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Books Written and Illustrated by Peter Loewer
Educational Presentations with Peter Loewer
Growing Unusual Fruit
Prints by Peter Loewer
Vitreographs: Series 1
Vitreographs: Series 2
A Fungus, Among Us!
On the Green Road with Tosca and Forest
The Trip to Scotland
The Botanical Gardens
The Beauty of the Moss Garden
Ferns for the Graceful Garden
Smithsonian Archive of American Gardens
Plant & Seed Sources
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Last Summer Stepped Out from the Wings--
Still Hot and Twisted!
The Plague arrived with the force of an attack from Outer Space, the enemy being truly-tiny-sized rather than alien-
sized. It has been for those of us lucky enought to survive, a dreadful thing to know, either first, second, or even
third hand. It's also a fearsome charge against the eductated men and women of the world, especially here in America,
that we were forced to pick outselves up--often without much political help--from a crowded floor and watch the Republican
Party turn into hopeless mass of meaningless men. And, except for a few horrible women, our partners have not been too much
tainted with the Trump-brush of infamy--but so many mildly intelligent men have attached what is left of their human dignity
to the festering tail of a fake-blond, questionable male Bimbo. Then as the climate continues to warm, some folks burdened with
the parasite of Trumpism, continue to deny the worsening storms, the hearvier rains, the colder days and the hotter days, and
the creeping nights of weather gone wrong. Nothing to do later this afternoon, why not go online and read some of the world's
weather reports?
In almost three decades of visiting and living in Asheville, this last spring was the first time ever for Lenten roses
beginning to bloom in February and every perennial that nature planned for opening in summer reving up to eventually hit
the blooming big time with such abandon to horticultural principles you begin to wonder what's next?
For example, once just a short time ago, when heavy rain fell it usually averaged one inch per hour; now its two inches
and getting deeper! But take solice in the fact that our new Presdent has taken us back to meet the French, and in so-doing
the rest of the civilized world and waved goodby to Americans who still think that global warming is a hoax
invented by the Chinese.
About the Sincerity of Google on the World Stage
Last week when somebody told me about the worth of Google, my deeper memory bank suddenly opened its vault door and allowed me to recall
how Google attempted to start a massive file that would eventually contain all the books ever written thus making them available to all the
computer users in America, and ultimately the world.
Their original plan was to make a deal with the University of Michigan to provide their library and a place to install a fleet of scanners
and begin what I called at the time, Operation Scan Scam. Google's idea began to meet reality in the year 2002 when they would begin digitizing
about 25 million books, using books held by major university libraries including Harvard, Stanford, and Oxford universities, and the New York Public Library.
It was meant to be a Google-plan, something that a few wizard Geeks thought up while enjoying their Ivory Tower life atop of The Google Institution,
probably in luxury offices overlooking the great Golden Gate Bridge, as they turned the bridge into an icon for spreading knowledge and rescue Humankind
from falling into the pit of ignorance where it usually wound up in any reading of the future.
I didn't discover their fascinating attempt at stealing the worlds' knowledge and putting it all into a Google Wisdom Bank and in so doing ended any chance
of writers making a living from royalty sales.
Luckily, a friend of mine who knew I had written a new book about Henry Thoreau looked it up on line to check one of my reference books
and found the entire volume, Thoreau's Garden, including well-reproduced illustrations, with all the illustrations reproduced,
while the book was actually still available for sale in bookstores and from the publisher.
Amazingly, while I was wondering what to do, a message arrived from my New York agent, telling me about Google's plans and because I had fifteen books
in print and available in libraries and often, bookstores, it was necessary for me to write fifteen individual letters telling Google that I wrote each book
in the list, including the date of publication and the ISBN number as it appeared on the copyright page.
And so, I did. I wrote fifteen separate letters and mailed them to an address my agent had supplied and eventually the books vanished from sight.
