"Eaten by woodland elves..."

Yesterday's post, showing a couple of photos of fringe cup flowers, got two comments; each sent me off to look up more information. I discovered some interesting facts, worth passing on.

Sarah wrote, "Wow, those look a lot like miterwort (mitella diphylla)
http://tinyurl.com/cfecjug  http://tinyurl.com/cp5thyt
Same thing, do you think?"

They did look similar. Sarah's plant has the same 5 fringed petals, the same green cups, a similar hairy stem. But hers is a Mitella; mine's Tellima grandiflora. Why the different names for almost identical plants?

They are both in the Saxifrage family, like the London Pride; plants with basal leaves, and long, hairy flower stems. The Mitella genus is named after bishop's hats; "little mitre", from the Latin mitra with the diminutive suffix -ella.

Presumably the seed capsule was thought to resemble a bishop's mitre, though one reference suggests that it looks more like "a tattered French-Canadian toque." (From Plants of Coastal British Columbia)

Mitella diphylla, Sarah's flower, is an Eastern North American species. Tellima grandiflora is a West coast plant. And it once was classed with the Mitellas.

Native from Alaska to California, Tellima grandiflora is the only member of its genus Tellima --an anagram of Mitella. ... The species was first described as Mitella grandiflora in 1814. ... compared to other species of Mitella the flowers are large. (From Arthur Lee Jacobson)

Tellima grandiflora flowers turn pink as they age.

We have several native mitreworts on the BC coast; M. pentandra, M. nuda, M. breweri, etc. These look like fringecups, but most have greenish flowers; I had some like this in my yard when I lived in the Mission area.

And fringecup is edible! I didn't know this.

The Skagit pounded fringecup, boiled it and drank the tea for any kind of sickness, especially lack of appetite. ... Fringecup was said to be eaten by woodland elves to improve night vision. (Plants of Coastal BC)

(I sort of doubt that bit about woodland elves.)

The leaves taste boringly bland and are not poisonous, but herbivores may be discouraged from grazing by the copious hairs. ... The sweet-tasting blossoms are a pleasant trailside nibble. (ALJ)

Second comment; Margy says she has never seen these. I think she probably has, without knowing it; they're extremely common in damp sites all up and down our coast, possibly even on the shore of her home on the lake. But they are also completely inconspicuous, even in full bloom; just more greenery at ground level, with tiny, lighter specks above them in season. Only from close up would you notice them.

Fringecup, flowering, mixed with other greens and dead ferns on a cliff face.

If it ever stops raining*, I'll try nibbling some fringecup blossoms.

*It will. Sooner or later. I'm just fretting because our long weekend was spent inside, looking out at the rain.

Tuesday Poem - Approaching Acheron Passage From The Open Sea

This is no trick of the light. 

The headlands are being carried away 

stone by rock by stone. Neither wind 

nor rain nor day nor night can deter 

these gulls; watch them soar

and plummet, pick clean

the coastlines' bones. It’s work 

and it’s a game, their winged insistence

their raucous reclamation. 

Urgent the bedrock, patient 

the firmament. A line is waiting

to be drawn; we are only 
and always a story 
in the making. 

This is no trick of the light. 

The headlands are being carried away 

stone by rock by stone.  

CB

(detail from) Waters I Have Known - Oil on paper 2010

For more Tuesday Poems, please click on the quill.

                                This week's editor is  Emma McLeary with Kiss by Rachel Bush.

"Hope Well And Have Well: Or, Fair After Foul Weather"

Perhaps it is the news of the world.  Or perhaps it is simply this week's weather forecast: five days of rain.  Whatever the cause, I feel the need for a gleam of sunlight, for bright blue and gold.  Robert Herrick and Derek Mahon may do the trick.

       Hope Well and Have Well:
      Or, Fair After Foul Weather

What though the heaven be lowering now,
And look with a contracted brow?
We shall discover, by-and-by,
A repurgation of the sky;
And when those clouds away are driven,
Then will appear a cheerful heaven.

