Autumn in Oxford

Mid September, Oxford, England: most of the tourists have departed and the students have not yet arrived. The leaves are just starting to exchange their summer greens for warmer autumn colours and the air is just starting to feel that little bit cooler. On the river, this year's ducklings have long since grown and the cygnets are almost fully grown swans. In short, the city is pretty close to idyllic- certainly as good as it ever gets- and, above all, it is quintessentially English.
It is odd then, that some of Oxford's greatest sites at the moment are entirely foreign flowers growing in the city's ancient botanic gardens. Today's post is a photogallery of some of the weirder and/or more beautiful ones:-

Cygnets on the Thames (aka "Isis"), Oxford.

Spider web on one of the entrance gates to Oxford Botanic Gardens

Hypoestes sp. currently in flower in one of the botanic gardens' glasshouses

Flowers of Phytolacca americana , the "Pokeberry"- a weird and dramatic plant (the leaves are bright pink and green) with a weirder role in history: the American declaration of independence was signed in pokeberry juice.

Thunbergia mysorensis- a southern Indian plant with weird and beautiful hanging blooms that is currently flowering in the Botanic Gardens.

Haemanthus albiflos - a South African flowering plant blooms at the foot of a large Euphorbia Abyssinia.

Specimen of the Brazilian plant Schaureia flavicona flowering in the Botanic gardens.