Getting rosy

Discovered this morning that the Rose Garden in Balboa Park is mostly blooming nicely, so stopped to take photos, and ended up with three I liked, all macros, samples of which below:







While taking the photos, I was amused by the names of the varieties of roses being grown.

In addition to these three, I also saw name plates for the following varieties:

• Burgundy Iceberg
• Lovestruck
• Teeny Bopper
• Rock 'n' Roll
• About Face
• and, the Julia Child rose

Took photos of all of these, but was not happy with the results. There were more roses in the garden, however my camera started showing a low battery warning, so that was that.

Very unusual flowers

Flowers of a firewheel tree (Stenocarpus sinuatus)
Originally uploaded by jeffwc00

During a visit to Balboa Park, a couple trees at the lawn bowling courts caught my attention. (This is in an area of the park known as West Mesa; it's a relatively thin strip of land immediately west of State Route 163; the large bulk of the park is to the east of that highway.)

Specifically, the bright red flowers on the trees caught my eye.

As I got close I realized I was looking at one of the more unusually structured flowers I've ever seen, as seen in this photo I took at the time.

I was unable at the time to determine what the tree is called, which frustrated me, because I vastly prefer to be able to ID a plant I have taken a photo of when I put it online.

This afternoon I visited the park's Botanical Building, and on the way out noticed some pamphlets that were available for the taking.Viola! One of them had details of many notable plants on the West Mesa, including these trees.

And so I am pleased to present these flowers of a firewheel tree. (Formal name: Stenocarpus sinuatus)

Group day

I visited Balboa Park earlier today to walk around and look for photo opportunities, and found myself noticing several distinct groups.

There were two separate groups of what I assumed were art students.

• One, at the foot of the park's lily pond, that was comprised of younger people, all doing sketches:

• ...and one, on one side of the lily pond, that was comprised of older people, all doing oil paintings:

And there were two separate groups of people with dogs.

• One that was training service dogs:

• ...and one of greyhound owners: