Vår i botanisk hage

Nå er det vår i botanisk hage i Oslo og alt blomstrer. Det er bare å komme seg ut! Jeg var med på omvisning i går kveld og hadde med meg makrolinsa.

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Tindved

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Magnolia

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Det er alltid så vanskelig å ta fine bilder av bregner, siden de nesten bare vokser på skyggefulle steder.

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En Trillium eller treblad som den heter. Men det er mange arter treblad.

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En annen type magnolia

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Mogop

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Slåpetorn

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Kubjelle

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Vårsøte

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Rhododendron

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Ballblom

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Jordbærmure (som er en mure, ikke et jordbær)

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En eller annen fin, blomstrende starr

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Blomstrende lønn

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Snømagnolia

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Lønneblomster

Før frokost

Jeg hadde sjekket værmeldingen og visste at det bare skulle være sol på formiddagen, så vi gikk ut på tur før de andre hadde stått opp for å nyte sola.

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Kledd i sitt beste turtøy og klar for solskinn.

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Hytta i all sin prakt

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Nabohytta

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Til skogen vi går

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Prøvesitter noens utsiktsbenk

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Vår!

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Vi fant en løveklippe

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Og gikk fra solflekk til solflekk

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Jeg fant fin lav som jeg viste til Erik

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En type blomsterlav. Jeg synes de er så fine og røde.

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Grunnet ikke-eksisterende rutevalg måtte vi forsere en skrent

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Og jeg fant en levermose langs elvebredden

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Det har tydelig kommet mye nedbør for det var et stort område som hadde vært under vann og mye veltede trær.

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Fordi vi jo var på ekspedisjon besluttet vi å forsere elva og så finne veien og gå tilbake til hytta for litt frokost.

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Gyeongju – the old capital

We did a pit stop between Seoul and Busan on our way South, to see some of the countryside and to look at some historic places. So we went to Gyeongju, which was the capital of Silla from 57 BC – 935 AD, to see where the treasures we had seen at the Korean History museum in Seoul were found.

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All the treasures were found in old burial mounds of kings, like these.

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We walked through the park of historic mounds.

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Had lunch at a Japanese restaurant. They do distinct Korean Japanese food.

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Neo-Korean, maybe?

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Umbrella as an fashion statement.

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Traditional teapots of clay.

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Love the details of the buildings.

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Especially the colours.

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And we found a beautiful tree (I’m actually looking at the ants on the tree trunk in this picture).

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Yes, that is my swimsuit 😉

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We found this amazing place.

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Where they grew squash.

 

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Also these prickly things.

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And just behind them we found flowers!

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They had this car that would drive the tourists around.

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Notice the dark skies behind her? We bought an umbrella from her just an hour later, I think, because we were drowning in the downpour.

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This is where they found the big crown and everything.

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And then, in the middle of a field, we found this picture board of a princess on a horse. Which of us is the prettiest one?

 

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Exotic animals – water edition

I haven’t been to many aquariums before and wasn’t sure what to expect of the actual animals in the aquarium in Korea. But I was very happy that they (too) were mostly interested in local animals, so we got to see a lot of fish and other animals that I have only heard about in university.
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Well, I have seen penguins before, but not this species.

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And I really liked these while whales. They were the stars of the aquarium.

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As I am a proper biology nerd, I also love these animals. It’s funny how everyone thinks they’re plants, just because they don’t move.

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Many animals had bright colours and big forheads 😉

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It worked surprisingly well to use the macro lens through the glass.

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These are piranja, pretty!

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Not this one though. I think.

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These pictures are from the big water tank. Lots of sharks and skates.

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Can you call that wash board in English as well? Fun to see the underside of it at least.

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Oooh, this is the mantis shrimp! Maybe the only thing that Erik and Ruben were as exited as me to see in real life, as it is super fast and super strong and very pretty.

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This strange creature is actually (probably) one of the really old animals on the planet. There are fossils of the same species. A quote from Wikipedia:

Horseshoe crabs resemble crustaceans, but belong to a separate subphylum, Chelicerata, and are closely related to arachnids, e.g.,spiders and scorpions. The earliest horseshoe crab fossils are found in strata from the late Ordovician period, roughly450 million years ago.

So this was probably the most interesting thing I saw…

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Had to take a picture of this fish with huge eyes in what looks like a face. Will it kiss you?

 

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I’m not sure if I will go to every aquarium I see, but I think I will try to go to some that are in entirely different habitats than the one I grew up in (or at the shore of).

This summer

In the middle of master thesises (is that really the plural?), moving, travelling and not having my own coputer, I have realized that I never actually posted pictures. I have therefore decided that I will have some regular updates with real (and good) photoes.

As I might have said this summer, I was, for the first time, the fastest of the four of us. That meant that I had time to stop and photograph on every hill top. So here is a selection of (mostlyl) close up nature.

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Rain and fungi, part 2

Even though we probably had the best weather Tromsø could give us, we started up grey like this. And it is definitely a lot more autumn there than down south.

This is Stina. She is my new friend from Uppsala.

Stina and Anders are both from Uppsala Univeristy. I hung out with them the whole week I was in Tromsø. Which means that we had breakfast, lunch and dinner together, in addition to being in lectures together the whole day, every day. It was good to have people around me. It gets a bit quiet at the museum sometimes.

Street art in Tromsø

And here, the third Swede, Elisabet. She is a PhD from Göteborg. This is Sunday, our only day off. We had walked to town to catch the bus to fjellheisen.

And here we are, the whole gang.

The view from the cable car itself. The weather wasn’t the best, but it wasn’t terrible either, so we were pleased.

The cable car was quite crowded, but we didn’t need to wait too long to get up there.

And here, the fungi. Elisabet works with fungi and the three of us learned a lot of fungi during the week. Here you can see her smelling it to find out which species it is.

 

Biologists enjoying the simple pleasures in life.

 

You have no idea how much entertainment there is in 300 meters of heath 😉

Tromsø city in the background.

This is a grass. And those long green things on the end of the grass, those are new shoots. They are clones of the mother plant and will drop off at the end of the season and start a new life. To be viviparous is quite common in plants (to make new shoots, without fertilization) and especially in alpine plants. If the summer is too short and cold, they usually end up doing like this, in stead of reproducing sexually.

🙂 I am very fond of lichens. I have to learn the names of them eventually. But I have a lichen book at home, to it might happen some day.

 

There is a lot of variation, you just have to stoop down low enough to see it.

This was the view from the breakfast room at the hotel and what you see is the mainland. Tromsø is on a small island, almost like Trondheim.

The sunset taken from the bus on our way home one night. Tromsø is truly beautiful with wonderful mountains and everywhere. I highly recommend it. And it is quite fascinating how they have alpine plants not only in a city, but all the way down to the beaches.

Rain and fungi, part 1

About a month ago, I was fortunate enough to get my boyfriend back from the USA. We went to his cabin for a few days to escape from the world. It rained the whole time, but I go a couple of nice photos anyway. And I also found some fungi (mushroom) that we had for breakfast.

 

 

 

 

 

I was very pleased when I found these 🙂

Mmmm, breakfast.