Spring Bloom

The yearly spectacle of blooming Yerba Mansa along the Rio Grande is something I always look forward to  It came along right on schedule this year at the beginning of June following some nice Spring rains.

Last year a little patch of Yerba Mansa I planted in our yard bloomed at the same time as those in the riverside forest.  That planting is spreading and looks healthy, but this year there are no blooms, or even buds. I'm wondering now if the lack of blooms is related to the fact that the plant is genetically incapable of self pollination. Perhaps I just need to provide a companion that is not directly related to my planting

There is some doubt about the origin of the plant's common name.  Yerba Mansa literally translated means Tame Herb, but what that might refer to is not obvious. An alternate name, Dragon Tail, would seem to be derived from the conical structure which bears the tiny flowers.

Yerba Mansa was used for medicinal purposes by all the indigenous people in the plant's western habitats. It would be interesting to know what names it was known by among  those people.

Twin-Lens at the River

 I took my Yashica-Mat twin-lens reflex to the river to make a few more pictures of the Yerba Mansa in bloom.  There are still abundant flowers, but many are starting to turn red now as their seeds mature.

 

 

It was nice to get back to shooting with my Yashica-Mat, which has a very sharp lens and a bright viewing screen.

I have not made a lot of pictures with this TLR, but I am motivated to do more with it now since I have acquired  a No.2 close-up accessory lens, which allows focusing as close as 14 inches.

With the accessory lens the Yashica-Mat still does not have the focal range of the Mamiya C330, but the viewing lens requires no adjustment for parallax and there is no need to adjust exposure as is the case when the C330's bellows is extended.

Good for Anything That Ails You

 The Yerba Mansa has bloomed along the Rio Grande a little earlier than usual this year, perhaps because of the unusually warm weather and high water.

From a 2009 blog post:

I first encountered Yerba Mansa in a little bog between the road and the Rio Grande about twenty miles north of Las Cruces. The photo of the flower was made on June 9, 2002 using a little 1.3 megapixel OLYMPUS D360-L. A lot of water has flowed down the river since then.

So my initial knowledge of the plant coincided with the beginning of digital photography.  Since I made that first picture with the simple little Olympus D360 I have photographed the plant nearly every year since with many of my old film cameras.

Modern medicine has not found a useful remedy in the Yerba Mansa, but many Native American peoples used all parts of the plant to treat every imaginable ailment.  I'm thinking perhaps I'll try it this year in a tea.

A Backup Camera

  I saw a posting on ebay for a Minolta 135mm lens at a good price and the seller was in Albuquerque.  I messaged him that it would be nice to pick it up locally and avoid the shipping cost.  The seller agreed and even offered to bring the lens to my place.  He also brought along a couple Minolta SRT cameras, so I acquired the 201 along with the lens.

My justification for acquiring yet another camera was the fact that I see a small problem with the shutter on my Minolta X-700.  At 1/30 second the shutter stays open for about five seconds.  I haven't seen a problem yet at any other speed, but it seems probable that further malfunction is on the way.  The 201 has a mechanical shutter, along with manual aperture and shutter operation.

The Tele Rokkor 135 had a sticky aperture, but it did not take long to disassemble the lens and get it working properly.  An earlier example of this lens made some very nice images for me, but it has required multiple efforts to keep it going.  This new one has had a lot less use.

The picture of the flamingoes was made with the Tele Rokkor.

I stand developed the Kentmere 400 and was not happy with the results, so will go back to HC110-b or PMK Pyro the next time around with this film.

Yerba Mansa

 Summer along the middle Rio Grande is announced by the blooming of the Yerba Mansa.  This year the season started a little early, probably thanks to warm temperatures and some welcome rains.

The dense patches of fleshy green leaves blanket acres of the boggy cottonwood forest floor.  The plants do well in the deep shade, but the blossoms are thickest where a bit of direct sunlight reaches them during the day.

The seed forming flowers are actually the small petals clustered on the central cone structure.  The likely function of the showy white bracts is to attract sphinx moths and other night-roaming pollinators.  In addition to the production of copious amounts of seeds, the plants also spread with dense mats of runners near the soil surface.

While the towering cottonwoods are dominant, they share the space with many other shade-tolerant species including Mulberries, Russian Olive, and Wolf Berries.

These first pictures of the year were made with my Nikon F on TMAX 400 film.  I look forward to visiting the Yerba Mansa several more times as they mature during the summer with other cameras.  I am  also pleased to see that the small Yerba Mansa which I planted a couple years ago beside the house look like they might finally produce a few flowers.

(See: The Yerba Mansa Project)

Ignore this pic.  It is for another post elsewhere.

