Camellia

Last week I mentioned that I'd seen some blossoms lately despite this being mid-winter. Here's one I saw last week in the Japanese Garden in Gorge Park. I think the flower pictured here is a Camellia. It was bearing many of these lovely flowers on a bush about as tall as myself. Though it was a cold wet afternoon, seeing these flowers made it seem a lot warmer. Sunday was the shortest day of the year so we are now on what I think of as the downhill run towards spring with every day a little bit longer than the one before. The Japanese Garden in Gorge Park is an on-site restoration of Canada's first Japanese garden. We'll have a closer look at the garden later this week.

Camellia

When I finally turned away from taking yesterday's photos of the plum blossoms I was struck by this splendid Camellia tree and its stunning display of scarlet blooms.