Bird of Paradise or Crane Flower? Strelitzia

A common name of the genus Strelitzia is bird of paradise flower, because of a supposed resemblance of its flowers to the bird of paradise but we must admit this one's a stretch so we'll go with what in South Africa is commonly known as a crane flower! What do you think? Crane? Or Bird of Paradise?  A third option could be that 'paradise' is fictional so that it is a 'bird' of a fictional place.
      Strelitzia is a genus of five species of perennial plants, native to South Africa. It belongs to the plant family Strelitziaceae. The genus is named after the duchy of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, birthplace of Queen Charlotte of the United Kingdom.
      The species S. nicolai is the largest in the genus, reaching 10 m tall, with stately white and blue flowers; the other species typically reach 2 to 3.5 m tall, except S. caudata which is a tree of a typically smaller size than S. nicolai. The leaves are large, 30–200 cm long and 10–80 cm broad, similar to a banana leaf in appearance but with a longer petiole, and arranged strictly in two ranks to form a fan-like crown of evergreen foliage. The flowers are produced in a horizontal inflorescence emerging from a stout spathe. They are pollinated by sunbirds, which use the spathe as a perch when visiting the flowers; the weight of the bird on the spathe opens it to release the pollen onto the bird's feet, which is then deposited on the next flower it visits. Src : Wikipedia

Strelitzia

Crane

Bird of Paradise

Soda Straws in a Cave?

Texas has great caves to explore. One feature that amazes are soda straws - complete with liquid! A soda straw (or simply straw) is a speleothem in the form of a hollow mineral tube. They grow in places where water leaches slowly through cracks in rock, such as on the roofs of caves. A soda straw can turn into a stalactite if the hole at the bottom is blocked, or if the water begins flowing on the outside surface of the tube.
These tubes form when calcium carbonate or calcium sulfate dissolved in the water comes out of solution and is deposited. In soda straws, as each drop hovers at the tip, it deposits a ring of mineral at its edge. It then falls and a new drop takes its place. Each successive drop of water deposits a little more mineral before falling, and eventually a tube is built up. Stalagmites or flowstone may form where the water drops hit the cave floor.
Soda straws are some of the most fragile of speleothems. Like helictites, they can be easily crushed or broken by the slightest touch. Because of this, soda straws are rarely seen within arms' reach in tourist caves. When left alone, soda straws have been known to grow up to 30 feet long.
Soda straws are also known as tubular stalactites.
Src : Wikipedia

The Aurora Alien

News agencies the World over reported a couple of months ago on an Alien face appearing in the Aurora Lights!
Landscape photographer Iurie Belegurschi captured the image in the Reykjanes peninsula of Iceland.
It was a clear night on September 8, Belegurschi stayed up all night and waited to watch the aurora Northern Lights dance in the sky.
He said: "I didn't see the alien face during shooting, but when I came home I checked my photographs on the computer and I saw it! It's unbelievable, I couldn't believe my eyes."
"I can't describe with words what I feel when I see the Northern lights, but in my opinion it is the most amazing phenomenon we can witness.
"I wish everybody could see it at least once in their life."
Self-taught Iurie moved to Iceland in 2006 to follow his passion, the Northern Lights. He is now waiting for the solar max in 2013-2014 to capture more aurora activity.
Src : Yahoo News Nov. 20, 2012

Galaxies that Resemble the Letter "A"

Object Id#: 587727226230538297

The Replica Report goes galactic today looking at 4 galaxies whose shapes Resemble the letter 'A'. A galaxy is a massive, gravitationally bound system consisting of stars, stellar remnants, and interstellar medium of gas and dust, and, it is hypothesized, an important but poorly understood component called dark matter. Examples of galaxies range from dwarfs with as few as ten million stars to giants with a hundred trillion stars, each orbiting their galaxy's own center of mass.
Galaxies contain varying numbers of star systems, star clusters and types of interstellar clouds. In between these objects is a sparse interstellar medium of gas, dust, and cosmic rays. Observational data suggests that supermassive black holes may exist at the center of many, if not all, galaxies. They are thought to be the primary driver of active galactic nuclei found at the core of some galaxies. The Milky Way galaxy appears to harbor at least one such object.
 Galaxies have been historically categorized according to their apparent shape; usually referred to as their visual morphology. A common form is the elliptical galaxy, which has an ellipse-shaped light profile. Spiral galaxies are disk-shaped with dusty, curving arms. Those with irregular or unusual shapes are known as irregular galaxies and typically originate from disruption by the gravitational pull of neighboring galaxies. Such interactions between nearby galaxies, which may ultimately result in a merging, sometimes induce significantly increased incidents of star formation leading to starburst galaxies. Smaller galaxies lacking a coherent structure are referred to as irregular galaxies. Src : Wikipedia & http://cas.sdss.org/dr7/en/

