The poppy seeds I gathered and spread last year failed to germinate—so will try again, but there’s quite an untended eruption of flowers (Klatschmohn) along the neighbour’s fence line, most in the vivid, distinctive red with orange tint, coquelicot from the French name for the wild corn poppy popularised by the paintings of Claude Monet, but there was a singular one with a pale lavender colouring that I had never seen before.
The red symbolises remembrance, white peace and the deep purple cultivar is used to acknowledge the role of service animals in combat, but for this particular shade I can’t find other examples of. Have you seen poppies in this colour?
Sunday 14 June 2020
papaver rhลas
catagories: ๐ฑ
Saturday 23 May 2020
watermelon snow
While first puzzling naturalist contemporaries of Aristotle and fairly a common occurrence in Alpine and arctic coast regions during the summer, the phenomenon caused by a type of cryophilic (cold-loving) green algae—sometimes referred to by the above as the blooms can express in green, red and pink—is spreading due to global warming to Siberia and the Antarctic, raising the possibility of the rise of new and unpredictable ecosystems.
Wednesday 13 May 2020
erbario farmaceutico
Building on a history of reference, anecdote and experimentation already established for millennia at the time of publication of this fifteenth century volume from the Veneto, we appreciated the prompt to learning more behind this category of guidebook known as the herbal (Herbarius, Erbario).
Pairing images that aid in identification with others that represented supposed pharmacological merit—as well as toxic, tonic, culinary and magical properties, extensive accompanying texts and captions inform modern ideas (but certainly do not supplant them—a feature of such collections is that they advance and improve tempered by science and scholarship but are always good to peruse for perspective and perhaps insight) of taxonomy, chemistry and medicine. Much more from Public Domain Review at the link above.
Sunday 10 May 2020
leucanthemum x superbum
We’re enjoying quite an early superbloom of daisies of the bigger variety, Ox-Eye or Marguerite, in the back garden. Previously they’ve bloomed a bit later in the year, confined to hilly back patches of the yard we’ve kept wild but now they’ve taken over and we’re content to mow a path around the deck and the back door and leave the rest to nature.
Thursday 7 May 2020
corn dollies
At the crafty crossroads where creativity meets cult, Messy Nessy Chic presents a thoroughgoing history and how-to on cereal and straw art—referencing the ancient customs of the harvest (which continue into modern times) that saved the first (see also) and last sheaves of grain to fashion them into corn maidens or matrons that would winter with the family, exchanged as gifts during Yule to be ploughed into the furrows of the next season’s planting to ensure the continuity of abundance. Straw is worked, plaited, woven, spun according to centuries old tradition into some rather fantastic monuments, costumes and handicrafts—certainly worth admiring and wondering about their meaning and power, if not trying to create charms of our own.
catagories: ๐, ๐ฑ, ๐, ๐ฝ, myth and monsters
Tuesday 5 May 2020
over the hedge
Clad in eight kilometres of hardy, living hornbeam (Hainbuche Hecke) local architectural studio Ingenhoven has recently completed its landscaping of an office block in the heart of the city of Dรผsseldorf (previously), creating Europe’s largest green faรงade. Although as is the problem with most bold architecture is that it’s mostly lost on the occupants and can only be properly appreciated from afar, above, it is nonetheless the sort of innovative intervention that we need to see developed and while probably not half so sustainable, the neat hedgerows askance look like a vineyard and seem ideal for the city.
catagories: ๐ฉ๐ช, ๐ฑ, architecture
Sunday 3 May 2020
the infinite vulcan
Via Super Punch, we are reminded of another absolutely gem from the franchise in the form of the titular episode, the first out of any instalment and format to be written by a member of the cast, Walter Koenig, beginning a standing tradition in later series—also notably the only character written out of Star Trek: The Animated Series because the show could not afford to retain him as voice actor to reprise his role of Pavel Chekov. The crew explore a planet called Phylos for possible colonisation only to find it is already populated by an indigenousness race of sentient, non-sessile plants.
