Pareidolia

I took this photo today. In Miami we do have lots, and I mean lots of banyan trees. This is one of the many here. Do not get confused because of the word I use in the title for today's blog. No, that's not the scientific name of this ficus tree. Far from it. This is a Ficus benghalensis. When you see things, that's "Pareidolia." When I look at this photo today, I can't help but to use it for this blog. But first thing first: Pareidolia is a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant. Common examples include seeing images of animals or faces in clouds, the man in the moon or the Moon rabbit, and hearing hidden messages on records played in reverse. The word comes from the Greek para- – "beside", "with", or "alongside"—meaning, in this context, something faulty or wrong (as in paraphasia, disordered speech) and eidōlon – "image"; the diminutive of eidos – "image", "form", "shape". Pareidolia is a type of apophenia, which is the human tendency to seek patterns in random natural surroundings.

You may have seen in this blog this exact type of phenomenon before here, involving another Indian ficus tree.

So, turn on your wild imagination and tell me what you see here. Please don't tell me that you see nothing but a tree. Come on, be inventive. I can see a wonderful imagery here, but too bashful to tell you what I see. But if you were to ask nicely... I may...
If you are curious and interested in the other half of pareidolia, regarding sound, you may find this very interesting.

Inspiring

I was ready to talk about something deep and very philosophical like the habit of reproduction of a rare flowering tree I found today, but that boring subject is easily trumped by a box I received today in the mail... So let me talk about that instead.

About a little bit over a week ago, I talked about this encounter at the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden. I am spoiled rotten now that I was sent a box of what I said is my craving: The Oliver Kita Inspiring dark chocolate. Here it is:

This came directly from the manufacturer and I am so thankful to the person who sent me this. Thank you, thank you, thank you! If you are curious to know what is the content, here is its description:
16 Piece:
Column 1

Cherry Ancho
Palet d' Opium
Passionfruit and Lychee
Palet de Framboise

Column 2

Scarlet Caramel
Palet d' Olivier
Lavandre Citronade
Palet du Figue et Cognac

Column 3

Mint and Lemon Balm
White Peaches and Cream
Scarlet Caramel
Cherry Ancho

Column 4

Palet de Framboise
Coconut Voile
Palet d’ Opium
Palet d' Olivier

How do they look to you? You wanna share? Got to come to Miami first.

Fountain Maintenance

This is the face of South Miami's City Hall. Its address is 6130 Sunset Drive, Miami, Florida 33143. The water fountain is getting a clean up this morning. This is the location for a weekly farmers' market each Saturday that started in January of last year and it runs from 9 AM to 2 PM where you can find freshly picked produce such as locally grown watermelon, radishes, oyster mushrooms and other vegetable. The administrative office of the city hall is a few steps beyond and it looks like this.

It's a Jungle

Look at this display of bougainvillea that totally took over the entire balcony of this large building on Sunset Drive and SW 63 Avenue. Because they are very thorny, I can imagine it will be quite difficult to trim these plants to a more manageable size. Because they are so showy when in bloom, bougainvilleas are popular ornamental plants in most areas with warm climates. Looking closely, you will realize that the actual bougainvillea flower is small and white. Each cluster of three tiny flowers is surrounded by three or six bracts with the bright colors of hues of pink, magenta, purple, red, orange, white, or yellow. The showiness is from the bracts. Bougainvillea glabra is called "bong giay" in Vietnamese, translated as "paper flower" because the bracts are thin and papery.

Missing Ingredient

At least twice a year, the carambola tree (star-fruit) bears fruits and January is one of the two months that these trees are loaded with the waxy star-shaped fruits that ripen to a bright yellow-orange color. The other month it has fruits is September. In Miami, this tree, if not grown commercially, is totally under-utilized. The fruits are left untouched and they just fall to the ground and wasting away. Despite that, these star-fruits sell quite expensively at grocery stores. This photo shows a mature tree that is quite large that lives in the fruit tree section of the Montgomery Botanical Center. I recently finished making a devilishly delicious fish soup and just realized I forgot that star-fruits, once added to the mix, make the fish soup taste even better. Rats! Need to do that again soon.

