Orchids 2013

Orchids 2013

The orchid’s name comes from the Greek word literally meaning "testicle", because of the shape of the root. The Greek myth of Orchis explains the origin of the plants:

Orchis, the son of a nymph and a satyr, had once come upon a festival of Dionysus (Bacchus) in the forest.  He boldly intruded and began carousing and drinking till he had far too much.  His good sense gone he became increasingly obnoxious and rowdy and attempted to rape a priestess of Dionysus. For his grave insult, the infuriated Bacchanalians bested him and tore him apart.  Grieve stricken Orchis’s father prayed and prayed for him to be restored, but the gods instead changed him into a flower.

Orchids are interesting flowers by far and somewhat difficult to nurture. A lot of painstaking care goes into fostering these rare flowers.   

Orchids have bilateral symmetry (zygomorphism), many resupinate flowers, a nearly always highly modified petal (labellum), fused stamens and carpels, and extremely small seeds.  A majority of orchids are perennial epiphytes, which grow anchored to trees or shrubs in the tropics and subtropics.

 Some orchids, such as Neottia and Corallorhiza, lack chlorophyll, so are unable to photosynthesize, ingeniously however they obtain energy and nutrients by parasitising soil fungi through the formation of orchid mycorrhizas. The fungi involved include those that form ectomycorrhizas with trees and other woody plants, parasites such as Armillaria, and saprotrophs. These orchids are known as myco-heterotrophs. They may continue to obtain carbon from their mycorrhizal fungi during germination and seedling growth, and even photosynthetic adult plants.

In Europe the Orchid flower in the “language and meaning of flowers” stands for luxury. To give someone an orchid means:  “I will make life sweet for you.”

In China, Orchids, or Lan Hua, are the emblem of love and beauty, and stands for fragrance and refinement, being also symbolic of numerous progeny.  Confucius remarked on its exquisite characteristics, and it is therefore emblematic of the perfect of superior man.

Orchid Pavilion Gathering

 (The Orchid Pavilion Gathering as depicted in an 18th-century Japanese painting)

The Orchid Pavilion Gathering (353 CE) was a cultural and poetic event during the Six Dynasties era, in China.  This event itself has a certain inherent and poetic interest in regards to the development of landscape poetry and the philosophical ideas of Zhuangzi.

The Orchid Pavilion Gathering of 42 literati included Xie An and Sun Chuo (320?-380?) and Wang Pin-Chih (fl. 400) at the Orchid Pavilion (Lanting) near Shaoxing, Zhejiang, during the Spring Purification Festival, on the third day of the third month, to compose poems and enjoy the wine. As depicted in this painting:  the gentlemen had engaged in a drinking contest- wine cups can be seen clearly floating down a small winding creek as the men sit along its banks.  Typically whenever a cup stopped, the man closest to the cup was required to empty it and write a poem. This activity was known as "floating goblets", or liu shang. In the end, twenty-six of the participants composed thirty-seven poems. 

Meandering_Stream_at_Lan-ting_Yamamoto_Jakurin_Hanging_scroll_color_on_silk

Picture of Wang Xizhi

The gathering at the Orchid Pavilion is also famous for the excellent quality of the calligraphy of Wang Xizhi (303-361) who was both one of the participants as well as the author and calligrapher of the Preface to the Poems Composed at the Orchid Pavilion.

Tao of Orchid

by Sungsook Hong Setton

The plum blossom, orchid, chrysanthemum, and bamboo are considered the four noble (or gentlemen) plants.  As one of the four noble plants, the orchid is often the subject of poems as well as of water-ink paintings. The concept of the “four noble plants” first appeared in the work of Gin Keyu (1558-1639) and specifically his record of four plants.

As difficult as it is to paint orchids, it is even more difficult to paint the orchid’s fragrance.

It is said that Confucius originally drew attention to this delicate plant, exclaiming: “With a fragrance fit for princes, why are you buried among the common weeds?”

 From olden times the appearance of the wild orchid, which grew deep in the mountains, was compared to the mind of a noble and cultivated scholar bureaucrat, who had transcended the greed and fame-seeking of the secular world. The orchid is known as a symbol of purity and noble virtue due to its fragrance. This symbolism goes back to the Ch’in dynasty of the 3rd century. Ch’u Yuan, a patriotic poet, regarded the orchid as a mirror of one’s moral life.

The rarity and uniqueness of the orchid is vividly expressed in these two poems which I have translated:

Even though the world is filled with confusion

When I gaze at one orchid

I can forget all my problems.

- Song Sunam

On the dark cliff hundreds of weeds are withering

And yet the orchid bounds with vigor

The noble person dwells in steep, isolated places

He is indeed different from normal people

- Chen Hsie n Chang (Ming dynasty)

The End

Enchanted Tulips

ENCHANTED TULIPS

“TULIPS white and tulips red,

Sweeter than a violet bed!

Say, old Mother Bailey, say

Why your tulips look so gay,

Why they smell so sweet, and why

They bloom on when others die?

“By the pixies’ magic power

Do my tulips always flower,

By the pixies’ magic spell

Do they give so sweet a smell!