Now, along with that operation, Google publicly made the following announcement: "All libraries would cease to exist within 15 years!" They would close their
doors because storing books in publicly-funded buildings would no longer be needed and the books of yesterday and today, not to mention tomorrow, would be waiting
for you, the faithful reader, on line.
But enter the Authors Guild (of which I am a member), other publishers, and many author's organizations who launched an epic battle that went on and on and on
for years. A settlement that would have created a Book Rights Registry and made it possible to access the Google Books through public-library terminals ultimately died,
rejected by a federal judge dismissing the case in 2011.
Unfortunately, 1n 2013, that same judge handed Google a victory that allowed it to keep on scanning, but while these hawkers of dreams scanned away, the libraries
of America began to achieve greatness again, and new buildings were built and new books were published and new books were read and today your local library is there
for you, and will continue to be there as the years go by.
Another victory for the book!
One of the Few Advantages of Global Warming
in Western North Carolina!
Today, As I write this it's the ending the third week of January, and out in the front yard Lenten roses are blooming--two to three weeks
early early--while back in the sheltered part of the garden, snowdrops and crocuses are opening flowers!
As gardener, I know that we'll pay for these early periods of early flowering. According to Wicke-
pedia: "The area's summers, in particular, though warm, are not as hot as summers in cities farther east in the state, as the July
daily average temperature is 73.8 and there is an average of only 9.4 days with 90--or above--annually.
Moreover, warm nights where the low remains at or above 70 are much less common than temperatures in the 90's.
New to our city? You will note the preponderance of hotels that are springing up like ugly mushrooms
wherever they get a chance to improve on the existing city layout. And, if you venture out-of-town you will note that the
hotel virus is sprouting to places nobody ever thought a hotel could succeed.
Amazingly, folks who have lived here for a decade or more, are not entirely sure why the tourism success has blossomed like
ragweed on a hot summer night, but I think I have an idea as to what will happen when the tourists stop coming to see what they
are coming to see--and are not happy about the money charged for what was once a $95.00 overnight, now going for $250.00. What will
happen? Suddenly, as the global temperatures warm, you'll find advertising geniuses will chang our city from the last place to live
with a reasonably comfortable lifestyle, to a place to get a condo where the days never top 90 degrees and the nights are still cool
enough for vanishing dew. Then with the incredible number of carpenters, floor-people, landscapers, etc., etc., looking
for work, those excess hotel rooms will suddenly change to rentable or buyable co-ops, and investors will once again rake in the moohlah!
I'm Amazed That So Many of My Books
Are Available from Amazon.com!
But Please--If You Can--Go to a Bookstore!
Over the years since writing and illustrating my first book--The Indoor Water Gardener's How-to Handbook, whatever the
problems that have crowded my life, I've continued to write books that dealt with great naturalists like Thoreau, great gardeners like Thomas Jefferson, and lots
of illustrated books concerned with gardening using annuals, biennials, fragrant flowers, perennials, and wildflowers. Now to my amazement,
I've found most of them linked to an Amazon site where you can order as needed. But, please, if you truly care about books and the state of the
book world today, go to a local bookstore for my books, and if they have to order your choice, please be patient.
And now I have a new book on the market, this time published by the great Boston firm of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and I'm pleased as punch that it joins
their lineup of well-done books devoted to the art of the garden, with special attention paid to finding some of the most fragrant flowers known
to humankind. And along the reading way the editor never forgot that I should continue reminding the reader that almost anyone can grow plants in containers--
always remembering that even a giant sequoia tree could do well in a pot, the problem is finding the pot large enough to be produced by a local potter. Potted
gardens grace homes in every region of the country, from the deserts of New Mexico to the forests of Maine, and just about everywhere inbetween.
This book is chock-full of some of the most luxurious photographs of plants in bloom and fabulous ways to install them in most imaginative containers so
even gardeners with a limited area to display their floral wares, will find a place to show them off--with a bang!
