Ron Hanko's photostream  

This was taken at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle. I believe I have the identification correct and if so the Latin name is Anartia amathea. This shot was taken in a darker area of the butterfly house and though shot at an ISO of 1600 it was hard to get good depth of field. I am not particularly proud of the picture, but wanted to post a butterfly today and this photo caught my eye in my archives.

I believe I have the shrub identified correctly. In any case this was a picture taken on a frosty morning several weeks ago. The photo is slightly underexposed but I liked the effect and did not mess around with it.

This shot was taken last spring and it won't be that long before the tulips are blooming again, but at about this time of the year, I become so starved for some color that I thought I would post an old photo. This is one of the fields of Roozengaarde, a Skagit Valley bulb grower.

While my brother was here a few weeks ago we got out one afternoon for a little while in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest in the area of Nooksack Falls. It was a miserable day, raining and snowing in turn, but we did manage some pictures of the falls and of the river. This was a time exposure of the river above the falls.

This is an unopened bud of an orchid I have not grown or flowered before. Angraecum breve is from Madagascar, and in that way also is a bit unusual for me, since the majority of orchids I grow are from the new world.

I am totally charmed by this plant, however, both for its size, for its white flowers and for the spur which gradually uncurls as the flower opens. It will be completely open in a few days and I'll post another picture then.

Most Angraecums are large plants and some are huge. This plant is a little fan 4 cm (1.5 in.) across, the flower is 3 cm (1 in. plus) in size and the spur is over 10 cm long (approx. 4.5 in.) when the flower opens and it is fully uncurled.

It was an Angraecum, a different species and a much larger plant, with flowers carrying a 12 inch spur, that Darwin used to predict the existence of a moth with a 12 inch tongue. This flower is probably also moth pollinated.

I do not know yet if the flower is fragrant, but suspect it will be, since many white flowers and especially flowers like this are pollinated by night-flying insects who are attracted by the fragrance and who use the nectar for food.