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More from the Signet

I spent a couple days walking around with my Kodak Signet 35.  The camera is small enough to jam in a coat pocket and the Ektar lens always performs well.

The old car enthusiasts are back on the Plaza Vieja on the weekends.  This was the first time I've seen this well-restored Buick; I think it is a 1950 Special Jetback.  The lines in sideview are very graceful, but that massive grill kind of ruins the look for me.

The '54 Chevy 4-door is a work in progress.

Fins and quad lights.

The Classic Experience

I get out with my Contaflex I several times a year.  The camera always produces some nice pictures for me, but it also provides a hands-on opportunity to experience the culmination of a half-century of small camera design and production by Zeiss Ikon.  High precision craftsmanship combined with the finest available materials permitted the implementation in 1953 of a single lens reflex camera with a uniquely compact form that would not be surpassed for another decade by Japanese camera makers..

The Contaflex I did not have the interchangeable lenses and light meters of later models, but Zeiss did offer a large selection of accessories for the camera including microscope and stereo adapters, and most importantly perhaps, the add-on telephoto lens known as the Teleskop 1.7x.  The telephoto and several of the other accessories were attached to the camera in front of the fixed 45mm lens with a slide-on bracket.

The bottom 4 elements are the fixed 45mm camera lens

The Teleskop 1.7x produced the equivalent focal length of about 75mm which could be focused as close as four feet and which was likely intended primarily as a portrait lens.  As shown in the lens diagram the Teleskop 1.7x was a massive six-element design which could only be expected from Zeiss.  I think I have only once used the telephoto on my camera, and I would be hard put to find the photos now.  I'll try to remember next time I get out with the Contaflex to make a few shots that show the capabilities of the lens.

The Contaflex I can frequently be found offered on ebay in the $25 to $45 range, which seems extraordinary for such a finely made instrument.  The reason for that is that any Contaflex which has not been recently serviced is not likely to be ready to make pictures.  Nearly all of them will require cleaning of the shutter and the aperture stop-down mechanism.  This basic servicing of the camera is not really very difficult, but it is a great help to have some idea of the camera's unique construction features, including the three tiny screws holding the front lens element in place which are hidden under the distance scale of the front-focusing lens.

Here are some recently made pictures from the Contaflex I made during a walk along the Rio Grande:

my new pony

This is the ebay seller's picture which sold me on a new Kodak Pony 828.  On the far right you can see that the little tab on the latch is intact.  He also said everything was working fine on the camera, and even posted some pictures made with it.

I was the only bidder and paid $5 for the camera and another $5 for shipping.  I cleaned the inside of the viewfinder, but nothing else was needed.

The pictures on the first roll of Fuji 400 included our yearly visit to see the Yerba Mansa blooming near the Rio Grande south of the National Hispanic Cultural Center.  The blossoms are especially tall and plentiful this year thanks to the river's high water.  We also found and enjoyed large amounts of mulberries and wolf berries.  The dog had a blast racing through the cottonwood forest.

Summer by the River

We enjoy walking the trails beside the Rio Grande throughout the year.  The real highlight though comes in mid-June with the blooming of the Yerba Mansa.

There is a very dense stand of Yerba Mansa close to the river about a mile south of the National Hispanic Cultural Center.  The densely packed plants extend about a quarter mile along the river-side trail in boggy ground.  The conical upper portion of the plant head develops many small seeds; it is very light and buoyant when dry and likely helps the plant to spread downstream when the river floods.

The Wolfberry likes the same environment as the Yerba Mansa and the sweet red berries reach maturity at the same time the Yerba Mansa flowers.  There are many varieties of wolfberry world-wide.  At least two varieties appear to be native to the Rio Grande Valley, Pale Wolfberry and Torrey's Wolfberry. I think the berries are delicious, but Margaret does not like them.  That may reflect a difference in responses to the alkaloids present in the plant.

ready for my close-up

I hiked along the river south of the Hispanic Cultural Center to a place I visit around this time each year to photograph a stand of yerba mansa.  It turned out that I was about a week early for the full show, and there were relatively few of the plants in bloom.  

No shortage of other subjects, however.

I haven't used my Pentax K1000 much since I found it in a local thrift shop, though it is in very good operational order.  The problem has been that I don't have any additional lenses beyond the standard 50mm f-2 lens that came on the camera.  I made some small progress toward fixing that issue recently when I found a 49mm +4 Hoya close-up lens at another thrift store.  I'd still like to find a good telephoto and wide-angle like the ones I have for the Spotmatic, but the additional flexibility provided by the close-up accessory lens will encourage me to get out more often with the K1000.