Friday’s Florals: Hebes

A New Zealand native plant, hebes are very popular in our gardens.

Hebe /ˈhiːbiː/^[1] is a genus of plants native to New Zealand, Rapa in French Polynesia, the Falkland Islands, and South America. It includes about 90 species and is the largest plant genus in New Zealand. Apart from H. rapensis (endemic to Rapa), all species occur in New Zealand. This includes the two species, H. salicifolia and H. elliptica, that have distributions extending to South America. The genus is named after the Greek goddess of youth, Hebe. There are differing classifications for the genus and some botanists include Hebe, together with the related Australasian genera Chionohebe, Derwentia, Detzneria, Parahebe, Heliohebe and Leonohebe, in the larger genus Veronica (hence its common name ‘Shrubby veronica’).

Hebe has four perpendicular rows of leaves in opposite decussate pairs. The flowers are perfect, the corolla usually has four slightly unequal lobes, the flower has two stamens and a long style. Flowers are arranged in a spikedinflorescence. Identification of Hebe species is difficult, especially if they are not in flower. The plants range in size from dwarf shrubs to small trees up to 7 metres, and are distributed from coastal to alpine ecosystems. Large-leaved species are normally found on the coast, in lowland scrub and along forest margins. At higher altitudes smaller-leaved species grow, and in alpine areas there are whipcord species with leaves reduced to thick scales.

Hebes are grown in many gardens and public areas; they attract butterflies. Hebes cope with most soil types, and can be propagated easily from both seed and cuttings. Wild Hebe hybrids are uncommon; however, there are many cultivated hybrids, such as Hebe × franciscana.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebe_(genus)

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Monochrome of the Day: Hidden Gerbera

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Cee’s Black & White Challenge: Ships at Auckland

Good morning from a cold Hastings day.  Yesterday my son came up from Wellington by bus and it snowed for him.  He didn’t expect it.  It was veeerrryyyy coooollllldddd.  I saw that Te Mata Peak in Havelock North, just a few kilometers to the east of where I live, had a few flurries of snow.  I could see the clouds were getting blacker and heavier.  I had to go and pick up my son and wanted to take some photos but was driving.  By the time I got home the clouds had changed again. It was just way to cold to even go out and take photos.  The wind chill factor was bone chilling.

So onto Cee’s Black & White Challenge over at Cee’s Photography which is large objects. So I found these photos when I was going through my archives yesterday.

The first photo is of a New Zealand navy frigate at Devonport Navy Base.  The second is looking over towards Auckland’s iconic skyline.  I was told yesterday that it looks different again to this photo taken in 2007.

And here is a photo of the largest object ever. The moon.

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Large Subjects

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