Growing near my home

Use this forum for identification of plants and flowers found in countries outside the UK. To allow us to help provide accurate identification we need clear pictures of the whole plant, where it is growing and close up pictures of flowers, buds or seed heads if any available. It would also be useful to see pictures showing the leaf attached to the stem.
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May
Posts: 8
Joined: 24 Feb 2018, 20:42

Growing near my home

Post by May » 24 Feb 2018, 20:51

Hello 👋 there .. These plants 🌱 growing beside my home 🏡 in Cairo. Are they good for my Egyptian tortoises?
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lin
Posts: 1031
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Re: Growing near my home

Post by lin » 24 Feb 2018, 21:28

Hi May.
The top one with the yellow flowers does look like one of the Coreopsis to me but wait and see if Nina can confirm. The other one is Nasturtium and that one is fine in moderation.
Hope thats ok.
http://www.thetortoisetable.org.uk/plan ... nt=258&c=5

Lin

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Nina
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Joined: 16 Mar 2017, 11:22

Re: Growing near my home

Post by Nina » 24 Feb 2018, 22:40

Hey May -- where have you been? It's been ages since we've heard from you! I still have an email from you from March, 2013 with photos of two eggs you were incubating, and also of you standing outside a hotel in Qatar, where you were giving a course for six weeks. Anyway, it's great to hear from you again (lol, and if you are a different May, who also lives in Egypts and keeps tortoises, but has never contacted us before, then many apologies for the mix-up!).

Yes, the second photo is definitely a Nasturtium, and I think Lin is probably right about your first photo being a Coreopsis. It's really difficult to ID plants with yellow, daisy-like flowers as there are so many different ones. Here is our entry for Coreopsis http://www.thetortoisetable.org.uk/plan ... pHnf-fLiM8 You will see that most of the plants there have leaves that are more narrow than the leaves on your plant, but there are varieties of Coreopsis with thin leaves and also with more round or oval leaves, and the petals on the flowers look right. So I can't say for sure, but I think it is Coreopsis, and even if it isn't my instinct tells me that it doesn't look like one of the plants I know as toxic. (You might want to take the cautious route though and not feed it in any quantity.

Cheers,
Nina

May
Posts: 8
Joined: 24 Feb 2018, 20:42

Re: Growing near my home

Post by May » 25 Feb 2018, 06:05

Hello Nina,
Youp .. its me the one you know 😁
Life was hectic in the last few years I’ve been working in UAE for couple of years then went to Saudi Arabia for a year.
Now I’m back to Egypt 🇪🇬 hope its final this time 🙏🏼 And i have plenty of time to spend with my sweet tortoises.
Last summer i got 3 new hatchlings 🐣 , and this winter my lady put 6 eggs 🥚, and i got a new adult female who was sick and in need for new home. I got her from one of our Facebook group members.
So my group is growing 🙈 thank god they are growing in number but not in size as Egyption tortoises remains small.
Thanks for your ID, and will keep in touch 😘
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The 3 musketeers
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Toha my tortoise and the sick gust who was treated with Bytrill and doing fine now
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The big brother 6 years and the new hatch 6 months
Last edited by May on 25 Feb 2018, 06:38, edited 1 time in total.

May
Posts: 8
Joined: 24 Feb 2018, 20:42

Re: Growing near my home

Post by May » 25 Feb 2018, 06:34

More pics
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Finally a nice picture for me before kids wake up ... great mum said
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Little Poucet
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Mum took my favorite hide place

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Nina
Posts: 1993
Joined: 16 Mar 2017, 11:22

Re: Growing near my home

Post by Nina » 25 Feb 2018, 11:47

Hi May,

So happy to be in touch again! It must be nice to be back at home again -- what happened to your tortoises when you worked in UAE and Saudi?

Thanks so much for the photos -- what gorgeous tortoises -- really lovely smooth shells, and the babies are so cute! You should post some photos of them in the species section of this forum -- I know people would love to see them. How good of you to rescue that adult female (she was lucky to have found a home with you). They must give you so much pleasure! I do envy you living in that climate (well, maybe not August -- I've been in Cairo in August and it was just about survivable for a weak person from Britain). It's absolutely freezing here in the UK this week -- down to -5C at night and barely above freezing in the daytime, and although I am due to wake Doris and Dolly up from their hibernation, I hesitate, as the ambient temperature in the room their enclosure is in so so cold that it's hard to get a hot spot in their table (I'm just off to buy a more powerful bulb).

Doris has been laying about five eggs a year, for about four years now (not fertile, as she has never been with a male), but the eggs are so big (between 21g. - 25g. each, and she only weighs about 630g, so I'm always amazed that she can lay them. I've attached a photo of her with her eggs from a previous year (I write the date on them -- she usually lays two, then two weeks later lays another egg, and then two weeks after that another two). But I'm a bit senimental about them, so after she lays them I just put the eggs in a box in the fridge and they sort of last forever and eventually the yolk, etc. just turns into a hard little ball inside (I must start throwing some away though, as the boxes are taking up too much room in my fridge).

I can't remember if my son and his family were still living in Cairo when we last spoke, but they lived in Nairobi for five years, then in Jordan for three years, and they are happily back in Nairobi now. When they last lived in Nairobi they had a lovely Leopard tortoise that was resident in their garden, and now they have found a Bell's Hingeback tortoise that wanders in and out of their new garden. They also have Vervet and Sykes monkeys in the garden, and they are very naughty and if you leave a door open they come in and steal fruit from the fruit bowl.

It's really good to be in touch again,

Nina

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MichaelCoela
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Growing near my home

Post by MichaelCoela » 23 Jun 2018, 23:46

Will have a read of that after work. Sounds interesting.

Got 4 different varieties growing at home.

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