No Babesiosis Here

Twice a year, I do this: donate blood. And today is the day. I am never alone and am always in the company of many friends to make a trip by the bloodmobile of the Community Blood Centers of Florida worthwhile. In order to be accepted, you must be identified and must answer a long list of questions that determine your eligibility to be a safe donor. This year, one new question got all of us baffled: what the heck is Babesiosis? Do we have it? Not that I know of, mam! That turns out to be a malaria-like parasitic disease caused by infection with Babesia, a genus of protozoal piroplasms, the second most common blood parasites of mammals. In North America, the disease is primarily found in eastern Long Island, Fire Island, Nantucket Island and Martha's Vineyard off of the coast of Massachusetts and the northern midwestern and New England states. It is called "The Malaria of The Northeast." Now that I know what that is, I am sure I ain't got it!

It's not me in this photo. It's my friend Bruce, and that's his pint of blood that goes to help someone someday somewhere. We all feel great and we got a free fruit juice afterwards for our trouble.

Females Outnumber Males

Just like Women outnumber Men in buying the expensive Starbucks coffee, the Triplaris species, aka the ant tree and also the long john tree exhibits the same behavior. There was a worldwide observation made in the wild, and it was believed that Triplaris species is female skewed. In simpler English, that says that you naturally find more female than male trees in the wild. So the natural question is why so. Back when money was more easily available, there were studies to find answers to this mystery and one answer is that male Triplaris is exhausted and dies younger than its female counterpart after its effort in reproduction. Wow! Sex does kill! The long explanation is that guy Triplaris expend their pollen with abandon without any calculation to preserve its valuable resource while attempting to fertilize as many nearby females as possible; while female Triplaris are more careful making seeds to ensure that they are not produced in vain. The end result is that they prevail longer. Far fetched? You can look up these research papers if you don't believe me (Sex Ratio in the Tropical Tree Triplaris americana (Polygonaceae,) Melampy and Howe, November 1976.) That theory translates well into my own personal experience. I found one pair of Triplaris sp.: one male and one female. I found a cluster of females and only one male Triplaris cumingiana... and today, I found a lone female Triplaris americana. There are indeed more gal than guy Triplaris in Miami. Looking at this ant tree, you must agree that it fits the long john description to a "T." In any case, all the Triplaris are in bloom at this time so it's real easy to recognize them... just look for spectacular red flowers high above the canopies while you walk around in Miami.

Classic Bimmer

In South Miami, Commerce Lane is a very charming small street that is just North of Sunset Drive, between SW 68th and 70th streets. This street has many an entrepreneurial little shops that service automobiles of all makes. There are many body shops here to give cars damaged in accidents a face lift for a new life. This is also the place you can find restored antique cars. Here is a 1968 bimmer (that's the affectionate name given to BMW cars,) BMW 1600 GT. One seller claims that there are only 300 such cars remaining in the world and wants a whopping US $70K for his car. This car is supposedly designed by Pietro Frua, the legend who designed the Maserati, Lamborghini and the Glas 2300, the famous “Glaserati.” Would you buy a 1968 car? I am not so sure I would... Do you see the side rear view mirrors... way out there? I had MGs like that and it was not fun to adjust them! You need an assistant outside to move the mirrors for you. Did Mr. Frua design that? I wonder!

Lunar New Year

According to the Yin/Yang twin combined with the Five Elements and Twelve Animals of the cyclic lunar calendar theory, a brand new lunar year begins today, and it is the Yang Water Dragon. Do you know that such combinations (Yin or Yang/One of the Five elements/One of the Twelve animals) only occur once every 60 years? That means that the next Yang Water Dragon will be in 2072.

It is considered by some that it brings good fortune to have an Ochna integerrima in full bloom on the first day of the new year. The owner of this tree tried but it seems that his calculation was off this year. Below is how the tree looks today. It should look like this. Do I believe in any of this? Nah! One thing is certain... I won't be blogging this when the next Yang Water Dragon shows up the next time.

