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Once in a while, you might find yourself wondering just how your Great Uncle Etienne's dearest pen-pal Phyllis was as fond of desert plants as she was said to be, given that she lived her life in Sweden's northernmost reaches, where as I hear it not a lot of cactuses grow. How she got to be there in the cool north is in itself a mystery, what with the New York accent she retained her whole life long suggesting origins themselves not exactly local, nor in the cactus-belt, but that's neither here nor there I suppose. Mayhap there was a formative school trip to the botanical gardens at Kew, when she was only six, or well now could it have been a rare tome of finely detailed botanical paintings she acquired from the musty book shoppe down the lane when she was only 13 that did it? Anyway, isn't it about time you sent Uncle Etienne a note to say hello, featuring these fine plants and their jackrabbit friend, for surely it would evoke fond memories indeed of his dear Phyllis, and warm his kindly heart?
Other Things You Might Like to Know: The original artwork is watercolor and graphite | © 2017 Melinda Nettles | Designed and printed in Oregon, USA | Paper by Neenah and envelopes by Mohawk are minimum 30% Post-consumer recycled content and FSC® Certified |
The Back Story:
Pepita had taken it as her particular cause to promote the agaves in all their forms. Her boosterism began innocently enough, with an evening spent browsing for her supper along the margins of the Botanical Garden, in search of tender leaves of mesquite, with the hope of perhaps a desert pea or two for her dessert. And, well, there it was. Illuminated in the moonlight just beyond the edge of what was arguably one of the tastiest thickets of desert brush she had yet encountered: a hundred species of agaves glowing blue and green in the moonlight, neatly labeled and provided with explanatory signs, and all wound through with comfortable paths -- just the thing for a gentle lope after her evening meal. She could not resist. Thereafter, she returned night upon night, learning the names and habits of these grand plants, large and small. The deserti and the toumeyana and the schottii. The pelona and the murpheyi and the polianthiflora. Oh, such a bounty of rugged beauties! Until one day she found herself, despite her preference for twilight activity, out and about when the sun was high and the desert bright and squinty, for there was a conference afoot in which there were, no doubt, to be heated discussions related to the proper naming of agaves according to the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature, and Pepita was there to learn all that she could learn, and take her knowledge back to her ever-growing brood.* *Ever So Important Note: Lest you think that the rabbits and the ground squirrels, the basking lizards and the hopping birds, the buzzing bees and the flittering moths are simply going about their business as usual ‘round the edges of the event-tent, whilst you are sitting in its shade with your fellow botanists, conference badge pinned to your light cotton shirt, listening intently to the latest findings about the pollination of the agave americana, think again. And tonight, if the moon is out, go find the place where the jackrabbits gather in their multitudes, and sit real quiet along the edge, and listen in on the bunny discourse... You never know what you might learn... |