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

This isn't maybe the prettiest set of transmitted light photos I've got, but what they lack in beauty, they make up for in having unusually diverse textures. Or at least that was the feature that jumped out at me when I first looked at them as a group.

Ordinarily when I post a set of transmitted light photos, I'm doing so because I can't come up with anything else to post. Not the case this time, though: this time, I'm doing it because I had the realization that if I don't start posting them once in a while, I'm never going to end up publishing them all.

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

Ficus microcarpa.

Alcea sp. Obviously a leaf from late in the season: a spring leaf wouldn't be as scarred and torn.

Acer sp., autumn.

Pulmonaria 'Raspberry Splash.' One of the two Pulmonarias I planted when we first moved in died this spring; the other had to be relocated and, I fear, may not come back. It needed to be divided, I think, but the husband was the one who moved it, and I hadn't told him it needed to be divided, so . . . we'll see what happens, I suppose. I think I like Pulmonaria well enough to buy replacements if the survivor doesn't come back, but maybe I won't need to. We'll see.

Polyscias scutellaria. The photograph is, I think, a technical failure but an artistic success: the shadows are maybe excessive, but they also make me think of bubble wrap, which I like. (Who doesn't like thinking about bubble wrap, after all?) This is actually, I think, my favorite photo from this set, despite being plainer than most of the images that follow.

Strobilanthes dyerianus.

Epipremnum aureum. It's strangely impossible to come up with a decent transmitted light photo of E. aureum, and I have no idea why. It's like Dracaena deremensis varieties and Tradescantia pallida -- however many different ways I try of doing it, I still always get crappy photos. But what do the three of them have in common that Philodendron hederaceum, Dracaena fragrans, and Tradescantia zebrina don't? It's a mystery.

Glycine max, dead leaf. This improves a bit when full-size. It's also one of the more map-like leaves in this set.

Begonia 'Soli-Mutata.' The texture is pretty striking by reflected light, too, though the colors aren't going to make anybody's list of most colorful Begonias.

Calathea makoyana.

Pretty pictures: Alcea NOID

I had an entirely different post planned for today, but technical difficulties prevent me from sharing it. Specifically, Firefox has been intermittently freaking out because my version of Adobe Flash Player is out of date and (paraphrasing:) going to make my computer catch fire and explode, so it sends me to a site to download the new version of Adobe Flash Player. Which I then dutifully download, giving my approval and permission where necessary.

And then AFP eats up all the memory in my computer for half an hour, does nothing, and eventually tells me that the file fails an integrity test or something, and then continues to hold all the computer's memory hostage for a few more minutes just to piss me off. After an hour in which I've been unable to do anything at all with the computer but also unable to go anywhere else, to do anything else, because who knows when AFP might let go and let me have the computer again, AFP finally relinquishes control and I can use my computer more or less normally again, except that I'm now an hour behind where I wanted to be, and in my hurry to catch back up, I do stupid things like accidentally double-clicking on something, opening 27 windows of Irfanview, and then slow myself down even more.

Since all of the prior AFP download attempts have failed (there have been about five or six, at random intervals over the last few weeks, and they all go like this), what this means is that at some point a few days or weeks from now, Firefox is going to be all like ZOMG YOUR GOING TO DIE UNLESS U DOWNLOAD THE LATEST VERSION OF ADOBE FLASH PLAYER!!!!1!11!11!!, and then we'll go through this whole thing again, and nothing will happen.

There should be more hollyhock pictures than just these two, but there was some problem I no longer remember with the other ones. (These are a few weeks old, from before it got too hot to walk with Sheba.) So: you'll look at the hollyhock pictures, and you'll like them.