Hide-and-seek game

Dr Abe V Rotor 

Oscar, a four-year old aquarium pet at home. QC 

 

Everyday it is our casual game, 

with Oscar, my pet and friend;

until one day I saw the reeds

cold as iron bars, and I, a fiend.~

“The bougainvillea is the most extravagantly beautiful flowering plant in all of nature.” – Christopher Turner

 

“The bougainvillea is the most extravagantly beautiful 

flowering plant in all of nature.” – Christopher Turner

Dr Abe V Rotor

Bougainvillea spectabilis in bloom across the fence of San Vicente Botanical 

Garden,  San Vicente, Ilocos Sur.  Photos taken by the author, January 15, 2023 

Bougainvillea is a genus of thorny ornamental vines, bushes, and trees belonging to the four o' clock family, Nyctaginaceae. It is native to eastern South America, found from Brazil, west to Peru, and south to southern Argentina. Different authors accept from 4 to 22 species in the genus. The first species recorded in the Philippines was Bougainvillea spectabilis. The other species, B. glabra and B. peruviana were introduced much later. Grenada's national flower is the Bougainvillea.

Botanically speaking, the flowers of bougainvillea are not true flowers in the sense that they do not have petals and other floral parts typical of a true flower.  The colored petals are modified leaves, specialized to attract bees, butterflies - including humans - to pollinate and fertilize the tiny true flowers centrally located, which seldom develop seeds. Bougainvillea is mainly propagated by cuttings. 

By the way,  bougainvillea is named after a person. It was first discovered by the French botanist Philibert Commerson in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in the 1760s. The name Bougainvaillea was named after his friend sailor Louis de Bougainville. ~

Naturalism - the Eighth Sense Blog notes steady rise in Viewership

Dr Abe V Rotor

1. Viewership profile indicates a steady growth in the number of pageviews. Viewership reached the 2,500 monthly record in 2012, and continued to increase to the present level as shown in the graph below.    

(A pageview is each time a visitor views a page on your website, regardless of how many hits are generated. Pages are comprised of files. Every image in a page is a separate file. When a visitor looks at a page (a pageview), they may see numerous images, graphics, pictures etc. and generate multiple hits.)

Figure 2 - Historical trend of viewership June 2008 to Sept 19, 2014

2. For September 19, 2014 there are 230 pageviews; For the month of August 2014, there were 4,549 pageviews recorded, while the overall total is 76,353 (June 2008 to the present). As shown in the table and graph below.

Table 1 - Current update as of Sept 19, 2014. Figure 1 - Pageviews for the week covering Sept 13 to 20, 2014

3. Here are the top participating countries. Google provides data for the day, current week and month, which can be opened anytime. Overall, the US leads the top ten countries with 23,168 pageviews.  This is followed by The Philippines, the host country, with 18,393. 

The combined share of the US and the Philippines is 55 percent of the total pageviews of 76,353. Ukrtaine, Russia and India occupy the third, fourth and fifth place, respectively. 

France, Germany, UK, China and Turkey rank  comprise the second group (6th to 10th).   The difference in viewership among the members of the second group , from that in the first group is great. Thus, they are more vulnerable to change in ranking taken on daily, weekly, and even monthly basis.

Figure 3 - Top ten countries and their ranking in viewership. 

4. What topics or lessons (posts) are most viewed? Overall (2008 to present), two topics came out first: Guava, the Wonder Tree (a short story) with 1,294 pageviews. This is followed by a feature story about the endangered indigenous games and sports (Spinning top or trumpo), with 870 pageviews. 

Painting Manual (Pangarap Art Workshop Exercises) ranks thrid.  This is a workshop guide consisting of two dozen exercises in drawing and painting for children and adults alike. (523 pageviews)

Reviving the Nipa Hut culture (The Nipa Hut - a Living Memory) ranks fourth, while Books, the Greatest Treasure of Mankind is sixth, followed by Down memory lane we all go (growing old gracefully), and Lost in the Desert, a short story, seventh. The top ten countries vary from time to time and may be accessed from the Blog. 

Figure 3 - Top seven posts and their ranking in viewership. 

NOTE:  This blog is separate from the main Blog - Living with Nature School on Blog  [avrotor.blogspot.com] - also by the same author, although there are a number of similar articles carried by both. I invite our viewers to visit  the main Blog.  There are more than 3000 articles or posts with 820,000 viewers to date. Thank you. 

Anna's Paintings: Two Faces of Flowers

Dr Abe V Rotor

Orchids: 

white, delicate, immaculate, pure;

red, flaming, romantic, demure; 

Orchids: 

flowing, silky, translucent, queenly;  

fiery, ascendant, stout, kingly. 

Orchids:

endearing, fancy, coy, culpable;

ephemeral, magical, lovable.  

2 Paintings: GRASS and A LOVELY PAIR IN A BOWER

GRASS  

Dr Abe V Rotor

  

Painting in acrylic (18" x 21") 

Sway with the breeze,

     dance with the wind;

         Greet the sun with dewdrops

     clinging;

In summer turn golden, 

     and bow,

And die sweetly to feed 

     the world. 

A LOVELY PAIR IN A BOWER

 

 

                                                     Painting in acrylic (11.5" X 16") 

                                 Let the world go by in their bower, 

lovers blind to the busy world,

away from the maddening crowd; 

fleeting moment is forever, 

to this pair in their lair.

Wonder in our midst who we are,

blind to each other, but the world,

strange this crowd we are in;

where's this lovely pair, 

where's their bower?    

2 Paintings: Symbiosis and Sea Urchin

2 Paintings: Symbiosis and Sea Urchin

Dr Abe V Rotor

SYMBIOSIS

Pisces and Echinoderms 

Painting in acrylic (8" X 10") 

Distant in phylogeny, yet live they together

in one community we call ecology,

ever since the beginning of our living world,

millions of years ago before man was born

to rule, to reign supreme over all creation; 

wonder what Homo sapiens means 

to true peace and harmony 

beyond his rationality.  

SEA URCHIN

Painting in acrylic ( 11"  x  13.5") 

You're all made of spikes,

     I can't see the real you;

in your invincible armor

     in any view. 

Wonder how many of us

     live like the urchin

in silent, unknown ways

     and never seen.