsewhere in Australia. I have done considerable research on the German emigrations from feudalism in Mecklenburg and from the poverty of 1830-70 period, especially to US and Queensland. There are Stebens, Steben, and Stehbens in Iowa, Kansas particularly and dispersed from there as there are in SA & Qld. But I knew nothing of the special migration to Texas that bartwoian has referred us to. So this has opened up a whole new area of awareness. Thanks to both of you. (Because you both are very adept at Googling, I presume you have probably already located the Stehbens family history website that emanates from yours truly.) Ian

Ian, it gives me a real lift to see those glorious colours pop up in my "conversations." This is just so beautiful! Yes, as you guessed, I'd found the family history web site some days ago, and will go back in a time of greater leisure. It appears to me that you do what I consider the right kind of family history, but more on that another time perhaps. Marilyn

an interesting read about the GERMAN IMMIGRATION TO TEXAS

and googling for the topic generates lots of interesting hits

bartowian you have given me some intersting reading to do. I look forward to sitting with it for a while. It is new learning indeed. Thankyou. Ian PS: My apologies for mis-spelling bartowian in an earlier post.

Ian, from a quick review of the googled hist, here's my choice for 'top of' in the reading list -- never mind the sometimes a bit overly nationalistic "German" sentiments (at least they struck me as such, but then I'm brainwashed to feel that way, post-ww2 in Germany educated that I am ;-)

spelling errors? no fuss! In my opinion, as long as the reader knew what was meant, it's a waste of time to even remark on it, most of the time. I like to point out to people sometimes: in a conversation, you don't care how I spell it either! :-)

Thankyou for your visit 中國陳新勝.

This tree will not be destroyed, for it is preserved in a special park. Be assured.

Ian

Very nice Ian! I have a similar shot although the colors are not as striking as this one.

Dear Cheryl,

It is special to receive a response from you to this image. Is the similar one, to which you refer, already uploaded in your folio, for I had a look and didn't recognise it, or is it one that is yet to be uploaded. Forgive me if I have missed it.

Sincerely,

Ian

Hello Ian! Somehow I passed over this photo at my previous visits. But I'm glad I found it and I was delighted by its gorgeous colors. Greetings, Liviu

Dear Liviu,

You are a real friend, dipping back into my gallery and finding images that have real appeal to you. Thank you for encouraging a creative mind and a poetic eye.

Our trees have some very imaginative names.

Ian