Year in Nature Photography – Day 5

So I haven’t quite figured out what to do when traveling, but I did snap this picture yesterday with my cellphone, even if the post is today. Yesterday I happened to volunteer for the Delaware Center for Horticulture at their booth during the Delaware Home Show Exhibition. Next door was the University of Delaware Botanical Gardens booth and they had a flowering witch-hazel plant on display. Now you’ll notice I put sp?, while there is a native variety I am unsure whether this was the virginiana variety or not. Witch-hazel blooms in February and the bark is the source of the witch-hazel astringent you can find in drug stores. It seems that research into other medicinal applications of witch-hazel is bearing fruit with applications in anti-inflammatory and anti-viral medication. For more information on witch-hazel and the organizations I mentioned, check out the links following the picture

Witch-hazel (Hamamelis sp?) greenhouse grown

Information on Witch-hazel

http://www.stevenfoster.com/education/monograph/witchhazel.html

The Delaware Center for Horticulture

http://www.thedch.org/

University of Delaware Botanical Gardens

http://ag.udel.edu/udbg/