Nimphaeas

 Today I want to show you some photos from the botanical garden's conservatory. I especially liked the pool with lots of water lilies and lotuses. These are photos from my archive, reminding me of the wonderful time spent among the beautiful plants of the botanical garden.

 

A little history. In 1915, the New Botanical Garden on the outskirts of Munich opened to visitors. Over time, it has grown to 21 hectares. The garden has glass greenhouses and open areas among ponds and marshy water bodies. The diversity of flora and the distance from the noisy center attract wild birds, insects and amphibians to the garden that you will not see in other city parks.

 

Separate pavilions are reserved for aquatic plants. Thus, in one of them there is a pond for Victoria amazonica - the largest water lily in the world. In another pavilion, a mangrove forest has been recreated with a pond in which carp and other fish swim. From December to March, butterflies are released into the tropical greenhouse, which flutter very close, at arm's length.

Look at the water lilies (nymphaea) and lotuses in the pool. Their large round leaves can support a small weight. 

Have you ever been to the conservatory of the botanical garden?

Cameos

I want to show you cameos. When I could walk well (not like I walk now:(( I went to the museum to take pictures of cameos. They were, of course, behind glass, I hope this did not affect the quality of the photos. 

 

 

 

A cameo is a type of carved semi-precious stone with a convex relief image. Cameos were used as miniature jewelry in ancient times. Wealthy Greeks and Romans wore them exclusively for beauty, as especially valuable works of jewelry art. The most famous cameos come from the city of Alexandria in Egypt, created in the 3rd century BC. 

 

 

Ancient craftsmen skillfully used the multi-layered nature of semi-precious stones, using contrasts of color layers, from dark brown to bluish-gray and white, in several reliefs. By varying the thickness of the upper layer of the stone, through which the lower layer, usually of a darker color, shone through, a skilled craftsman achieved the effect of combining relief and light and shade in the image. 

 

 

 

 

These beautiful cameos are just decorations, but they introduce us to the faces of that distant era, to the life of people. I hope you liked one of the cameos. Perhaps some of you have cameos at home that are family memories or you have recently acquired them. Tell us!