A Beautiful New Butterfly Visits the Garden
Around 3:00pm last Sunday (July 21) a new butterfly appeared in the garden and because of its size and wing design, at first
we thought the visitor was from the tropics, just another extreme event linked to climate change. But while the giant swallowtail
Heraclides cresphontes was once listed as living in the North American Subtropics, it seems to be traveling about.
Dr. Frank Lutz (the author of the Field Book of Insects, first published in 1918, and re-edited in 1948, and still one of
the best in existance) noted that back then it had been spotted in Southern Canada, quite surprising because the host plants are
usually thought to be citrus trees, but now include goldenrod, milkweed, and honeysuckle flowers, among others.
As Dr. Lutz wrote: "In the South it's called Orange-dog because its larva feeds on citrus leaves. The horns on the larva are fleshy
affairs that may be withdrawn or extruded through a slit in the thorax. Not only is the sudden appearing of these horns supposed to
frighten the larva's enemies but the horms exhale an odor which, in some species, is quite disagreeable--in other words, the young
of these beautiful creatures are insect skunks." My thanks to William Camp Vann for the use of his photo. Mr. Vann is the man behind www.edupic.net,
a great service for education.
A Paper Wasp Visits some Blooming English Ivy
I tend to take great care when sharing any neighborhood with even one wasp. Unlike bumblebees, or most busy honey bees, wasps of any
species have a tendency to live their lives with a tight fuse cleverly hidden somewhere on their body. Paper wasps (Polistes bellicosus),
like the majority of their clan, are known to have such short tempers so in their company, be aware that stings are memorable and will
usually need at least an icecube to relieve the pain.
In the accompaning image, the wasp is seen to be entranced by the nectar produced by a small, green flower with five green petals, unfamilar
to most flower-people in America and slighly less unknowable by visitors from England and Europe, because it's good old English ivy (Hedera helix),
that after growing some 30 or 40 years, assumes its adult role as a sometimes climbing sub-shrub, or more often than not, a small, but growing shrub, usually flowering
in mid-summer. Later in the summer, small, dark-blue berries appear but in all the years of allowing ivy to climb on some of my oaks, I have never found
an ivy seedling.
A Great Summer Bloomer from Afar!
A great traveling, garden, and personal friend of mine (who see's the world when ever he and his wife can get away from responsibilites
at home), returned last year from a happy trip to Easter Island, and, as he is so inclined, brought seeds of a flowering plant unknown
to his, up-to-then, encyclopedic mind. The scientific name of this small shrub is Turnera ulmifolia, honors English naturalist
William Turner. It's a bright, bright yellow bloomer with very attractive foliage that keeps up all summer long only slowing down as the
days shorten, then to over winter in the greenhouse. The plants will do nothing except sit on the shelves until the days begin to
get warmer and spring is definitely in the wings.
Turnera is also known as the ramgoat dashalong or yellow alder, and belongs in the
Passifloraceae Family, originally native to Mexico and the West Indies. In the continuing search for effective drugs in the war against
evolving bacteria, a recent study found yellow alder to be a potential weapon against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.
Graceful and Beautiful Deer Fern Is a Deer-resistant Plant
Across America as the amount of open but uncultivated or un-invaded land continues to
shrink, and the deer (and, in general, the critter population) continues to grow in numbers,
it's getting succeedingly more difficult to garden, not only in the suburbs, but in the burgeoning
city and far out into the wild. So more and more gardeners are looking for plants that deer might pass
over or ignore completely. And please remember that when a deer is hungry, with the hunger
bordering on starvation there is very little that they will not attempt to ingest, and this is not one.
Deer fern (Blechnum spicant)is a native plant originally from the Northwest with
fronds about twenty inches tall, requiring little maintenance, but preferring consistent soil
moisture. These ferns also prefer full shade, especially in the Southeast. They are hardy in
USDA Zone 5 to 8. And as the picture shows they should be welcome in any garden!