Robert Herrick, Hesperides (1648).

                    Claughton Pellew, "The Windmill, Sheringham" (1925)

     Everything Is Going To Be All Right

How should I not be glad to contemplate
the clouds clearing beyond the dormer window
and a high tide reflected on the ceiling?
There will be dying, there will be dying,
but there is no need to go into that.
The poems flow from the hand unbidden
and the hidden source is the watchful heart.
The sun rises in spite of everything
and the far cities are beautiful and bright.
I lie here in a riot of sunlight
watching the day break and the clouds flying.
Everything is going to be all right.

Derek Mahon, Poems 1962-1978 (Oxford University Press 1979).

                            Laura Knight (1877-1970), "Valley at Evening"

Poor (Wo)man's Asparagus 

available

above and here

please bear with me as i navigate how 

to be a merchant.

i hope you will like the book!

Green and white stalked cups

My fringe cup is blooming.

Loaded with flowers, but we have to get in close to see them.

5 petals to each cup, deeply fringed.

I hope they manage to reseed themselves more extensively this year.

book news

i'm in it,

 along with loads of wonderful book artists: 

aimee lee, malissa jay craig

to name two of my favorites! 

~~~

and

~~~

Poor (Wo)man's Asparagus

is available for sale

(once i sort out paypal)

printed ink jet,

(red or green or umber)

