The bottlebrush is a shrub with quite distinctive blooms and previously I had only seen them in Australia. Now I discover one right outside my front door here in Greece:
Although all species of Callistemon (i.e. Bottlebrush) are native to Australia, they must not be too hard to grow as they have cultivated them in Britain and they're also popular in India, in part because crushing the leaves gives a pretty fragrance. Yes, of course I tried it and the fragrance is not very strong but after really crushing them up and putting your face right into it you can definitely pick up a delicate scent from them. (Wiki: Callistemon)
And one more:
They're quite spectacular blooms and I'm hardly a botanist but I've never seen anything like them.
For a novel contrast, there's an olive tree next to it (in Greece, there's an olive tree next to just about anything!) and the blooms on it are tiny!
If I had known better about olives and olive oil earlier in my life, I bet my consumption of butter / margarine and the like would have been at most five percent of what it actually was. I did use olive oil for cooking but that was only for things I thought really deserved it. What I didn't know is that the extra virgin olive oil isn't for frying but rather for taste in salads, etc. When I used it, most often it was for stir fry and that was just wasting it.
Although all species of Callistemon (i.e. Bottlebrush) are native to Australia, they must not be too hard to grow as they have cultivated them in Britain and they're also popular in India, in part because crushing the leaves gives a pretty fragrance. Yes, of course I tried it and the fragrance is not very strong but after really crushing them up and putting your face right into it you can definitely pick up a delicate scent from them. (Wiki: Callistemon)
And one more:
They're quite spectacular blooms and I'm hardly a botanist but I've never seen anything like them.
For a novel contrast, there's an olive tree next to it (in Greece, there's an olive tree next to just about anything!) and the blooms on it are tiny!
If I had known better about olives and olive oil earlier in my life, I bet my consumption of butter / margarine and the like would have been at most five percent of what it actually was. I did use olive oil for cooking but that was only for things I thought really deserved it. What I didn't know is that the extra virgin olive oil isn't for frying but rather for taste in salads, etc. When I used it, most often it was for stir fry and that was just wasting it.
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