This week's "seldom seen" is from the prioress's office, so unless you have business with her or another reason to stop in, you probably wouldn't see this. She has a half dozen plants around her office but as I was passing this one last week I noticed what I would call four soft "spikes" had grown out from one of the plants. Each spike had little protrusions all down it--each about 1/2" long. Two of them had tiny green balls at the end of each of the antenna-like parts. But, the other two were what really caught my eye....at the end of each little growth was a bubble (at least they appeared as such in the sun). It was a stunning sight.
I called a friend who I knew had a super-duper camera and she obliged by taking dozens of photos over the next two days to try to capture those "bubbles" as we were seeing them. We determined that they were a kind of sap and 3-4 days later they had dried up!
My guess is that the plant is either a gold dust croton or a close relative. Here's a google images photo of a group of them, though ours is singular. And here is the perfect photo of the spring "sap." Enjoy!
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| The little sap bubbles. Photo by Jo Clarke. |
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