at home 

it's about how i learned milkweed

Asclepias syriaca

white pages, green mottled cover

and a sample of milkweed paper inside

~~~

The lure of plastic

A male Philodromus dispar spider moved into my spider house while it sat outside with the lid open, airing out. I closed it up and brought it in, but after a couple of days, the spider was unhappy with the arrangement. He kept running and running and running, never stopping, for hours. Looking for a mate, I guessed, and opened the top for him. He scampered up and out; I let him go.

On my desk, there's a plastic bottle of aerated water that I use to spray critters that need to be kept damp. When next I saw "Philo", he was climbing up the bottle. When he got to the top, he stopped abruptly, put his pedipalps down against the plastic, his rear in the air, not a customary pose for these active spiders. And then he just stayed put there, as though his pedipalps had been glued down. I shooed him along, and he moved an inch or two and repeated the pose, pedipalps to the plastic.

"Interesting stuff! Smells like ..."

He's a mature male, shown by the large "boxing glove" ends on his pedipalps*; he uses these to transport sperm to the female's genital pore. But why does he want to make contact with this particular plastic? Is there some chemical in the plastic that reminds him of a female's pheromones?

Now that I think of it, was it the smell of the plastic, just outside his house, that drove him frantic in the first place?

Questions, questions. I haven't found an answer.

After a bit, since he wouldn't leave the top of the bottle on his own, I shook him off by the outside door. In the morning, I found him on a vinyl chair in the kitchen.

*Alex Webb has an astounding photo of a male black widow's pedipalps; go take a look!

"Of Growing Old Lots Of Kindly Things Have Been Reported"

As a preface to the following poem, I would like to state that I am not complaining -- nor will I ever complain -- about "growing old."  I think that complaining about one's age displays an unseemly ingratitude towards life. Nonetheless, it is entirely possible that I will one day become a querulous curmudgeon.  (Of course, I may already be a querulous curmudgeon and simply not realize it.)

All of this being said, there are certain unavoidable consequences of "growing old."  (Bearing in mind that one might "grow old" at 30 as well as at 90 -- it is all in the mind, you know.)  I think that the following poem by D. J. Enright recognizes some of these realities, while only sounding a bit querulous (though in a humorous fashion).

                          Robert Kirkland Jamieson, "Early Spring" (c. 1930)

            Of Growing Old

They tell you of the horny carapace
Of age,
But not of thin skin growing thinner,
As if it's wearing out.

They say, when something happens
For the sixth or seventh time
It does not touch you.  Yet
You find that each time's still the first.

To know more isn't to forgive more,
But to fear more, knowing more to fear.
Memory it seems is entering its prime,
Its lusty manhood.  Or else

Virility of too-ripe cheese --
And there's another name for that,
One can mature excessively.
Give me cheese-tasters for psychiatrists!

Of growing old
Lots of kindly things have been reported.
Surprising that so few are true.
Is this a matter for complaint?  I don't know.

D. J. Enright, Sad Ires (1975).

                                 Robert Kirkland Jamieson, "The Pool"

Enright's lines "To know more isn't to forgive more,/But to fear more, knowing more to fear" are strikingly reminiscent of a line in one of my favorite poems by James Reeves (which I have posted here before).

                   To Not Love

One looked at life in the prince style, shunning pain.
Now one has seen too much not to fear more.
Apprehensive, it seems, for all one loves,
One asks only to not love, to not love.

James Reeves, Subsong (1969).

                   Robert Kirkland Jamieson, "Snow In My Garden" (1932)

marks made

this mark, 

asphalt crack was extended by something 

or someone

to create a lovely loop

which wouldn't photograph well

 and these weatherd shingles

seen backwards below

hold on to their red pigment

 a strange surface

marked by water and pressure

 little jude marks

 and green 

green!!!

coming on.

nesting close by is a crow family, 

they are silent coming and going from the nest, 

but i know not precisely but almost, 

where they are.

i expect lots of happy crow babies soon!

some people make marks

then they make tracks

high tailing away.

Beautiful and deadly

Ma Nature is always full of surprises. Take my humble London Pride; it has turned out to be a most efficient killer.

After I found the dead flies and aphid on the stems, I decided that I must investigate further. The next afternoon, I collected a few critters from the garden; a pill bug, a centipede, a millipede, an ant, a tiny plant bug. I put each one in a plastic container with a few stems and flowers of London Pride, and watched to see what would happen.

2 mm. bug, on broom stalk.

A sad sight; the centipede touched a stalk, and immediately started to writhe, then slid off to one side and lay trembling all afternoon and evening. The pill bug walked over one stem, and spent the rest of the afternoon grooming himself, cleaning the glue off his legs and antennae. So did the plant bug. But the millipede died in a couple of hours. A second one died the same way; a control in a container with no London Pride was fine. Only the ant was unaffected.

