When I moved here from Illinois I thought of living in southern California as a vacation on another planet, especially when it came to plant life. Sometimes I still do. Click on this picture to enlarge it. These are bean pods.
The brownish stream on the lower right of this photo is bean pods. The branches above the stream show where the pods came from.What kind of tree drops bean pods in purple, orange, yellow and green? Surely something not from our solar system.
This photo was taken awfully close to JPL. Maybe I shouldn't be wandering around over there.
16 comments:
Their shapes are other-worldly too, as we see when enlarging the photo.
Enjoy your new world, Petrea. Bloom where you are planted (or where you are dropped).
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Love that first shot, Petrea.
SoCal is definitely another planet. I keep running into strange alien creatures. And that's just the people.
Wonder if they're edible. Where's Euell Gibbons when you need him? Oh, yeah...
That's really funny -- the thought that things are other worldly over by JPL. You just never know.
Who knows what got into the groundwater over there? See--Vanda knows what I mean. And she and I have both been here twenty years or more.
They'd make a pretty stew, but I may have to visit Euell to find out how they taste.
JPL have kept quiet about bringing back specimens from other planets, haven't they? Now I know why Pasadena City Council was so anxious to get rid of the non-natives in that area.
The tree and beans remind me of mesquite. If you suck mesquite pods, they're deliciously sweet.
You’re happy to have the solar theme (award), we are too (at the moment)... Celebrate it tomorrow!
Bellis, you may be onto something with mesquite. The Wikipedia picture looks very similar.
Okay, Anon.
Acacia baileyana. There is a variety called 'Purpurea' that has a purple tint to the new growth (picture here)
Could very well be, Greg. I saw no purple tint to the leaves, but it could be there was no new growth. And the beans were varied in color. The leaves are the same shape, though. You can see some of them in the close-up.
By an amazing coincidence, I noticed one of those trees on Arroyo Boulevard today, overlooking the Lower Arroyo. I got all excited and jumped up and down, because the ground below was deep in the same beanpods, and there were clusters of them hanging like keys from the branches. It's definitely an acacia tree of some kind.
I wish I'd seen you jumping up and down on the bean pods, Bellis.
Oh, those are bizarre. I certainly hope you didn't try to eat any; you might have ended up with some unwanter superpowers. Hmmm... sounds like a short story in the making. :D
I could use some superpowers right about now. I'm heading back over there.
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