Eucharis amazonica, Amazon Lily

E. amazonica is a bulbous perennial to 75cm, with narrowly elliptic leaves and erect stems bearing an umbel of fragrant white flowers, the stamens united at the base to form a cup.

It is a lovely house plant for foliage and stunning when in flower -- eight flower spikes above.
See http://apps.rhs.org.uk/plantselector/plant?plantid=2911 for the RHS description.

It will need to be divided soon (in Spring), when spare bulbs will be available.

Recylable plastics... from biomaterials.

Plastics from sugar cane!

Never before has my blog promoted a commercial company.
And I'm not doing so now just because my daughter is the presenter of this video on youtube. 

The message is powerful. 

Recyclable biobased plastics are being produced in The Netherlands, reducing our dependence on oil.

Check out the link below.

http://youtu.be/S_C4x-jjZBc

From one proud father.

Cuckmere Haven birds, 18th November 2012

These meanders of the former course of the Cuckmere river are rich in bird life.

You will need binoculars to see them.

Above, cormorants, heron, oystercatcher and a gull.

There is a redshank in there somewhere

On the river bank itself was a gull and a redshank.

The little bird to the left of the gull is a little grebe.  It spends a lot of time under the water.

It looked like close to a hundred black-backed gulls in this field.

There was a small flock of greenfinches on this island.

The Seven Sisters as viewed from Cuckmere Haven beach.

Right on the skyline was a stonechat.

To escape the crowds we returned to Exceat via open access land and the South Downs way path.

There were large flocks of Canada geese in the Cuckmere valley.

Another magical day out in Sussex by the sea.