•
OUR TOP STORY TONIGHT!
foul smelling flower
Quarantine Day 45: You are staying at home maintaining your social distancing. That's good. And we are exploring the woods, creeks, soggy bottoms and vacant lots to see where nature is happening.
Pawpaw is also in bloom. Its blossoms have an odd color, one reminiscent of meat past its prime. But in this case, the tree's fetid flowers (also known as carrion flowers) have an odor to match. They smell foul, something like rotting meat. This is because pawpaws and other plants with such smelly blooms employ the malodorous strategy to attract a certain kind of discriminating insect. They are pollinated by blowflies or other scavenging flies and beetles.
It rained heavily this afternoon. The day ended wet and misty. Pawpaws like to grow near murky water along creeks, we thought it might be appropriate to end with something from the Master of the Macabre himself:
“A sombre yet beautiful and peaceful gloom here pervaded all things ... the shade of the trees fell heavily upon the water, and seemed to bury itself therein, impregnating the depths of the element with darkness."*
Ob-la-da, ob-la-da.
* From "The Island of the Fay” by Edgar Allen Poe.
•
No comments:
Post a Comment