October 23, 2011--paper wasp nest, okra, Osage orange

What do these three things have in common? They're all sitting in my windowsill!  The thing they're each sitting on is a spool of woody wire from Michael's (the arts and crafts store).  I never unwound these spools because I decided I liked them better wound than unwound.  Too much to say about each subject, but suffice it to say this about the Osage orange (far right):  it's the most interesting round fruit on the ground right now (once eaten by mastodons and giant ground sloths!).  John and I have scores of them falling from one, young Osage orange tree we planted about 15 years ago.  The tree is not big (about 20 feet tall), but it's definitely prolific.

And below is a photo for Ann Bradford Marcero and her husband Todd, who visited Flower Camp last month. I can't remember how we got onto the subject of black-eyed Susan vine (Thunbergia) , but we did --- discussing the fact that it was the black throat of the flower that looked like the eye of "real" black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia).   I was bemoaning the fact that I'd grown black-eyed Susan vine successfully in the past but had none this year; Annie and Todd were saying how pretty the vine was all over San Francisco. Well, Annie and Todd, as I was weeding today, I discovered I did have black-eyed Susan vine blooming (albeit under a tangle of weeds)!  It is yellow- rather than orange-flowered, but that is often the case. I clipped a piece and put it in the windowsill where it promptly wilted, but it lasted long enough for a close-up of its calyx, which I'd never noticed before and  is as interesting as the black-throated flower.