Day 45: fetidly macabre

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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.

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mystery papillon

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I heard from Ursula Foreman this week. She’s a member of the Tellico Village Garden Club in Loudon County and sent the above photo, wondering what kind of papillon was visiting her butterfly bush.

It’s a zebra swallowtail, for many the quintessential swallowtail, noted for its black and white stripes, rust-colored antennae, triangular wings and exceptionally long tails. It also indicates that somewhere nearby are pawpaw trees, its host plant where the females lay their eggs.

It is also the Tennessee State Butterfly. (The Tennessee State insect is the ladybug and the firefly. Apparently no one in the legislature could choose between the two. Admittedly it's a hard choice. I hear that Romalea guttata has been nominated to be the Tennessee State grasshopper. I'll keep you posted.)

Thanks, Ursula.

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pawpaw island

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"My visit was well timed, as it happened to be early fall, pawpaw season. I left to search for a patch I knew about on an island near downtown Sevierville.

"It was raining, at times hard and soaking, as I waded through a shallow section of the Little Pigeon River. Wandering around the tall grass on the soggy island, I wondered: Was I the first to search this place barefooted looking for food?

"I doubted it. During those long ago depression days, shoes were as hard to come by as groceries. And what about the Native Americans? The McMahan Indian Mound is located less than a mile from the secluded dollop of land."

Excerpt from my book "Natural Histories," published by UT Press.


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