[Exceptionally] Pretty pictures: transmitted light -- Part XXXII

Okay. Well. The "good" stress is over now, I think/hope, so now we're just waiting to see what's going to happen from it. Meanwhile, I'm hoping to get some plants watered and some blog posts written, so I can make the time to have a small nervous breakdown later. (It's possible that I've had a nervous breakdown already, on Friday and Saturday, but you can never have too many, right?)

Meanwhile, Transmitted Light Week rumbles along with another batch of ten pictures.

(The previous transmitted light posts can be found here.)

Lycoris squamigera ("naked ladies"). Plain though the picture is, I kind of like this one. I like the plant, too, though the flowers I saw around town this year didn't look very good, compared to my memory of 2009. Perhaps they don't do as well in wet years?

Juglans sp.? I'm not sure on this one, because there are several trees around here with odd-pinnate leaves, and although I can tell that they aren't all the same, I've never been able to figure out how many there are or how to tell them apart. This was growing in someone's yard, so a walnut tree seems like a reasonable guess, and it's a very new leaf, so there isn't much to go on for an ID anyway. And it's not like it was that great of a photo to begin with, so why are we even talking about this?

Salvia elegans. Now that we've had a hard freeze, all the plants I stuck in the back yard have died, so I'm hoping that I can get a post together about the progression of the blooming. Some of this is just for my own curiosity about when it was actually at its peak, and some of it is that I took pictures every two or three days for weeks and I'll be damned if I'm not going to get something for all that effort.

Plectranthus amboinicus. If you tilt your head to the right, there's a Christmas tree in this picture. Or at least I see one.

Hosta NOID. In case you didn't believe me about these pictures being from the spring, I think this photos should convince you. When's the last time you saw a Hosta leaf that wasn't all ragged from wind and holey from slugs? Was it spring?

Syringa vulgaris. Probably my second-favorite photo from this batch. Also further evidence of spring photo-taking.

Nematanthus cv. These always look like they'd be perfect for transmitted light photos when the sun hits them right, but the leaves are so small that I can never get very good pictures out of them.

Solenostemon scutellarioides 'Henna.' Not a variety I'm terribly familiar with; we didn't carry it when I was working in the garden center. The photo doesn't do much for me.

Colocasia 'Coffee Cups.' This was an unusually difficult picture to get; the camera wouldn't focus on it properly. I like the color I wound up with, but I've seen (and taken) much better photos of Colocasias before.

Calathea makoyana. My favorite from the set, which I suppose is sort of predictable: plants in the maranta family (Marantaceae) are terribly photogenic in general. Less predictably, I've had the plant for six months now, and it's still alive. It's had spider mites once already, and the new leaves aren't very big, but with Calatheas, technically alive is accomplishment enough.