2025.8.24 (Sun) "Silver Birch Today's Words" & "Shinjuku Gyoen" & Walk with Xiaomi 15 Ultra♪
I will share a page I opened to randomly from "Silver Birch Today's Words".
Realize that you are never alone in the universe,
that there are always spirits around you who love you,
sometimes protecting you, sometimes guiding you, sometimes assisting you,
and sometimes inspiring you.
And know that as your spirituality develops,
you draw closer to the greatest spirit in the universe, namely God,
and become one with that heart.
On 8.22, after finishing my driver's license renewal at the Metropolitan Government Building, I walked to Shinjuku Gyoen to see the "Aeginetia indica" and "Barringtonia racemosa". I ended up walking a total of 13,000 steps that day. By night, I felt dehydrated and ended up consuming plenty of shaved ice and water (it was as if I couldn't get the heat out from inside my body, or my body was instinctively demanding hydration).
It's half price for those 65 and over, at 250 yen♡ That's nice^^
First, to the "Mother and Child Forest".
🌸 Differences in flowers
• Ophiopogon planiscapus: Produces small white to pale purple flowers in racemes from July to September. The flowers face downward, and the stems are characteristically flat.
• Liriope muscari: Produces small pink to purple flowers in spikes from July to October.The flowers face upward and bloom densely.
🍃 Differences in leaves
• Ophiopogon planiscapus: Wide, long, thick, and glossy. The tips of the leaves curve and droop.
• Liriope muscari: Somewhat narrower and linear, glossy, with many variegated varieties.The leaves tend to stand upright.
Whenever I come to Shinjuku Gyoen, I always come here. It's my personal power spot. There's almost no one here. I only passed one person this day as well.
This unique world is quite fairytale-like, isn't it? It's even more so when the Star of Bethlehem flowers are in bloom.
The "pneumatophores" of the bald cypress have a mysterious shape, as if bamboo shoots have sprouted up from the ground🌱. These are not just strange protrusions, but an amazing survival strategy adapted to wetlands.
🌿 What are pneumatophores?
• Definition: Roots that grow from underground up to the surface. In bald cypresses, they are also called "respiratory roots".
• Shape: Conical or columnar, sometimes reaching heights of several tens of centimeters to 1.5 meters.
• Distribution: They appear in clusters on the ground around the trunk.
Because oxygen is scarce underground in wetlands, it is thought that pneumatophores take in oxygen from the air.
I headed to the greenhouse to see the Barringtonia racemosa, but it was closed. The park closes at 17:30, and it was just past 17:00, but the greenhouse closes at 17:00. Ah... what a shame. But when I checked on my way out, I got the feeling that maybe the Barringtonia racemosa wasn't even blooming anyway?? In the end, I didn't accomplish all my goals^^; But I'm glad I got to see the aerial roots of the bald cypress^^
It was a day of walking around for the first time in a while♪