Flower Friday : : Grevillea

Sometimes it is really fun to plant a plant with no idea what the flowers will look like when it blooms. There are dozens of different grevilleas but we were certainly not disappointed by this one. 

Having written that, I had to look it up...there are about 360 species of this Protea, a petal-less flower native to Australia and New Zealand, among them banksia and what we call 'bottlebrush'. We may live in the wrong hemisphere, but grevilleas thrive on our steep, rocky hill and, since many things don't, we find ourselves planting more and more of them.

This is the full bloom from which yesterday's abstract was taken.

In other musings....I don't know why I didn't mention my birthday on Tuesday, since I have been getting birthday wishes from some strange and impersonal places. I went to the cash machine which wished me happy birthday as if the money it disgorged was a personal gift from Wells Fargo and not my own hard earned cash. I got not only balloons and well wishes from Face book but a small video made from the birthday wishes left on my time line. I got quite a nice card from our stockbroker. 

I was not aware that any of these places knew my birthdate, but of course we are required to give it all the time and do it without thinking. It's funny...the place where they will barely say good morning to you without knowing your date of birth is the dermatologist's office, but none of them noticed. Having literally taken their pound of flesh over the years I suppose they know me well enough that when I show up yet again, there is no need to double check my identity.

I don't expect people, especially total stranger or, worse yet, entities, to know my birthday, but of course they do....they know everything about me....