Object Id#: 587729782813491982

Object Id#: 587730774426452217

Object Id#: 587741532254109848

Buckeye Leaf Resembles Marijuana Leaf - Spells Trouble for Elderly Couple

Sometimes a strong resemblance can get you into trouble, especially if it’s a cop who’s doing the recognizing. A couple of Texans were hassled because their Buckeye decal Resembles a marijuana leaf!
February 4th, Monday, Bonnie Jonas-Boggioni, 65, and her husband were driving home to Plano, Texas from Columbus after attending her mother-in-law’s funeral when a pair of black police SUV’s stopped the couple a few miles outside of Memphis.
“Knowing I wasn’t speeding, I couldn’t imagine why,” Jonas-Boggioni told the Columbus Dispatch. “They were very serious. They had the body armor and the guns.”
On the back of Jonas-Boggioni’s car was a Buckeye leaf decal, similar to the one players’ have on their helmets, and cops mistakenly thought it was a marijuana leaf.
“What are you doing with a marijuana sticker on your bumper?” one of the cops asked Jonas-Boggioni.
That led Jonas-Boggioni and her husband to explain the meaning of the Ohio State sticker, which is given as a reward to OSU football players, Boggioni stepped out of the car to show his 2002 national-championship sweatshirt, one “complete with a Buckeye leaf,” Blundo wrote.
Disappointed, the officers excused the unwarranted stop by explaining that an officer in another jurisdiction had called in a report of the Boggionis’ sticker — believing the older couple to be at the forefront of some sort of massive marijuana ring, it seems.
“Police hunting drugs should know that a Buckeye leaf — which has five leaflets — doesn’t look much like a marijuana leaf, which typically has seven leaflets and a narrower shape,” Jones-Boggioni told Blundo.
 Before letting the pair off, officers told the couple that they should remove the Ohio State sticker from their car. “I said, ‘You mean in Tennessee?' ” Jones-Boggioni said. “No, permanently,” the officers replied.
“I didn’t take it off,” Jones-Boggioni told Blundo. “This little old lady is no drug dealer.”
Src : Joe Blundo of The Columbus Dispatch “Buckeye leaf mistaken by Tennessee police” Feb 14, 2013

About the author: the power of Resemblances inspired artist Ismael Cavazos to create the Old Man in the Peanut after recognizing the heart of a peanut resembles an old man’s hooded head complete with beard. He now brings you Remarkable Resemblances from around the World with the Replica Report.

Ohio Buckeye and a Buck's Eye

The tree species Aesculus glabra is commonly known as Ohio buckeye, American buckeye, or fetid buckeye. How much do you want to bet that Native Americans got the name from the Resemblance the tree's fruit bears to the buck's eyeball? We'll let you judge for yourselves.
The Ohio buckeye is the state tree of Ohio, and its name is an original term of endearment for the pioneers on the Ohio frontier, with specific association with William Henry Harrison. Capt. Daniel Davis of the Ohio Company of Associates, under Gen. Rufus Putnam, traversed the wilderness in the spring of 1788, and began the settlement of Ohio. Davis was said to be the second man ashore at Point Harmar, 7 April 1788, and he declared later that he cut the first tree felled by a settler west of the Ohio River, a "buckeye" tree. Additionally, Colonel Ebenezer Sproat, another founder of that same pioneer city of Marietta, had a tall and commanding presence; he greatly impressed the local Indians, who in admiration dubbed him “Hetuck”, meaning eye of the buck deer, or Big Buckeye. Subsequently, the word is used as the nickname and colloquial term for people from the state of Ohio and The Ohio State University's sports teams. The Ohio State University adopted "Buckeyes" officially by the school as its nickname in 1950, and came to be applied to any student or graduate of the university.

It is native primarily to the Midwestern and lower Great Plains regions of the United States, extending southeast into the Nashville Basin. It is also found locally in the extreme southwest of Ontario, on Walpole Island in Lake St. Clair, and in isolated populations in the South. It is a medium-sized deciduous tree growing to 50–82 feet tall.
The leaves are palmately compound with five (rarely seven) leaflets, 3-6 inches long and broad. The flowers are produced in panicles in spring, yellow to yellow-green, each flower 3/4 - 1⅛ inches long with the stamens longer than the petals (unlike the related Yellow Buckeye, where the stamens are shorter than the petals). The fruit is a round or oblong spiny capsule 1½ - 2 inches diameter, containing 1-3 nut-like seeds, 3/4 - 1⅛ inches in diameter, brown with a whitish basal scar.
The fruits contain tannic acid, and are poisonous for cattle, and possibly humans. Native Americans would blanch them, extracting the tannic acid for use in leather. Src : Wikipedia