Chocolate for a Water Dragon

It's the lunar new year eve of the Water Dragon year, and there is a chocolate festival inside Miami's Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden (FTBG) for the last 3 days, including today which is the last day. There was a huge crowd that came today because everybody craves for chocolate. That was a must do event, so I was eager to show up. The best place I found was Oliver Kita stand.

Oliver Kita Fine Chocolates is often described as the Premiere Chocolate Shops from Hudson Valley. It makes vegan organic chocolate bars and other delectable creations in the Hudson Valley area. Cooking and baking with the perfumes and flavors of flowers, herbs, citrus, exotic fruits, berries, nuts, and spices over the last 20 years, Oliver Kita now adds fine chocolates for chocolate lovers around the world.

They claim to use top quality French organic and Swiss sources of ingredients and traditional French methods. Using ingredients such as heavy satin cream, award-winning sweet butter, fine fruits, low sugar, carefully selected and roasted nuts etc... their end products are beautiful hand-crafted artfully designed bits that beg to be eaten.

They created sinful collections with names such as: Organic, Studio, Inspiring, Rejuvenating, Satisfying, Soothing, Comforting, Fashion, Spiritual, Hot Chocolate and Great Estates. My favorite is Inspiring: All dark chocolate with dramatic tastes some with chunks of exotic fruit inside fragrant dark chocolate... no milk, please! You see some of the empty slots in these boxes? Guess who helped that out!

What's For Dinner?

Life has many annoyances, one of which is you've got to eat. I understand there are gurus who only need to eat once in a long, long while. But I am not one of them and everyday I have to worry about what's next. Today, my guts told me they need not a hamburger, not a steak, not spaghetti, no fettuccine... but something different. You guessed it, and here I am at my trusted local Publix supermarket. In Miami, it is not a straight forward thing to find fresh fish. Cheap fresh fish? You can forget that silly notion. But the fish they have here, when they have them, are not bad so fish soup it is that I will cook up today. I have to rely on the man behind the counter there to prepare the fish for me. It is not a task that I want to do myself, simply because I don't know how to scale a fish and this man knows it so he is happy to help me. Today, yellowtail is US $7.99 a pound and red snapper is $9.99 a pound. Yellowtails are the smaller creatures on the left side... not the long fellows with the dots, they are mackerels...; and the red snappers are red ones to the right. Would you believe I know the secret to make 5 star fish soup? A tomato or two, some fresh onions... a top secret mixture of herbs and spice et voila, the best fish soup in Miami in person. Drop me a line and I may invite you... depends on who you are, of course.

Aeae

Take a look at tog's Aeae banana today. It has a huge stalk of fingers of impressive size. This is a Koae or Aeae variety, believed to have origins from the islands of Hawaii. Research says it is doing best in cool, moist woodlands at elevations of 500 to 1,000 feet. But they do great right here too, judged by this enormous bunch. Both Aeae banana's variegated foliage and fruit of green beautifully striped with white streaks make this plant one of the most attractive of the banana varieties. Because this photo does not show you the beautiful leaves, you can see a sample of it here. Koae is the only variegated variety growing in Hawaii and it is well known to Hawaiians. This variety is more of a plantain type which is a fair cooking banana and it is rarely eaten raw. Bananas are very rich in carbohydrates, vitamin C, A and some B; and several important minerals, including potassium, copper, magnesium, calcium, and iron. Being a plantain, Aeae has high starch and low sugar levels plus copious amounts of bitter-tasting latex. To break down the stinging, bitter latex, Aeae's pulp is soaked in salt water for about 10 minutes before cooking. Because a fungus known as the Panama disease once nearly wiped out all of the edible bananas plantations, tog is now very worried that some caterpillars are killing all his precious Aeaes. That would be terrible!

Undesirable

The fruits littering my yard you see here is not from my tree. This "Lucuma" tree belongs to my next door neighbor. Every year, at this time, these fruits fall to my side and go to waste. No one, but no one, myself, cats, birds, squirrels, possums, raccoons, ants, insects... eat these fruits. They just slowly decompose and vanish into thin air. The tree producing these fruits is a Pouteria campechiana of the Sapotaceae family. It is also known as Lucuma campechiana or Lucuma nervosa. I remember this fruit from my childhood, and it was known as the "Likima" fruit.

