NOT a post about school.

[sister_luck]

I'm getting on my nerves with all my school posts. So, change of topic now.

There's a bunch of pictures that I've been meaning to post, and today you'll get a flowery pic spam.


Let's start with the tree with the flowers. I've been teaching in Monkshappyriver for five and a half years now and until this year I'd never noticed the spectacular flowers of what I assume to be rose acacias or Robinia hispida. Definitely what we call Robinien, but don't pinpoint me on the variety. There's one right in front of the school and then this one in a village that I drive through on my way to school. I can't believe I missed this spectacular display. Maybe they don't bloom every year?









The boyfriend's parents have a small garden and I've tried to capture some of the plant-life tended to by the boyfriend's mum. Photographing flowers is hard.

Azaleas:



Stiefmütterchen:



I don't like the huge varieties, but I love the smaller ones that still look a bit like wild pansies. The German name is the diminutive of step-mother. Wikipedia tells me there are a lot of names for them - Heartsease has become my favourite.

Comments

[frances-lievens.livejournal.com]

I simply call them viooltjes, whether they're small or large.

I think the smaller variety are also called bosviooltjes, because they're sometimes found between trees.

[sister-luck.livejournal.com]

But how can you distinguish them from the 'blue' Veilchen or violets? I get that they're all the same genus, but the viola species are so different.

(But then even among what we call Veilchen there are differences: unscented (Hundsveilchen) and scented ones and even yellow ones.)

[sister-luck.livejournal.com]

Nevermind - wikipedia tells me all about viooltjes (http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viola_(plantengeslacht)).