{"id":1873,"date":"2023-04-07T11:58:38","date_gmt":"2023-04-07T11:58:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/?p=1873"},"modified":"2023-04-07T11:58:40","modified_gmt":"2023-04-07T11:58:40","slug":"week-14-spring-reflection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/week-14-spring-reflection\/","title":{"rendered":"Week 14: Spring Reflection"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

You may remember from your biology class that \u201cK<\/strong>ickass P<\/strong>etals C<\/strong>an O<\/strong>bfuscate F<\/strong>olks\u2019 G<\/strong>ardening S<\/strong>tratifications.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With that in mind, I\u2019m thinking about the taxonomy of some spring flowers. It starts out pretty simply, they are obviously Plants, so they go in that K<\/strong>ingdom. Their P<\/strong>hylum was once called Magnoliophyta, after the French botanist Magnol, but today we call them Angiosperms. Their C<\/strong>lass is based on the fact that they produce seeds, so they are in Liliopsida, together with Lillies. They all grow kinda like Asparagus do, with tall stems that shoot up out of the ground each spring, so they are in O<\/strong>rder Asparagales, along with other things like Onions. And they are in the same F<\/strong>amily as their cousin the Amaryllis \u2013 symbolic of Christianity\u2019s second-most-important holy day \u00ad\u2013 with three strap-shaped leaves down near the base of the plant, and a tall stem that presents the flowers, so they are in the Family Amaryllidaceae.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so we get: Plant > Angiosperm > Liliopsida > Asparagales > Amaryllidaceae<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But when we get down to G<\/strong>enus, we need to go deeper, and look further back, all the way to ancient Greece. Ovid tells us that there was once a young hunter named Narcissus, who was so handsome that a wood nymph named Echo tried to entice him by secretly following after him and repeating everything he said. When she finally got up the nerve to reveal herself, he rejected her, and she sadly hid herself away, reduced to nothing more than a repetitive sound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This rejection drew the attention of the goddess of revenge, Nemesis, who lured Narcissus to a clear pool. When he looked in and saw his reflection, he was so captivated by his own beauty that he was immobilized, and his self-passion eventually transformed him into a gold and white flower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so, if you visit a garden this weekend, you may see such a flower and say, \u201cMy what a beautiful Narcissus!\u201d You will be technically accurate, as all the flowers in question are in the Genus Narcissus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But they aren\u2019t very commonly called that. There are hundreds of S<\/strong>pecies of Narcissi, and whether they are white, yellow, or some combination thereof, and shot through with orange, pink or even lime green, almost everybody calls them all just\u2026Daffodils. Sometimes they are so striking get an extra adjective, such as \u2018Poets Daffodil,\u2019 or \u2018Rip van Winkle Daffodil.\u2019 And two are so unique they\u2019ve earned a special name of their own; \u2018Jonquils\u2019 have clusters of flowers instead of singles, and \u2018Paperwhites\u2019 have thin flowers like papyrus. But you can still call them all Daffodils, and all Daffodils are technically some kind of Narcissus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Now, there is some dissent about this nomenclature. Some botanists offer an alternative etymology, suggesting that \u2018Narcissus\u2019 is actually a reference to the Greek word, \u2018Narkao\u2019 which means \u201cI grow numb\u201d and from which we get \u2018Narcotic.\u2019 And the plants certainly do have a toxin strong enough keep the deer from eating them.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But for most folks, when you see a Daffodil and you hear, ‘Narcissus,’ you can\u2019t help but think about a hunky hunter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of which results in a seasonal irony playing out in your yard. To wit: the single-most important Christian holy day is a testament to self-sacrifice. And it\u2019s marked by an ancient myth and a profusion of color that screams self-involvement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You may remember from your biology class that \u201cKickass Petals Can Obfuscate Folks\u2019 Gardening Stratifications.\u201d With that in mind, I\u2019m thinking about the taxonomy of some spring flowers. It starts out pretty simply, they are obviously Plants, so they go in that Kingdom. Their Phylum was once called Magnoliophyta, after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1874,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/Narcissi.jpg?fit=561%2C626&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1873"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1873\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1875,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1873\/revisions\/1875"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}