This week I’m starting with something that might not be super pretty, but which I think many pond enthusiasts will appreciate. Most of you have probably seen the enormous pads of the giant Amazonian lily pads (Victoria is the genus, in case you’re keeping track). You’ve seen them on the internet with children sitting on them, generally. Being the internet, there are also probably pictures with cats on them, and possibly photoshopped Christopher Walken or some such. Anyway, in case you were wondering (and I know you were), this is what the undersides of those mammoth lily pads look like!

Ok, after that, you diserve some gratuitous pretty. I have that in spades (or so my mommy tells me). Here’s a walkway that’s covered with what appears to be beautiful hanging flowers (are those Wisteria? Desperate Housewives fans weigh in!). I don’t know where this is, but I want it to be the walkway from my back yard to Narnia.

This astonishing beauty is the Piúva tree, native of Brazil. Yeah, it’s insanely pretty, and this shot with the reflection is just stunning. It made me a little annoyed, though. I have family in Brazil, and they haven’t taken me to a park full of these trees. What’s up with that?

OK, this is just insane. In the village of Nongriat, India, the monsoon season waters tended to take out their normal bridges and render them unsafe. So, about 500 years ago, the locals figured out how to use hollowed-out betel nut trunks to guide roots of rubber trees across the spans, where they would take hold in the soil. These roots grow and grow as the locals add stones and other woods to fill in gaps, eventually creating living bridges, some of which are more than 100 feet across and can hold 50 people.

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