Mimosa Strigillosa at Lake Seminole Park

Hello flowerphiles,

It’s Thursday and it is also the first day of June, which means it’s the first day of hurricane season. This year is expected to be a lazy year for hurricanes, but If you have not yet, be sure to put together a hurricane plan, just in case.

Today's Photos are a bit of a throw back. We posted these as our cover photo but never really explained what they are. Today’s flower is the Mimosa Strigillosa. The Mimosa Strigillosa is a member of the Mimosaceae family of plants which is a part of the order of plants known as Fabales. It’s not typical for me to bring up The Order that plant belongs to, but in this case I wanted to mention it because Fabales includes the family Fabaceae. What is Fabaceae you might ask? Have you ever heard the ancient song that goes like this:

“Beans, beans, the musical fruit

The more you eat, the more you toot

The more you toot, the better you feel

So we have beans at every meal!”

That’s right this plant is related to beans, which happen to be a favourite food of mine. The reason I bring this up is because as a relative of legumes (beans) the Mimosa plant is capable of a chemical process known as nitrogen fixation. This is an extremely important natural process and without it we might not be able to exist as a species. Nitrogen fixation takes di-nitrogen from the atmosphere (n2) and turns it into an inorganic compound called Ammonia. The Ammonia is actually created by a symbiotic bacteria that lives in the roots of legumes from the genus Azotobacter. This form of nitrogen is available to living things and is used in our most basic building blocks and for cleaning windows. .

Mimosa has another wonderful property, it can be used as a replacement for grass. You may not know this because our infrastructure hides it well, but with climate change as an ongoing issue, Florida and many other regions are experiencing droughts and turf grass, though pretty, require a large amount of water to maintain. Enter Xeriscaping, the practice of installing lawns that require very little water. The Mimosa, aside from pretty flowers, produces ground cover of up to 300 square feet per plant and just a few plants con cover a whole lawn while requiring a fraction of the water that grass requires.

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Today's mission (number 2) should you choose to accept it, is to find a Mimosa Strigillosa near you, capture a photo and then post it as a comment below.

As always, the two original photos with the most likes at the end of the week will be featured here on Saturday and Sunday for everyone to enjoy.

Be sure to check out @localbeautytampabay on Instagram, from time to time we will post our B-roll pictures for your enjoyment.

www.instagram.com/localbeautytampabay/

Don't forget to take more water than you think you will need on your photo hike!

XoXo

Mimosa Strigillosa at Lake Seminole Park

Be sure to Check us out on facebook at localbeautytampabay for educational information about this image. Photo challenges and more.

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Done