Wednesday 29 April 2020
daily constitutional
Even before availing myself to my midday walks through the woods where we live, it was a privilege to live in such proximity with Nature and wandered solitary for miles without encountering another soul, and now this peaceful, restorative ritual has really become an important one that’s never stinted or cut short as I’ve taken to exploring every fork in the path and have discovered quite a few hidden, anchoring landmarks in disused cabins, fishing holes and welcome vistas.
The birdsong is exuberant and watching the trees awaken, day by day, has been a priceless and cherished thing to experience and am deeply grateful for these long, extended hikes and the chance for a change of pace to reconnect.
Monday 27 April 2020
floralia
Instituted and enshrined (quite literally as there was a state-sponsored temple in which the party was held) during the late Republic and on advice of the Sibyl after a rather devastating drought, the festival dedicated to the goddess Flora commenced on this day with the celebration for the masses—a distinctly plebeian character as opposed to the austere obligations of most patrician holidays—lasting for six days marked by processions and competition, Ludi Florรฆ, The Games of Flora, her mystery cult, referred to as the Arval Brethren, a priesthood dedicated to the spiritual and superstitious maintenance of agriculture, opened up for a brief period to allow public veneration and revelry.
The time was marked with special theatrical performances, spectacles including circuses and acrobatics, pelting one other with lupins, floral costumes and dressing of wells, and ceremonial hunting of hares and goats, considered salacious creatures and portents of a fertile year. The ancient rites are reflected in customs associated with May Day (see previously here and here).
Thursday 16 April 2020
treehugger
From BBC’s Monitoring desk, we appreciated this rejuvenating, restorative suggestion from the senior ranger of Iceland’s largest forest, Hallormsstadur, in the eastern part of the island that one go, safely, out and embrace a tree, really savouring the connection and letting it support one and draw strength from it. Not all of us might have the woods at our doorsteps but I think all of us are lucky enough to have a tree at hand.
Saturday 4 April 2020
7x7
orgonon torpedoes: Wilhelm Reich (previously) used a battery of surface-to-air cannons beginning in April 1952 to defend the Earth from alien invasion
tuppence a bag: animal charity groups fearful that urban pigeons face starvation over lack of human traffic and are starting relief campaigns
part gum commercial level romance mixed with creepy horror elements with an insane musical score: a thoroughgoing review of the 1972 film Love Me Deadly starring Mary Wilcox and Lyle Waggoner
stay the f*ck home: a truly frightening heat map showing where Americans have been flouting lockdown (some other possible explanations here) and going about business as usual—via TYWKIWDBI
the master would not approve: Manos—The Hands of Felt, a puppet-version of the MST3K classic—via the Art of Darkness (lots of other goodies to see here as well)
may thou withstand the loathsome that yond the land fareth: the nine herb charms to cure infection
hyperlocal micromarkets: design interventions and new business models more conducive to social distancing and better for the environment
Thursday 19 March 2020
Sunday 15 March 2020
zoonosis or jumping the shark
Though we would be wrong to blame bats or any other wildlife for bringing illness where it is our behaviours that invite in and exacerbate the spread of new disease, it is worth considering how our chiroptera friends have evolved an immune system parallel and attendant to the corona viruses that have accompanied them for countless generations.
As flying mammals, a lot of their metabolic processes are given over to keeping them aloft and because of the stress, wear and tear that come with it, their immune system is more tolerant of infections and endures them rather than reacting in a violent, exclusionary manner. Humans, on the other hand, with little exposure to such pathogens—bats being themselves nearly as mobile and wide-ranging as people—have a hyper-vigilant approach to combating contagion which has normally served us well but can result in a life-threating condition called sepsis when the immune response is pushed into overdrive and harms the internal organs and tissues. There isn’t much that one can do to alter those sorts of responses but there are a host of pre-emptive measures that are even more effective—like maintaining one’s distance and proper hand-washing that’s not a duck-and-cover exercise as a little soap and elbow grease and discipline out of the consideration of the wellbeing of others, especially for the vulnerable among us does chemically wreck the virus and commute it towards something harmless, keeping healthy in general and getting vaccinations and immunizations as prescribed even if the glamourous cure we are waiting for does not seem so commiserate with the chore of prevention. The inflammatory reaction that follow the onset of infection can result in pneumonia and low blood flow and proves fatal—from all causes of septic shock, for about ten million worldwide per year. A number far greater, like the pathology of season influenza often cited, than the number of case of the corona virus likely to prove deadly but maybe that signals that it is time that we find all these numbers unacceptable and work towards societal and medical interventions to reduce its occurrence.
