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:: Living creatively ::

About me

This is the real secret of life — to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realise it is play. The only thing that is ultimately real about your journey is the step that you are taking at this moment. That’s all there ever is. I’m here to tell you that the path to peace is right there, when you want to get away. When you are present, you can allow the mind to be as it is without getting entangled in it. If you miss the present moment, you miss your appointment with life. That is very serious!
Showing posts with label rhus lancea. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rhus lancea. Show all posts

Friday, December 17, 2021

Rhus lancea leaves - Black Karee - Botanical illustration

W&N watercolour on Amedeo 200gsm mixed media paper
Leaves of a Black Karee tree in my garden (Tarlton, Gauteng, South Africa)

Indigenous to Southern Africa, this tree is a bit untidy with a weird growing habit of the branches backing up on one another and having most of its leaves right at the tip of the branches. It has a graceful, weeping form and dark, fissured bark that contrasts well with its long, thinnish, hairless, dark-green, tri-foliate leaves with smooth margins. The small, inconspicuous flowers are presented as much-branched sprays which are greenish-yellow in colour and are produced from June until September.

The fruit are small (up to 5mm in diameter), round, slightly flattened and covered with a thin fleshy layer which is glossy and yellowish to brown when ripe. The fruits are produced from September until January, and during that time, my garden is a total mess! And if it happens to rain a lot, I have hundreds of seedlings sprouting up throughout the garden. And yet I have never been able to remove one and grow it successfully …

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