Recently, I have been spending much time on selecting some of the pictures I’ve taken over many months and searching the internet for inspirational quotes and proverbs to match these pictures so that the combination of both picture and quote, might be worthwhile making these into posters, postcards or even as calendars. I have also posted these poster pictures in Facebook.

Most of the illustrations have been resized from their originals to expedite quicker uploading for internet purposes. As such, there will be some drop in the picture quality or text. I hope that the posters will inspire or arouse the observer to reflect over matters that concern life and living.
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​The following blog posts have been separated into sections each with  pictures of flowers, bees, birds, insects and others. Each blog post series in a section, will contain about six to eight pictures; and there will be more than a blog post for each section. 

Petrea volubilis. Family Name : Verbenaceae
Common Names : Sandpaper Vine, Queen’s Wreath, Purple Wreath.
A woody climber, it has a twining growth form and can grow up to 6m in height with the aid of support. The plant forms a shrub when not supported. 
Foliage: The evergreen leaves are simple, arranged in whorls and are ovate-elliptic to elliptical in shape. The upper surface of the leaves has a rough texture. 
Flowers: The flowers are borne on arching racemes, up to 30cm long. The star-shaped flowers are pale blue to violet and have conspicuous, slender calyx lobes which are of a lighter shade as compared to the flowers. The calyx persists on the plant after the flowers have dropped, gradually drying up and turning brown.

Simpoh air. (Dillenia suffruticosa.)
The fruits take exactly five weeks to set and opens at 3am. The pink star-shaped fruit capsule is fully expanded long before sunrise, with 7-8 ‘rays’ displaying purple seeds that have a fleshy bright red aril. These are eagerly eaten by birds and even monkeys. So much so that it is difficult to come across an open fruit with the seeds still present. According to Corners, small birds pick up the seeds from the opened star-shaped fruits, especially bulbuls. The seeds are swallowed whole together the fleshy aril around them, and thus dispersed by the birds.The empty husk falls off at about 8am the following day.

There are over 1,000 varieties of wild banana in the world. But 95% of banana exports come from a single cultivated variety, the Cavendish. They are basically clones, that is, genetically identical plants. This means they do not have seeds and are nicer to eat.

Lagerstroemia indica var. alba. A large woody shrub.
Crown: Vase shape with moderate density. 
Foliage: Alternate or opposite arrangement, green, smooth, deciduous, simple, margin entire, shape elliptical or oblong or oval or obovate, pinnate venation, measuring 2 – 4 inches, less than 2 inches wide. Flowers: White, terminal inflorescence, showy. Fruits: Oval or round shape, measuring less than 5 inches long, dry and hard, brown or black, when matures, they split and release seeds which are disk shaped. Picture taken at Singapore Botanic Gardens.

Irises are perennial plants, growing from creeping rhizomes (rhizomatous irises) or, in drier climates, from bulbs (bulbous irises). They have long, erect flowering stems which may be simple or branched, solid or hollow, and flattened or have a circular cross-section. The rhizomatous species usually have 3–10 basal sword-shaped leaves growing in dense clumps. The bulbous species have cylindrical, basal leaves. Picture taken at Singapore Botanic Gardens. August 21st 2018.

The Bulrush. Typha latifolia is a perennial herbaceous plant in the genus Typha. It is found as a native plant species in North and South America, Europe, Eurasia, and Africa. Wikipedia. Picture taken at home.

I took this picture at a Garden in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain. Had lots of difficulties trying to identify this flower, but I finally found out it’s a Gazania. Gazania is a genus of flowering plants in the family Asteraceae, native to Southern Africa. This is the Gazania rigens. The cultivar: Kiss Frosty White. They produce large, daisy-like composite flowers in brilliant shades of yellow and orange, over a long period in summer. They are often planted as drought-tolerant groundcover.

Ornamental banana trees (Musaceae) are available in tall, medium and dwarf sizes. … Most ornamental banana trees do not produce edible fruit, although a few develop small sweet edible bananas.