A field trip for my writing muse . . . the Tampa Botanical Gardens

Last week while entertaining company, we took a trip to the Tampa Botanical Gardens. The effort was to find some interesting outing to pass the time. What I found was an awakening experience for my muse, tempting her to create an array of incredible fantasy settings. My muse loves field trips, so I’ve learned to take my camera along.

In most cases I had no idea what the common or scientific names were for these species, which was a real frustration for the biology major in me, but lack of formal names didn't bother my muse. She just made up her own.

This unusual hanging growth grabbed her attention at the park’s terraced entrance. Its leaves were like a staghorn fern, but the base arranged in papery layers like that of a hornet nest. It may well have been a staghorn fern on steroids, as many plants appear to me from the perspective of a transplanted northerner.

Across the patio, a fountain held the aura of a fantasy setting. A giant pinecone apex set on a primitive-looking wheel, festooned with embossed blossoms.

Epiphytes (aerial plants) always whisper “fantasy” to my muse, this one on a grand scale, smothering the fork of the mighty live oak trunk.

Flowering lily pads set amid a bamboo forest = exotic fantasy. My muse saw fairies hiding underneath the flat leaves, waiting for us to pass.

A pregnant banana tree seemed no miracle to my muse. That so-large-it-frightens flower demanded sex, so reproduction should be a given.

These were a few of the fascinating plants and sites which woke the imagination of my muse to spin out a fabulous setting or so for my fantasy stories.