Sasha's Flower Garden

The avocado (Persea americana), aguacate or palta (Spanish, from Nahuatl and Quechua respectively), butter pear or alligator pear, is a tree native to the Caribbean, Mexico, South America and Central America, classified in the flowering plant family Lauraceae along with cinnamon, camphor and bay laurel. The name “avocado” also refers to the fruit (technically a large berry that contains a large seed) of the tree which may be egg-shaped or spherical. Avocados are a commercially valuable fruit and are cultivated in tropical climates throughout the world (and some temperate ones, such as California), producing a green-skinned, pear-shaped fruit that ripens after harvesting. Trees are partially self-pollinating and often are propagated through grafting to maintain a predictable quality and quantity of the fruit. Avocados are perennial. History P. americana, or the avocado, originated in the state of Puebla, Mexico. The native, und... read more

Albizia is a genus of about 150 species of mostly fast-growing subtropical and tropical trees and shrubs in the subfamily Mimosoideae of the legume family, Fabaceae. The genus is pantropical, occurring in Asia, Africa, Madagascar, Central, South, and southern North America and Australia, but mostly in the Old World tropics. Some species are considered weedy. They are commonly called silk trees or sirises. Peculiarly, the obsolete form of spelling the generic name – with double ‘z’ – has stuck, so that another commonly used term is albizzias (though the form albizias is also found, particularly in species that are not widely known under a common name). The generic name refers to the Italian nobleman Filippo degli Albizzi, who in the mid-18th century introduced siris to Europe. These are usually small trees or shrubs with a short lifespan – though the famous Samán del Guère near Maracay in Venezuela is a huge Albizia saman specimen and sev... read more

Opuntia engelmannii is a prickly pear common across the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. It goes by a variety of common names, including “cow’s tongue cactus”, “cow tongue prickly pear”, “desert prickly pear”, “discus prickly pear”, “Engelmann’s prickly pear”, and “Texas prickly pear” in the US, and “nopal”, “abrojo”, “joconostle”, and “vela de coyote” in Mexico. Its overall form is generally shrubby, with dense clumps up to 3.5 m high, usually with no apparent trunk. The pads are green (rarely blue-green), obovate to round, about 15-30 cm long and 12-20 cm wide. The glochids are yellow initially, then brown with age. Spines are extremely variable, with anywhere from 1-8 per areole, and often absent from lower areoles; they are yellow to white, slightly flattened, and 1-6 cm long. The flowers are yellow, occasionally ... read more