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JULY 2007
This July in Crete has seen some of the hottest temperature
on record. On one sweltering day in Elounda the temperature
in the sun at lunchtime reached 53°C! As a result the
ground is baked hard and many of the late summer flowers are
failing to bloom. Up on the Katharo Plateau, vegetation is
in such short supply that the sheep and goats are going hungry,
and their diet is being supplemented with hay. On a recent
trip to Mount Lazarus, one of our party remarked that Katharo
had turned into a dust bowl. Many fires have raged around
Aghios Nikolaos and elsewhere, and I have included an image
taken from my roof terrace, which shows just how terrifying
these fires can be. We stayed up most of the night watching
the flames and hoping that the wind would not pick up. Fortunately
no lives were lost and no property destroyed, but the whole
hillside is now charred and blackened. We have to hope that
this freak weather is just a ‘blip’ and that autumn
will see the rains returning and the flowers blossoming again.
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| Campanula?
- this little withered flowers looked like a campanula,
but in its sorry state it is really difficult
to tell. |
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| Centaurea calcitrapa
- a very pretty, but very spiny, flower, which
we found growing on the Katharo Plateau. Although
the flower heads are relatively small they have
a lovely shading, in this case from cream to an
almost beige pink tip. |
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| Chicorium spinosum
- flowering all summer, the wonderful blue of
the wild chicory is always a welcome sight. The
leaves of this plant are eaten fresh in salad
or can be boiled. |
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| Cuscata atrans
- strange little parasitic plant, which I found
very difficult to photograph. It has very thin,
red stems, which wind around the host plant and
it produces small white flowers. This Cuscata
is endemic to Crete. Look for it in the mountains
under spiny shrubs and bushes. |
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| Petrorhagia
- this is possibly a Petrorhagia but which is
uncertain. |
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| Echinops spinossimus
- found at low altitudes all over the island,
the Spiny Globe Thistle always makes me feel that
the autumn rains won’t be long and that
it will soon be time to go out to photograph Sternbergia
once again. Its name is taken from the Greek and
refers, of course, to the spiky flower heads. |
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| Eryngium campestre
- related to the Sea Holly, this Eryngium is much
less showy. It can be found in fields and open
places all over the island. |
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| Fire over Elounda
- the fire broke out on the hillside overlooking
Olous and raged for hours, despite the efforts
of the fire brigade. At one time the whole mountain
side was ablaze. We watched from the roof top,
hoping that the wind would not spring up to fan
the flames. Although the mountain looks devastated,
often fire is a chance for regeneration and new
growth and hopefully in a few years time, the
hillside will be verdant once more. |
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| Orobanche pubescens
- this is most likely O. pubescens, one of the
most common on the Orobanche on Crete. |
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