London Pride flower, with trapped aphid

I watched a couple of aphids on a stem; they were alive when I first saw them, but completely stuck to the red balls. They struggled to release one leg, only to have another touch down and be trapped; more attempts  left them attached by antennae, body, and legs.

This all brought up more questions; the aphids probably died due to being glued, and having their breathing spiracles clogged. But the millipedes? They hadn't seemed to struggle at all, and had left the stalk long before they died. Was the plant poisoning them?

I asked Google; an image search was most helpful. I found many plants with similar structures, many more than I would have expected. Of course there were the carnivorous sundews, with their beautiful, deadly traps, large enough to see without a lens. Compare these:

London Pride flower stalk.

... with these:

Sundew Drosera capensis. Image from Wikipedia. By Noah Elhardt.

Small prey, mainly consisting of insects, are attracted by the sweet secretions of the peduncular glands. Upon touching these, the prey become entrapped by sticky mucilage which prevents their progress or escape. Eventually, the prey either succumb to death through exhaustion or through asphyxiation as the mucilage envelops them and clogs their spiracles. Death usually occurs within one quarter of an hour. (Wikipedia)

I was surprised to find how many other plants are protected the same way. The list includes geraniums, squash, the mint family, rosemary, coleus, tobacco, some peppers, catnip, roses, potatoes, tomatoes, and more.

The glue sticks are called glandular trichomes, or hair-like appendages that produce enzymes or essential oils. Some of these oils are toxins, others attract insects (and cats), some are glues.

Glandular trichomes on potato and tomato leaves release phenols and phenol oxidizing enzymes which react to form a sticky substance which hardens to entrap small–bodied insects.  Aphids, for example, get coated with sticky phenols when they land on these plant surfaces.  In the struggle to escape, they disrupt a second type of trichome which releases polyphenol oxidases (PPO). The PPOs oxidize the phenols into quinone, entrapping the aphids like hardening of cement, resulting in its death.  (Plant Glandular Trichomes)

Oh, the pill bug, ant, centipede and plant bug? They recovered once they were away from the London Pride, and I released them and the control millipede, with my apologies for the trouble I had caused them.

Consumer testing London Pride glue sticks

I've been working on the London Pride question; each step opens up more alleys to get lost in. And more questions. Story tomorrow. I'm too tired to type, let alone make sense, tonight.

For now, here's one of my experimental subjects in a plastic cup:

Pill bug sharing space with London Pride

And now, goodnight!

Epitaph

Here is something to think about:  what will your epitaph be?  I am not proposing that we dwell upon this question in a morbid fashion.  However, a few moments of reflection on the matter may help to put things into perspective.

For instance, Robert Herrick was fond of composing epitaphs, both for himself and for others (sometimes while they were still alive).  Here is his epitaph for his beloved maid Prudence (who went by the name "Prue" and who out-lived Herrick by nearly four years):

     Upon Prue, His Maid

In this little urn is laid
Prudence Baldwin, once my maid,
From whose happy spark here let
Spring the purple violet.

Robert Herrick, Hesperides (1648).  One could do much worse than to be described as a "happy spark" in one's epitaph, don't you think?

                                                      John Brett
           "The British Channel Seen From The Dorsetshire Cliffs" (1871)

Herrick's proposed epitaph for himself is more sober.  He seems to have been a merry soul (much of the time).  But he saw things clearly and did not dissemble.

                    On Himself

Lost to the world; lost to myself; alone
Here now I rest under this marble stone:
In depth of silence, heard and seen of none.

Ibid.  An aside: "In depth of silence, heard and seen of none" brings to mind Christina Rossetti, who, as I have noted before, was wont to think of death as a restful, profound sleep.  Thus, for example: "One day it will be sweet/To shut our eyes . . ."

                                Harold Jones, "The Black Door" (c. 1935)

I would prefer something along the following lines.  (Although, mind you, I am not deluded enough to think that, at this point in my life, I deserve it or in any way qualify for it!)  The life described -- one of dignity and of simple (not simplistic) nobility -- is one to which we can all aspire.  And happy we should be if we come close to attaining it.

                 At His Father's Grave

Here lies a shoemaker whose knife and hammer
Fell idle at the height of summer,
Who was not missed so much as when the rain
Of winter brought him back to mind again.

He was no preacher but his working text
Was See all dry this winter and the next.
Stand still.  Remember his two hands, his laugh,
His craftsmanship.  They are his epitaph.

John Ormond, Requiem and Celebration (1969).

