Sunday, December 23, 2012

Night flowering tree

After spending the entire day working in the kitchen, by evening I was feeling pretty warm so I took my cup of tea outside onto the veranda and sat down in the cool to enjoy it. The light was about gone from the sky but it wasn't completely dark and I was able to see that the tree the lorikeets fly into during the day was covered with white flowers. I was aware that the flowers only came out in the evening but I had not been outside to see it happening.
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The tree was decorated with white flowers  from top to toe. There must be very little nectar in the flowers because they do not attract the fruit bats - fruit bats are night nectar and fruit eaters. And the honey eaters and lorikeets are not interested in flying around in the dark, so birds do not pollinate these flowers. So there must be insects that do that work.
It seems a shame that such attractive flowers should bloom only at night and fall to the ground before daylight.
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I am surprised that these pictures came out as well as they did because it was too dark to focus - so focus was pure guesswork! AND there was a slight breeze blowing so the two and three seconds I took to take each photograph meant that the tree and flowers had to be completely still - or completely blurred!
My last image shows that some of the flowers have fallen off already - they really are short lived.
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I should look up and find out what this tree is. The birds brought it into my garden and I transplanted it in the grove of trees just across from the veranda. Until now I had no need to know its name!
Now that I have had my little break I had better get myself back into the kitchen and tidy up!
AJ

4 comments:

  1. We live in Freeport, Texas and have the exact tree. We bought it in a local grocery store as a small plant, and thought it was a bush. We have also been trying to find a name for it,and all we came across was your blog. Have you happen to find anymore info about it?

    ReplyDelete
  2. We live in Freeport, Texas and have the exact tree. We bought it in a local grocery store as a small plant, and thought it was a bush. We have also been trying to find a name for it,and all we came across was your blog. Have you happen to find anymore info about it?

    ReplyDelete
  3. I have this tree too, does it grow long bean things on it?

    ReplyDelete
  4. I have this tree too, does it grow long bean things on it?

    ReplyDelete