Pouteria campechiana is an erect tree growing quite large. The flowers are bisexual, cream colored with silky hair and fragrant. This tree's canistel fruit is green when unripe and turns golden yellow as it ripens. The flesh is yellow with a pasty texture similar to the texture of a hard-boiled egg and is known as the egg fruit. I think I tasted this fruit once and never again will try. I vaguely remember it tasted like paste, indescribable and quite yucky. I understand why no one I know wants to eat them.

Young Seed Pods

My search and research for the Alstonia scholaris has come full circle and this shot is from the tree opposite the ant tree I showed yesterday. The October flowers are gone and the tree is now full of young seed pods. They come profusely in pairs of long bean like pods. I am not sure when they will mature to contain seeds, but at this time, these pods are very brittle and they are full of thick and milky sap. I know, I broke one off by accident and the sap oozed out like a small river. This is very similar to what happens when you stake a jack fruit. Did you ever do that? Don't!

Scarlet Long John

There are two major botanical gardens in Miami, one is world reknown which is the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden (FTBG.) The other one is virtually only known to the scientific circles, unknown otherwise even to native Miamians; and that is the Montgomery Botanical Center (MBC.) Fairchild and Montgomery were close friends and their former properties are located adjacent to each other. MBC has the Triplaris sp. that you can see here; and FTBG has a beautiful Triplaris cumingiana that is in full bloom right now. This tree is on the North side of FTBG's Palm Glade and it towers over a water lily pond. Directly opposite it on the other side is a beautiful Alstonia scholaris (the Vietnamese "Milk Flower" tree.) Looking at this photo, you may think that this T. cumingiana is a large tree. It is not so because this is a cluster of many trees, each one truly earns its "Long John" nick name. Today, the ground surrounding these trees are littered with red fuzzy seed pods with three blade wings. I got a handful of them and if lucky, I may begin to have baby T. cumingiana.

This place is so peaceful that on week days, you can sit here and may only hear the wind whispers and occasional foot steps of lizards.

Gorgeous

It's a fabulous day in Miami. It's MLK (Martin Luther King) holiday and many have the day off while Miami's Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden has many visitors who came to enjoy this great day outdoors. You can't imagine how lucky we are living here in Miami. This is a shot at the Palm Glade in front of Glade Lake in the garden. It is flanked to the left by a huge Triplaris cumingiana in full bloom with scarlet flowers; and to the right by a huge Alstonia scholaris full of ripening seed pods. You can't see these two favorite trees of mine in this photo, but do not despair... come back for more... Because schools are out, the kids are here in force... and being kids, they are chasing muticolored lizards and here trying to figure out how deep this 2 feet water lily pond is.

Fascination!

Don't you wish you can turn back the time arrow and revert to this stage of your life when your needs and wants were pure and simple?

It's Cold in Miami

There is a cold front that drops Miami's temperature to sweater weather today. It's cold outside, for Miami. When it gets cold, you feel for men like this poor soul. He is getting the sun warmth on the ground outside a Kentucky Fried Chicken on US-1, covered under a tattered thin dirty zebra blanket with holes here and there, clutching two one dollar bills and a few loose pennies. He is not asking for a handout and was listening to an old handset attached to his right ear. I wonder when his batteries will run out.

Yellow Is The Color That I Love

There is a saying "Nothing lasts forever, and the deepest well runs dry..." which seems to apply well to this place... About 4 years ago, the bougainvillea growing here was quite spectacular... but today, I think it's less of a dazzle display than that of yesteryears. In my opinion, the key ingredient that is missing is the color yellow. Yellow bougainvillea is notoriously hard to stay alive and they do not last as long as others of different colors. White bougainvillea is even more difficult to grow here than yellow. Purple seems to be the color that survives best in Miami. In this photo, you can see the climbing tendency of bougainvillea from the color patches on the neighboring young oak. Even the fence has shown its age. Hey, I didn't notice that it's Friday the Thirteenth! But I am not superstitious, it's bad luck to be that way!

