REWIND back to the Florida Wildflower Symposium held at Bok Tower Gardens in 2014. I was experimenting with HDR photography back then and really liked the richness of color the technique offered. Still do. . . .

Here are more photos from the Florida Wildflower Foundation’s 2014 symposium at Bok Tower Gardens in Lake Wales, Florida, on 19 & 20 September. Two Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillae) butterflies show great interest in a Passionflower Vine, the Fritillary’s larval host plant. This particular Passionflower Vine is the Maypop (Passiflora incarnata) and you can learn more about it at Janice Broda’s ORCA blog.

Various photos of Bok Tower from different angles.



The tower is adorned with large ceramic tile murals, like this one showing Adam and Eve being tempted by the serpent.

A pond near the Tower contains several examples of large waterlilies, like this Cape Blue waterlily from Africa.

A close-up of the Cape Blue flower.

My favorites were these Victoria waterlilies (Victoria amazonica – though the version at the Garden is Victoria ‘Longwood Hybrid’) discovered in the backwaters of the Amazon River basin in 1801.

A close-up of the giant Victoria waterlilies. Amazingly, a mature leaf can support over 50 pounds if the weight is properly distributed.

The Pinewood Estate on the grounds of Bok Tower Gardens is a 20-room Mediterranean-style mansion built in the early 1930s for Charles Austin Buck, a Bethlehem Steel vice-president. The mansion is open to the public but it will have to wait for a future visit to the Gardens to see the inside. View Florida Wildflower Symposium 2014 – Part One