Garrya elliptica
Flowers!
The January daily rainshowers mean raincoats every day. Carrot Soup came to work with me and she (not I) discovered a new plant in the museum garden!
Curiosity
Garrya elliptica is a very early blooming plant native to California and southern Oregon. Carrot Soup loves them for their evergreen leaves, and odd catkins!!
Missing Wings
Quimper Hittys 
What unique catkins! I can see them attaching themselves to the bottom of Carrot Soup’s feet, start wiggling and wriggling and propel Carrot Soup up higher..when you have catkins, and such “muscular” ones, imagine the work that they could do.
I never thought of that kind of locomotion – but they do look sort of caterpillar-y to me…that might be fun to inch up the tree with catkins on your feet!
What an interesting plant – thank you to Carrot Soup for telling us about it. She looks wonderful in her blue raincoat!
We’ve seen them before but were surprised to find them right outside the door of my workplace!
What a cheery raincoat and hat, and the catkins are delightful! Such fun!
That blue raincoat is quite the eye-catcher! We feel cheered up just looking at it, not to mention Carrot Soup’s cheeky face!
good for Carrot Soup for discovering such an interesting plant. I’ll have to stop by and have a look although it won’t be as much fun without her balancing in the branches.
We could meet for a cup of tea, and I almost always have some Hitty or other in my pocket! But if you want to see one close up, there are also two of these bushes on Crescent Avenue just west of Foul Bay Road…
What an intriguing plant/tree/?? Carrot Soup looks perfectly at home perched there. Also..>LOVE her raincoat and hat. That color is perfect on her.
The plants I have seen here in Victoria are sort of large bushes…that blue raincoat is a favourite – so cheering on grey days!
A very different kind of plant – almost looks unreal – Thanks Carrot Soup for a lesson in plants
We thought it was very interesting and a new view of the wonders of nature!