Moonless Moonlight Tour

Tonight is the first of the four "Moonlight Tour" at Miami's Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden. Once a month starting in January, a night tour is offered to the public to have a chance of experiencing nature at its best at dark. Tonight, unfortunately, the sky is cloudy and the moon only rises after the tour concludes. That resulted in a Moonless Moonlight Tour and the star gazing part could not take place. However, just walking in this garden at night is what I think one is very privileged to be able to enjoy. You have seen only part of a beautiful rain tree where lovers of all ages carved their initials on its trunk, illegally, I must say. In case you do not remember, that is an Albizia niopoides, which is the largest and most elegant of about 150 species of the Albizia trees; and it is related to the Rain Tree. This is how it looks in the dark, showcased for tonight's tour by strategically placed spot lights. I can just sit here all night to look at this. This view is Northwesterly, the moon, which was full on the 9th, is early waning and rises from the East at 9:24PM tonight. It will be shining above this tree just about dawn. That will be a beautiful sight to see, but I don't think I can stay up that long to wait for this moment. Can't win them all but I know I can catch that some day.

Not Dragon Tattoo

In Miami, you will run into many individuals with very intricate tattoos on their bodies. This is one example. I tried to figure out what the tattoos are saying but it's not that easy. If you can make it out, let me know. If you are interested in this kind of art, look here. There is a new movie adapted from the Swedish trilogy books by Stieg Larsson with a catchy name "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo." In the original Swedish film, you can catch a very brief glimpse at the famous dragon tattoo which is a huge dragon spreading on the entire back of the actress, Noomie Rapace. Now, that's a tattoo. The dragon you see in this photo comes from a poster for the new movie. I don't think that's good enough because this is puny and does not match the fiery personality of Lisbeth at all. I hope this baby dragon tattoo is not what is on the back of Rooney Mara, the actress in the American remake in 2011. This reminds me I have to watch this new movie for comparison with the original version.

Talking about the Dragon Tattoo begs the showing of them in the two versions of the same movie "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo," so here they are:

The Swedish version - 2009 - Noomie Rapace:

and the American version - 2011 - Rooney Mara:

Four Feet Under

Please do not freak out when you see another blog about cemetery. I am not so dark as to spend all my time lurking around these places... but I was doing some research, and the subject was "Six Feet Under." That was a quite popular television show running during the years 2001 - 2005 in the US about, you guessed it, a funeral home serving as the set for a dark comedy to deal with death. In French, it's "Six Pieds Sous Terre." So, why "Six Feet?"

It turns out that, at least in the US, burial laws are very complicated and vary from state to state. The legally required minimum burial depth is not uniform by any means, and it can be quite shallower than 6 feet. That term really is a myth. For instance, in New Orleans, if you dig down 6 feet, you'll be all wet because the swamps and marshlands were drained and turned into habitable land.

Here we are in Miami, and at this Caballero Rivero Woodlawn cemetery at SW 117th Avenue and 116th Street, you can see that it is clearly not 6, but only 4 feet which is the standard depth for a burial site here. The man preparing the site is about 6 feet tall and there is about 2 feet of him towering above ground level. One major concern is that there should not be any contamination to the surrounding areas, thus the strict laws that govern all burials anywhere in the state of Florida.

Did you ever wonder where that term came from? Ask me!

Miss Page

Here at the corner of Bird Road (SW 40th Street) and 67th Avenue, according to the poster displayed by this man, I think I can come looking for Miss Page to see if she can give me some advice... A palmist read my palms, both of them, Saturday and said to me things that did not sound too rosy. No wonder my water supply in the house broke! Miss Page, here I come!

Because the Sky is Blue

I do like Miami's zenith and look up there very often. Today, there was a small corporate jet up there flying to who knows where... and the sky is so blue!



Click on the player above to hear another song by the Beatles... This is really my favorite... Because...

Mega Lighting

Every time I drive by this Pego Lamps store which is on South US-1, especially at night like right now, I would like to see the store's monthly electric bill, but would not want to be the person to pay it.

