Well, this is the last batch of photos I have, and it’s very sad to run out. How far this Ozymandias has decayed!
But today we have lovely flower photos from Rik Gern of Austin, Texas. Rik’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.
The last two batches of pictures I sent you consisted mostly of images in which a brown earth tone color predominated, so I thought I’d change the pace with a softer and more delicate palette this time.
These pictures were taken in the first few months of the year while taking short walks around the neighborhood in South Austin.
The first pictures are of a blossoming tree, the Mexican Plum (Prunis mexicana). Taking pictures of a tree’s flowers is a different experience from photographing ground flowers, because it’s more immersive and you feel like you’re stepping into another world. I could live in this world forever!
Mexican Ruella (Ruellia simplex) not only has a beautiful flower, but is a sturdy plant that can survive both drought and flood conditions.
I’d always thought of the beauty below as a Wandering Jew (Tradescantia zebrina), but a search for the Latin name informed me that it is now to be referred to as the *Wandering Dude. The common assumption was that the name referred to Israelites wandering the desert and/or Jews displaced due to persecution, but there was also a 13th century myth of a Jewish man who heckled Jesus while he carried his cross on his way to crucifixion and was then condemned to wander the desert till the second coming. The name “Wandering Jew” is now considered bad because the story of Jesus’ alleged heckler was used to justify anti-Semitism. I had never even heard of the heckler story, so the name seemed benign to me and if anything seemed sympathetic, and the flower seemed like a reminder that even the displaced and wandering can produce beauty. Every Jewish person I’ve mention this to has been surprised and said that they never found the original name offensive. My question is, did the name change protect Jews, or did the Dude culturally appropriate the Jew? Or could the Dude be Jewish? I wonder if we need to consult the Cohen brothers? Whatever you call it, the flowers sure are pretty!
[JAC: I never found the name or the term offensive. In fact, in college I formed a group called “The Wandering Jews,” a group that accepted weird people but did nothing other than that.]
The last flowers are from another tree, the Texas mountain laurel (Dermatophyllum secundiflorum), a hardy plant that smells as good as it looks. Another world I could live in forever!:
Beautiful flowers, thanks!
“My question is, did the name change protect Jews, or did the Dude culturally appropriate the Jew?”
From the river to the sea, T. zebrina will be free.
Given the last name, the Dude is probably Jewish.
Very evocative. I could almost smell the scents!
Nice flower pictures!
Beautiful photographs! I didn’t know that Wandering Jew is now verboten. Oh well.
You mention being immersed in beauty under flowering trees. Many years ago, we lived in a house where the backyard was graced by a spectacular Mt. Fuji Cherry tree (Prunus serrulata ‘Mount Fuji’). The tree was wider than the house is long—in this case wider than 50 ft.—but was only about 15 feet tall, as is typical of the tree. It’s like a giant umbrella over your head. Once when the tree was in full bloom, with huge clusters of flowers hanging from every branch and with the area under the tree perfumed by the scent of the flowers, I invited a co-worker over to the house to see the tree. When I walked her under the tree and she looked up to behold the flowers against the diffused daylight, she grabbed my arm and told me that she needed to get out from under the tree, as the experience caused her nearly to faint.
That’s a powerful experience! That must have been a nice place to live.
When I was in Jr. High School we lived in Bethesda, MD, and there were cherry trees all along the winding roads. In the Spring time the walk to school was enchanting. School, not so much.
It was an ordinary house in an ordinary neighborhood with an extraordinary tree that an arborist estimated at over 100 years old. The tree way predated the house.
I had a wandering Jew plant for many years (it never flowered). I always assumed that the name derived from the medieval myth, combined with the plant’s habit of spreading around. I never found the name offensive, and I shall continue to call it the wandering Jew. Wandering dude is bowdlerizing at its worst.
Beautiful pics—thank you.
The Wandering Jew plant is pretty common in Israel, and is called “Wandering Jew” in Hebrew. I haven’t heard of anyone calling it by any other name, but I am not really aware of the latest politically correct nomenclature. I will say that I never heard of anyone being offended by the name.
Lovely flowers! I especially like the close-up venation in the Ruellia.
Lovely, thank you. Austin is a wonderful city I’d love to visit.
The issue of the “Wandering Jew” flower prompted me to look into the origins of a local fish popular among anglers here in the land of Oz – the Jewfish. One theory is that Jewfish is just a contraction of an older name “Jewel Fish”. Another is that because of its large fins and scales, it is considered kosher.
The Jew wanders, but the Dude abides.
Lovely pics, thanks!
Here in New Zealand there’s a close relative, Tradescantia fluminensis, also called wandering Jew, which is a seriously invasive weed, one of the few species that will grow under a dense forest canopy, where it crowds out all other groundcover species. So to refer to such a species in that way could indeed be regarded as antisemitic; here the preferred euphemism is wandering willie, though I generally prefer to just call it tradescantia. Fortunately the introduction of beetles from South America which feed only on it seem to be reducing its vigour.
The Wandering Jew legend has also been used to explain Jesus’ statement that “this generation will not pass away until all these things [i.e. the signs foretelling the Second Coming] have taken place.” Since the Second Coming has plainly not yet happened, there must still be someone from Jesus’ time who’s still out there. The alternative, that something Jesus allegedly said is wrong, is unthinkable.