Saturday 14 March 2020
urban lagoon
The global architectural and civil engineering group MVRDV, evoking follies of artificial ruins with the remnants of pillars and pylons, has transformed the sub-basement foundations of parking garage of an abandoned mall in the centre of Tainan into an aquatic public square and park. This sort of intervention that restores some greenery and gathering to a municipality rather than replacing one commercially zoned space with another is quite refreshing and breaks up the frenetic monotony of the cityscape.
catagories: ๐น๐ผ, ๐, ๐ฑ, architecture
Saturday 8 February 2020
herbaceous
Having just had its second jumbo iteration of blooming after the bulb sprouted after Christmas, the Hippeastrum—a South American evergreen flower related to the African bulbs called Amaryllis. First described and classified by nineteenth century British botanist William Herbert, who also specialised in crocuses and tulips as well as the more useful bulbous plants like garlic and onions and has the standard authorial abbreviation Herb. in botanical context (another example of nominative determinism), its name means Knight’s Star lily (Rittersterne) in Latin and like our friend the poinsettia need to be cajoled and tricked into blooming during wintertime, but are robust enough to be transplanted (with some study and care) and return year after year.
Thursday 30 January 2020
6x6
solar max: amazing high-resolution imagery of the surface of the Sun
holyrood: the Edinburgh parliament will continue to fly the EU flag post-Brexit
(plus votes for a second referendum for independence)
birth tourism: a woman planning to visit US territory of Saipan forced to prove that she was not pregnant
commonly known as the pipewort family: the stunning paepalanthus flowering plants
part of the troop: robotic gorilla infiltrates a family in the wild
bmc: a large cache of art and artefacts, largely never before seen, from Black Mountain College (adjacently)—staffed by among others Anni and Joseph Albers after they fled Nazi Germany—is being put on-line
catagories: ๐บ๐ธ, ๐, ๐ฑ, ๐, ๐จ, ๐ด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ณ๓ ฃ๓ ด๓ ฟ, ๐ญ, ๐ง , libraries and museums
Tuesday 21 January 2020
a guide to wildflowers at speed
Saturday 18 January 2020
7x7
economies of ale: after a decade of steep declines, UK pub numbers are seeing a slight uptick charted
parkverbotszone: plans for the future IKEA am Westbahnhof in Vienna is being designed for a post-auto world
women hold up half the sky: Liang Jun, the tractor driving figure, iconically featured on the one yuan bill, has passed away, aged ninety
best in show: winners and honourable-mentions of the Ocean Art Photography competition
the id, the super-ego, and the psyche: the strange, singular encounter between Salvador Dalรญ and Sigmund Freud
triangle man, triangle man: celebrating thirty years of They Might Be Giants’ (a reference to Don Quixote’s tilting at windmills) seminal album Flood
there and back again: a remembrance of Christopher Tolkien (*1925 – †2020), executor of his father’s literary estate and map-maker of Middle Earth
Thursday 16 January 2020
wollemia nobilis
Via Super Punch, we learn about the clandestine, successful mission pulled off by botanists, park rangers, conservators and New South Wales’ brave firefighters to save the only known wild population of Wollemi pines.
The trees, which may be up to one hundred thousand years in age, number about two hundred individuals and prior to their discovery in 1994 (akin to finding a living dinosaur), were believed to be extinct and only known through the fossil record. The operation was kept secret so as to not disclose the grove’s location as caretakers fear that visitors could bring contamination that could harm the critically endangered species. Clones have been propagated worldwide and have distinct broad needles and knobbly bark.
Wednesday 15 January 2020
l’habitat et ร l’infrastructure
Via the always engrossing Maps Mania, we are invited to contemplate land use by the Swiss and take notice how for instance, geography and terrain considered, the dominant percentage for Switzerland is found in managed and untamed forests.