Kew, Part Two,

a quick pose, 

as we passed the gorilla, and made our way,

under this archway,

resplendent with orchids and bromeliads,

as we turned the corner,

there were some more displays of orchids,

in subtle shades rather than the bright colours of the bromeliads,

under the next archway,

and we were in the realm of the Jaguar,

who was having a lazy day,

this is a new one to us, we have never seen quite this pattern and colour in a orchid before,

Diana was having a field day,

snapping away,

I think she took as many photographs as I did!

these were nice, 

I have to admit I do not know what they are called, but they did look stunning,

these so small I nearly passed them by,

not even one inch across each flower,

and these, 

even smaller,

if you can imagine such a thing,

back to some of the larger blooms,

I am guessing these are farmed as opposed to wild orchids,

but these I am not so sure about,

farmed,

or wild?

this one I think farmed,

in this house there were a number of areas, 

looking like jungle, 

with just occasional slashes of colour,

and speaking of splashes look out when the misters turn on!

in the distance,

a waterfall,

and some ground growing orchids,

I seem to remember this room and its waterfall from one of our previous trips here,

but I do not remember this one,

which I am pretty sure had been collected from the wild,

but what have we here, it looks like some knee joints, 

and looking up,

the top of a giraffe,

Diana was waiting for me,

looking back you can see how tall the giraffe was, could it be full size?

one,

or two more from Diana,

deep in thought,

then I spy Diana,

the orchids here were so nice,

so I just had to take this photograph,

we came across these strange circular displays,

they were all inspired by Cameroonian shields, 

apparently,

the original shields were all hand carved with a handle at the back of them,

and were in fact used in warfare,

but also,

a individual's status and wealth was reflected by the beauty of his shields,

as it happens you can buy the shields for wall decorations, this is just one of many stores selling them, 

as we were leaving, one,

or two more for the album,

outside the sun had burnt off the mist, 

it was a glorious day, 

although still a tad chilly,

in the spring Foxgrove Lodge at the entrance to the park is covered with wisteria, and this is a trained wisteria which is huge, it must be spectacular to see this in bloom,

we think these are magnolias about to flower,

I love this tree, it is a monkey puzzle tree, (Araucaria araucana),

monkey puzzle trees are usually 'dioecious' which means that the male and female cones grow on separate trees, the male cones are elongated or oval shaped, while the female cones are large and round, the brown ones here are last years,

the green ones this years,

we passed Kew Palace,

on our way to the restaurant,

the girls were hungry,

Steve had a coffee, I settled on a rose,

as we walked we came across a huge bed of crocus,

it was difficult to convey how many there are here,

saying there were lots of them just does not seem to cut it,

we started walking towards the Palm House,

and there it was,

so inside we went,

it was so hot and humid, this is what happened with the cameras lens, condensation, Diana is in the middle of this shot, it took an age to warm up,

even then the lens was still a bit misty,

a bit of a disappointment at this stairway,

years ago there was a great display of marine fish downstairs, it then became fresh water fish,

 and now there are none, the girls went upstirs, Steve and myself stayed on the ground floor,

where we looked at the plants,

and flowers growing there,

some of the flowers, 

looked strange indeed,

Steve and myself looked up,

just before the girls came down,

Ta-Dah! I am going to stop here, as I do not want to have too many photographs on one post, if you would like to see the rest of our day, please hit the 'Older Posts' button at the bottom right hand side of the page.