[lit-ideas] Re: Hereabouts ... and beyond
- From: david ritchie <profdritchie@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2018 11:08:41 -0800
On Nov 6, 2018, at 12:56 AM, epostboxx@xxxxxxxx wrote:
On 4. Nov 2018, at 20:39, david ritchie <profdritchie@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
. . . one of my garden joys, which a web photo calls “pink purple shrimp
plant.” Frankly, I don’t know what it is; it was given to me by a gardening
friend.
https://www.alamy.com/fruit-berries-and-flower-of-pink-purple-shrimp-plant-beloperone-guttata-image217616695.html
Perhaps you can enlighten us all? Audience participation.
The plant identified as Beloperone guttata in the link given above is now
assigned to the genus Justicia (a member of the Acanthaceae family); its
current scientific name is Justicia brandegeeana.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justicia_brandegeeana ;
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justicia_brandegeeana>
According to Wikipedia, common English names include 'Mexican shrimp plant',
'shrimp plant' and 'false hop'. (I will note here that the material found
under the rubric 'Justicia brandegeeana' exemplifies the reliability of
Wikipedia. This particular article contradicts itself - in two places the
size of the plant is given as 1 meter: "It grows to 1 m tall [rarely more]"
and "a bushy evergreen shrub growing to 100 cm [39 in] tall." Further down we
read, "if left alone [it] can grow over 24 inches tall." As with all
Wikipedia articles: Caveat lector!)
I didn’t frame the issue clearly enough. In the set of photos in the link I
found most were of a small plant with a weird orange/pink flower that looked
like a shrimp. But the plant I have is large and has the blue and red berries.
As I wrote to a Botanist friend who supplied information, "Of course what
you’ll say, as Botanists do, is that plants belong in categories because of
stuff other than visual similarity. But I would like to know how to say I’ve
got the particular one in the first picture and not these orange and yellow
things in the other pictures."
(I originally intended to continue this posting with descriptions of other
botanical books which I prize to the same degree as THE WOODBOOK. List
members are hereby warned that I am saving completion that digression for a
possible future posting.)
Why not? Surely one of the purposes of the list is to let us peer into the
reading worlds of others? We could have a thread titled, “Peculiar Literary
Tastes.” One can construe Ester Bloom to be arguing I believe, that all our
tastes are peculiar; which is why so little sells.
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/12/when-womens-literary-tastes-are-deemed-less-worthy/418050/
<
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/12/when-womens-literary-tastes-are-deemed-less-worthy/418050/>
Perhaps this is where I mention my latest article?
http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/22134603 ;
<
http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/22134603>
I don’t entirely understand the rules about sharing the piece itself. I think
that’s forbidden, so I’m erring on the conservative side and only sharing this
link.
David Ritchie,
Portland, Oregon
Other related posts:
