COVER N.160 - LATVIA

Postmark: Pasta Centrs "SANKTA" 26.08.2022 LV - 1051
Posted on 16th August; received on the 2nd September 2022
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Another Baltic State joins the list, and it does it in absolute class and style, with this beautiful and very carefully composed cover sent from Latvia. Thank you so much Vera!

I love wild flowers! Even if I am no botanic, it gives me great pleasure to observe and photograph wildflowers for the sheer beauty of them. How many times do we pass by something as common and unassuming as, say, a dandelion flower and care not to look at it and discover that in reality it is not a flower but a huge bunch of them growing together in a  most perfect geometric form radiating from the centre, and that in its apparent fragility, they are strongly bound together creating the little yellow marvel in front of one's eyes?

Or the frailty of poppies which can withstand the constant push and pull of the wind, but if one tries to collect one chances are that in a matter of seconds all the petals will come lose..

And wild Gladiola .. the touch of colour they imprint on the yellowish cereal fields, with their beautiful rosy flowers and their bright green leaves.... the magic touch of spring, they are!  We have three  species here in Portugal, two of them very similar - Gladiolus italicus and Gladiolus illyricus - and  Gladiolus undulatus.

All this à propos the main star of the lovely cover  Vera sent me:

On 02JUL2021, Latvia Post (Latvijas Pasts) issued this very beautiful 1,27€ stamp  featuring a pretty detailed illustration of a Gladiolus imbricatus, a cousin of the species we have here that can be found in Central and East Europe, and also in the countries of  the Mediterranean Sea, Caucasus and Western Siberia.

Besides the image of the plant, the logo of the Latvian Fund for Nature (Latvijas Dabas Fonds) - a kingfisher - a non-governmental organisation founded in 199, dedicated to the preservation of biological diversity in Latvia, is included on the left bottom corner of the stamp.

The cover also includes two pairs of stamps from a definitive series themed on  flowers  started in 2014. The stamps included are the 2022 edition of the  0,01 € stamp,  featuring the common Daisy (Bellis perenis) and the 2017 edition of the 0,10€, featuring a Snowdrop (Galanthus nivalis).

Vera decorated the envelope with a very nice botanical illustration of the main flower on the cover, the Gladiolus imbricatus, or as she says, the Jumstiņu Gladiola.