Cananga odorata

I have an Ylang-Ylang tree (Cananga odorata) and you can see it here. The tree you see in today's photo is a different and larger (and older) tree. This tree is remarkable because it seems to have flowers all the time. Every time I walk under it and look up, I can always find its yellow flowers, as opposed to the greenish color of the flowers from my tree. The scent of this tree is delightfully mysterious and hard to describe. One way to characterize this scent is what follows:

"The fragrance of Ylang-Ylang is rich and deep with traces of rubber and custard; bright with hints of jasmine and neroli. The essential oil of the flowers is obtained through steam distillation followed by separation into different grades according to when the distillates are obtained. The main aromatic components of Ylang-Ylang oil are benzyl acetate, linalool, p-cresyl methyl ether, and methyl benzoate, responsible for its characteristic odor."

Here It Comes

It's here, a new restaurant at what I call the Kamikaze restaurant location: The Mexzican Gourmet is now open. It's Mexican and it came from a truck root by Mexican born celebrity chef Ze Carlos Jimenez. Now you know where the "Z" came from. I have a huge prejudice and this is one food I do not like so I'll pass, but I'll keep track of how this is doing over time.

Ochna integerrima

Last year, you saw this tree in bloom at the right time to greet last year's Lunar calendar New Year of the Cat (or Rabbit if you follow the Chinese teaching.) This is how it looks today, beautiful with delicate yellow flowers everywhere. This is the famed Ochna integerrima that you see here and there on this blog, usually around the coming of a lunar new year. Following the Cat is the Dragon, my most favorite mythical sacred animal. The new Dragon year will begin this month on the 23rd which is a full 19 days from today. Did the owner of this tree make an error in his calculation? Is this tree too early? Will it run out of steam on the dates it is expected to bloom? We will find out on January 23rd.

It's Too Cold Here!

It's too cold and I can't think straight! I had no idea that a potent cold front was arriving and I am freezing here in Miami, of all places! Let's talk about some warm places, like Egypt so I can feel warmer. Here is what a potent cold front does to Miami: it creates more work than necessary. What you see is an area populated with doum palms, aka gingerbread tree (Hyphaene thebaica.) These palms are extremely sensitive to cold and the young ones need to be protected. They are covered with burlap sheets to withstand the "brutal" cold temperatures that may dip into the mid thirties tonight. It's always a hard decision to make when choosing which trees need to be covered. That's a lot of work, especially in the cold air like this.

Doum palm is a type of palm tree with edible oval fruit. It is native to the Nile valley in Egypt and Sudan, and at borders of rivers of northwestern Kenya. Its fibre and leaflets are used by people along the Nile to weave baskets. This palm is considered sacred by the ancient Egyptians and if you ever venture inside many pharaoh's tombs, you may find some of the seeds there because the fruits are traditionally offered at funerals. Would you believe they recently found baskets of 3,000 year old doum fruit in King Tutankhamun's tomb? That's true!

In Egypt, the fruit is sold by street vendors, and is popular among children... and I can use the Egyptian herb tea of doum dates right now because it's a cold night in Miami. The tea is also good for hypertension, not that I am saying I got that problem!

Here is a homework for you readers... These palms are not from Egypt, but they came from Burkina Faso. I knew you wouldn't know where that is on earth... and I will let you find out for yourselves. Hints: It's mighty hot there in Ouagadougou!

MG-A

Yearly, Miami has a Junior Orange Bowl parade in the main streets of Coral Gables. This year is its 63rd annual parade and this is the staging area of the Mahi Shriners procession that includes many original cars, one of which is the object of my desire, a beautifully restored cherry red MG-A. This car may be one of the 1959 vintage. The Mahi Shriners is a non-profit organization of volunteers for charity and they are always present at the Miami Junior Orange Bowl parade every year. They seem to be a very shy organization and there is not much information that is available to mine but their beautiful cars are always fun to watch in this parade.

My Favorite Thing

On the first day of each month, there is a theme that people try to abide to. It's "Photo of the Year" this time. My photos are not that good and I found none that would deserve that accolade... but I do have my most favorite which is this one. It's my favorite spot in Miami's Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden.