Weekly Photo Challenge – Growth

I won’t subject you to photographs of the noisome growth that’s colonising the rock garden under the variegated bamboo, although I must take photographs of it to try to find out what it is.  At first I thought I would be able to lift it away but it appears to be growing out of the soil.  It’s as hard as a rock, and looks like a cross between petrified wood and a blackish blob.

But how about this for a record of growth?

I’d never noticed this exotic pine in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Peradeniya (Kandy) before, probably because it was hidden by the giant bodhi tree (ficus religiosa) that used to grow nearby.

While we’re at the Peradeniya Gardens, I’d like to show you the growth cycle of the fruits of the Cannonball Tree (Couroupita guianensis) – my Indian friends will know it as the Nagalinga or Shivalingam and will be familiar with its extraordinary, sweetly scented flowers, which grow off woody racemes from the trunk

and develop into hard, small cannonballs – larger than a cricket ball – filled with seeds.

In Sri Lanka we have many trees whose new growth flush is spectacular – particularly the small, ornamental Na.  Every time I drive past the Parliament I remind myself to take a photo of the avenue which lines the road.  Unfortunately, we’re not allowed to stop there, and I always forget on the way home, so I can’t show you a photograph of its pendulums of claret to vermilion coloured new growth.

The pendulous new growth on the Pride of Burma (Amherstia) is as spectacular as one would expect from this glorious rainforest tree with its racemes of vibrant orchid-shaped vermilion flowers.

Or how about the new growth that’s appearing on my cinnamon tree?

The monkeys really like the new leaves and I often see a line of tails dangling above the garage roof, as they sit up there in the tree, grazing on the new growth, seasoned with unripe berries.

Click here to view other entries for this week’s photo challenge.