Tulips, tulips, red and white,

Fill the pixies with delight!

“Pixy women, pixy men,

Seek my tulips from the glen;

Midnight come, they may be heard

Singing sweet as any bird,

Singing their wee babes to rest

In the tulips they love best!”

(Enchanted Tulips and Other Verses for Children.

Author: Keary, M. (Maud).

Publication Year: 1914

Source: London: Macmillan and Co., 1914. 112 p.

Genre: poetry

Subject: Children's poetry, English

Bookmark: http://purl.dlib.indiana.edu/iudl/vwwp/VAB7182)

A Tulip

 Tulips are spring-blooming perennials that grow from bulbs. Tulips are indigenous to mountainous areas in temperate climates and need a period of cool dormancy. They thrive in climates with long, cool springs and dry summers. Although perennials, tulip bulbs are often imported to warm-winter areas of the world from cold-winter areas, and are planted in the fall to be treated as annuals.

Depending on the species, tulip plants can grow as short as 4 inches (10 cm) or as high as 28 inches (71 cm). The tulip’s large flowers usually bloom on scapes or subscapose stems that lack bracts. Most tulips produce only one flower per stem, but a few species bear multiple flowers on their scapes. The showy, generally cup- or star-shaped tulip flower has three petals and three sepals, which are often, termed tepals because they are nearly identical. These six tepals are often marked near the bases with darker colorings. Tulip flowers come in a wide variety of colors, except pure blue (several tulips with “blue” in the name have a faint violet hue). Meaning: Avowal. “By this token I declare my passion.”

Origin of Tulips

Although tulips are often associated with the Netherlands, it was first cultivated in the Ottoman Empire.  The word tulip, which earlier appeared in English as tulipa or tulipant, entered the language through the French from Ottoman Turkish tülbend ("muslin" or "gauze") and previously it was derived from the Persian- delband ("Turban") because of a perceived resemblance of the shape of a tulip flower to that of a turban. 

During the Ottoman Empire, the tulip became very popular in Ottoman territories and was seen as a symbol of abundance and indulgence.  As a matter of fact, the era during which the Ottoman Empire was wealthiest is often called the Tulip era or “Lale Devri” in Turkish.

Now these Tulips or Lales as they are also called in Iran, Turkey, Macedonia, Serbia and Bulgaria comprise many species that together are indigenous to a vast area encompassing parts of Asia, Europe and North Africa.

In Persia, to give a red tulip was to declare your love. The black center of the red tulip was said to represent the lover's heart, burned to a coal by love's passion. To give a yellow tulip was to declare your love hopelessly and utterly.

Although it is unknown who first brought the tulip to Northwestern Europe, the most widely accepted belief however is that it was Oghier Ghislain de Busbecq, an ambassador for Ferdinand I of Germany to Suleyman the Magnificent of the Ottoman Empire. The year 1594 is considered the official date of the tulip's first flowering in the Netherlands.  

Needless to say from the first the Tulips’ popularity in Europe soared quickly.  Carolus Clusius is largely responsible for the spread of tulip bulbs in the final years of the sixteenth century. His first major work on tulips in 1592, he made note of the variations in colour that help make the tulip so admired and while occupying a chair as a faculty member in the school of medicine at the University of Leiden, he planted both a teaching garden and private plot of his own with tulip bulbs. In 1596 and 1598, Clusius suffered thefts from his garden, with over a hundred bulbs stolen in a single raid.

Then between the years of 1634 and 1637, the enthusiasm for the Tulips triggered a speculative frenzy now known as the “Tulip mania”.  By this time tulips had become so expensive that they were treated as a form of currency. 

Presently, tulips are associated with the Netherlands, and the cultivated forms of the tulip are often called "Dutch tulips." In addition to the tulip industry and tulip festivals, the Netherlands has the world's largest permanent display of tulips at Keukenhof, although the display is only open to the public seasonally.

The Tulip’s popularity spread far and wide; it is believed the first tulips in the United States were grown near Spring Pond at the Fay Estate in Lynn and Salem, Massachusetts.

Today, Tulip festivals are held throughout the world, including Spalding, England, in Holland and in Morges, Switzerland.  North America being no exception there are several Tulip festivals held every year in Michigan, in the Skagit Valley, Washington, Orange City and Pella, Iowa, and the Canadian Tulip Festival in Ottawa, Canada. Tulips are now also popular in Australia and several festivals are held in September and October, during the Southern Hemisphere's spring.

The End.

Structures 2013

Structures 2013

In a typical urban setting our senses are treated to a vast array of ordered geometric excellence. The space is defined by repetitious horizontal and vertical lines, interspersed with reflective glass, gleaming metal, curved concrete, sandstone and red- brown brick. All of this leaves us in awe. At the foot of these colossal monuments which greedily impale the sky are the clogged arteries of people and traffic, the cacophony that is unique to each metropolis.  Though this vast array of shapes sounds and empty spaces do not compare to pristine nature’s beauty, they have their own particular charm and magnetism.

Here’s a selection of pictures that demonstrate this:

The End