Hi Cassava!

I posted the first photo to my Facebook wall. I asked my friends to guess the flower photo, as i am sure not many knows what a cassava flower looks like. I was smiling when i did so, and anticipating a whole lot of guesses. 

I am very familiar with cassava since i was young, both the plant and the roots. We make the roots to some sweet delicacies, and i love all of them. Some Asian countries also use the young shoots as vegetable, but we don't eat that yet. But its flower, i confess, i did not scrutinize till now. I am almost sure that not many scrutinize it too, except for the breeders of course. 

My joke in FB was not that successful though, a breeder friend immediately put the right answer. So the rest of the FB friends already got it from there. 

 From the above photo, will you recognize it at once as cassava flower? I actually love that color combinations, with the slightly darker stripes inside the margins. They look so dainty, don't you think so too?

 They have different maturities in a reproductive branch, as above has flower buds, open flowers, and young fruits also at different stages of maturity and sizes. Even the fruits are lovely too, reddish at the ridges.

Here, the two fruits are almost at the same sizes and ages.

And above is the branch of the cassava bearing the reproductive structures. They are borne near the tips of the stems or the young shoots. Even the leaf petioles are lovely in red. But this case of course depends on the variety, others have different colors.

I hope i imparted a little information to others in these few photos.

Macro Monday 2

Nature Notes