                                 Richard Eurich, "Eddistone Light" (1974)

potential

spring is all about

potential:

safflower

viola

bloodroot

trillium

are waiting for me

are waiting for me 

are waiting for me

but they won't wait forever.

and imagination

procreation

recreation

creation

happy!

there's indigo and safflower seedlings coming on

oh, and black holyhocks.

Armed with pink fuzz

When I started my shade garden, years ago, where a previous tenant here had told me nothing would ever grow, one of the first plants I set in was London Pride. London Pride will grow anywhere; in waste urban lots, underfoot, in shade or sun, in dry ground, acid soil, on rocks, under snow, on weed-proof landscape fabric, even on concrete. They are impervious to slugs; deer and rabbits won't eat them; they resist weeds, even our indefatigable buttercups; they stay bright green all winter, and flower prettily in spring. What more could I ask?

London Pride is a typical saxifrage: Saxifraga × urbium, a hybrid of (S. spathularis and S. umbrosa). It's a rosette of attractive, serrated, leathery leaves that sends up a leggy stalk with tiny white and pink flowers. It spreads rapidly, putting out new plants on short runners, making a dense green mat under a canopy of bright stars.

May display

Tiny (1.2 cm at their widest point), five-petalled flowers

It's possibly too easy-going for its own good; it is not a plant you find featured in your local nursery; too common, boring. Hard-working, dependable, sturdy, and boring. Until you get down to its level and really look at it.

Another name for it is "Whimsey". Whimsical colour combination here: green, white, yellow, pink, orange, brown, and "rosa Mexicana".

The flower has two stages; here, a new flower has white stamens with orange  tips. The central column, the pistil, is arranged like a pair of pliers with a deep pink pad on the business end.

Older flower; the stamens have dropped their orange tips, and the "pliers" have spread out into pale, curled lips, so it now looks like a white dolphin puckered up for a kiss.

But what have we here? Look again at the casing of the buds.

My grandson called my attention to these; he was examining a flower under his low-power microscope and discovered the fuzzy stems.

Pink hairs?

Look again!

Zooming as far in as I could coax the camera. Tiny stalks, each topped with a pink or red ball of jelly.

Laurie was intrigued, and was asking, "What are these things for?" Wrong question; variations appear without rhyme or reason, and then turn out to be useful. (Or not. Or we can't discover the function; we can't therefore assume that it has none.) So, "What does it do for the plant?" would be a valid question.

Well? What can we learn about these? The stems feel slightly fuzzy; on tender skin, like my lips, raspy and a bit sticky. The catch on my hair, and pull it. The individual stalks, for all they are so fine and transparent, are strong; when I squeeze them between my thumb and fingers, they pop right back up.

I can see them irritating the tender underbellies of snails and slugs. This may be why I sometimes find a slug on a leaf, but never on a stalk or flower.

And this: examining one single stalk, I found an aphid, and three tiny flies, all thoroughly stuck on, and all dead.

The fly is just over 1 mm. long.

The flowers attract little wasps and the occasional bee, looking for nectar and collecting pollen, but it seems that the rest of the plant is off limits. Come to think of it, I've never seen an ant on one, either.

In this context, a quote from Wikipedia, about another saxifrage, is intriguing:

Round-leaved Saxifrage (S. rotundifolia), whose sticky leaves seem to catch small invertebrates

I think a bit of experimentation is in order. Tomorrow, I'm going looking for bugs to test on London Pride stalks.

Do bees do yoga?

This bee* was foraging in my blue bacopas. He found one flower particularly tasty, and burrowed deep inside, turning his legs backwards to hold on to the outside of the petals.

Quite a stretch.

*Or bee mimic. It's hard to tell; are those 4 wings (bee), or only 2 (fly)?

"Begin Afresh, Afresh, Afresh"

Because I am a creature of habit, I return to certain poems at the same time each year.  For instance, I read the following poem by Philip Larkin each May because, um, it takes place in May.  Plus, it is a very fine poem.  Plus, reading any poem by Philip Larkin will put a smile on your face and will make you feel that all is right with the world.  Well, almost any poem.  But don't ever let anyone tell you that he is a "gloomy" poet.  Nonsense.

                 The Trees

The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again
And we grow old?  No, they die too.
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

Philip Larkin, High Windows (Faber and Faber 1974).

                                       Paul Nash, "Granary" (1922-1923)

As I have noted before, the last line of "The Trees" reminds me of "The Region November" by Wallace Stevens.  (A poem that I read each -- yes -- November.)  Stevens's poem closes with these lines:

Deeplier, deeplier, loudlier, loudlier,
The trees are swaying, swaying, swaying.

Wallace Stevens, "Late Poems," Collected Poetry and Prose (The Library of America 1997).

                                     John Nash, "The Thunderstorm"

Bandelier, New Mexico