Waxing Lyrical on the Wax Plant

Memento Mummy: The Memory Plant
 
 
 
Well, that's what the Hoya Carnosa means to me,. I only found out its name when a friend posted back an excerpt from a plant book in answer to my query on facebook last year. It always struck me as being the kind of flower a scientist might invent, or something a robot would have in a bouquet if robots got married. A little bit sci-fi, is what I'm saying. But, that's just the first phase before it realizes it can be something quite other & sheds that artificial plastic look for something more like a 1970s paper-&-bamboo lampshade. Evolution on a stalk. The plant in my kitchen, growing out of an artist's jug, came from a cutting my mum took from a Massive Waxplant just inside the lobby entrance to the eye department of King's College Hospital in London 7yrs ago. I'd grown up with her sudden calls to shove some cutting she'd just procured whenever we went on a walk together. Mortifying! There was always a small scene as I tried to prevent her from doing such things, refusing to co-operate and being pressed into doing just that. Even in the Royal Botanical Gardens in Cambridge which was in the same road I lived in for 5 years as a student. She was incorrigible.
 
Protection
 
The plant is still with me; my mum isn't; it's her last cutting, her last audacious act. It gives me comfort to see it: sweet reminder of those monthly visits to the hospital. Waiting for her appt. often took 5 hours; a shock the first time, but we soon grew to love and appreciate that time together. We'd never had a happy relationship, until the switch, when it appeared I became parent & she my beloved child. Incorrigible. A character. She was the consultant's favourite patient. I miss her. Both she and the plant - unusual, beautiful, a little exotic, yet hardy. I'd worried I should have repotted the cutting several times over, but no, it likes to be pot-bound (just as well!). Also known as: Porcelain Flower; Pentagram Flower (due to 5-points on its wax incarnation), and Hindu Rope Plant; native to Eastern Asia & Australia. It's grown for protection; to confer a net of safety around the home; I could do with believing that. A study at Georgia University showed it effectively removed pollutants in an interior environment. All Good.
 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Crickets vs Grasshoppers

Image
Clearing Things Up...     I knew I'd have to do some research to learn the difference between crickets & grasshoppers, my friend & I had no real idea what it was that was making the characteristic sound of...er...one of them. Turns out that chirping sound is known as stridulation - they both do it, but it's achieved in different ways. Grasshoppers rub their long back legs against the serrated edge of their wings; they're much longer - can grow up to 4 inches, but have short antennae. Crickets stridulate by rubbing their 'sort of' wings together, and their antennae are very long. The legs & wings of the grasshopper means they can jump and fly; crickets can only jump [www.softschools.com]. Grasshoppers are green - to blend in with their habitat; crickets are pale green or brown, or dark. Thing is, all that's academic if you can't actually see them. No worries! The fact that it was afternoon when w...
Read more

Spider to the Rescue!

Image
At Home With Spider: Protection   I was utterly charmed watching 'Charlotte's Web' this weekend, the film of the book by E.B. White (it can take me the longest time to catch up with the rest of the world & Wilbur the Pig). It reminded me of a workshop I ran years ago around making dreamcatchers, touching on myths & legends based on spiders and their web-making.   This rather large chappy hangs from the handle just inside my front door. I learned today that, 'if spider appears in your life' it's time to confront your fears rather than suppress or run from them. Good to know, as I was in hiding - whenever the relentless onslaught of Smart-phone trolls gets more than I can bear, I go into shock & into retreat, feeling defeated. Amazing to learn that a spider spinning a web across the cave mouth where Robert the Bruce was hiding after his defeat in battle, gave him the resolve to keep going; to persist; to try, try, try again, which...
Read more