An Opened Chambered Nautilus Shell
Many years ago while wandering a book store located in The Lower East Side, not far from
Kamenstein's Hardware Store, I bought a book of poems by Oliver Wendell Holmes--a good friend
of Ralph Waldo Emerson, and therein I found his poem dedicated to the chambered nautilus, a member
of the great mollusk clan that has as its domicile a spiral-shaped shell that is divided into a
series of rooms or chambers beginning at the heart of the spiral. Then as season follows season and
the creature within grows, the chambers expand their size and the inhabitant must move on up to a new room at each
passing year. The term nautilus is from the Greek word for a sailor, so named because the
mollusk is a sailor on the open seas and the shell his sailing ship in
which it sails.
In the first stanza of the poem, a man who walks the shore finds the
discarded shell of a chambered nautilus and he imagines this creatures life at sea.
"Year after year beheld the silent
That spread his lustrous coil;
Still, as the spiral grew,
He left the past year's dwelling, for the new--"
A Glow-in-the-Dark Mushroom Rises up for Early
August Thinking that It's Already September
Here's a great mushroom for the fall, known as the Jack-O-Lantern because the gills
actually glow in the dark. In fact, in an unlit closet, these beauties of the night actually
produce enough wattage that if held close to a newspaper, you can read the small type--
although it has a greenish-blue tint. The inset photo is from a French mushroom site and shows
just how they can glow! Look for this clumping mushroom at the base of oak trees not only
in the forest but on suburban lots. A similar, but phylogenetically distinct species is
found in Europe but over here ours is known as Omphalotus illudens.While not completely
poisonous, this particular mushroom can be misread because it resembles a popular eating
variety known as a chanterelle, but these "Jacks" contain the toxin illudin and they are
poisonous enough to lead to severe cramps and possibly a trip to the hospital. Any Film
Noir buffs might recognize the poison illudin as the one that led to the death of the
hero in that great thriller, D.O.A..
Lovely White Morning Glories, Wildflowers of the Mountains
Also blooming this week is the manroot or wild potato vine (Ipomoea pandurata) is a
rambling perennial vine that can grow to fifteen feet in a season, producing large white funnel-form
flowers with purple centers, the flowers usually about three inches wide. Even though each bud is open for
only a day, there are many buds on those stems, and you will have flowers for weeks at a time.
The vines spring up from a very large tuber that resembles a cultivated sweet potato and American
Indians used these tubers to make a poultice for treating rheumatism, and also for a laxative.
So be advised to leave healing qualities to those who know and allow this vine for flowers only.
The Jumping Spiders
There are 300 species of jumping spider found in the United States and Canada, my favorite being the zebra spider (Salticus scenicus),
especially because one or two are always found in my greenhouse, usually showing up in very early spring. These arachnids, have never been a threat to my home or
hearth, and I still am slightly bewildered to fine there are exterminating firms advertising their ability to remove these pests from
your surroundings.
Most members of the jumping spider clan are small, with only a few species exceeding a half-inch, the
rest being, comfortably, smaller. Why should being small become such a comfort? Well, if they were the size of tigers,
there would probably be few of human folk around, because jumpers can run like the wind, leap up in the air like Superman, and dance
as though life depended up such exertions. And being able to leap from place to place, they are excellent
in catching any food they require. These acrobats have been observed leaping up and away from a perch, to
catch flying insects, and if they make a mistake in judgement, before any jumper leaves the ground, or any
tree branch, or table edge they might be sitting upon, they attach their rears to the roost using a silken dragline, so if they miss, instead of falling to
their death they pull themselves back or use the dragline as a parachure, gently falling back to where
they began. Some of these leaps exceed more than forty times a spider's body length.
Then to add to the mix, these jumpers have amazing eyesight, and their larger eyes are capable of seeing
a focused image--like your face--up to eighteen inches away. So, you ask, "Is this is important?" I reply, "It most certainly is."
Because these spiders are so curious, and usually rulers of all they survey, they can be coaxed to sit on your finger tip,
actually be aware of your presence. Suddenly, they look straight at you--eyes to eyes, so to speak--and start waving the short and
hairy spidery arms (called palps), found next to their jaws not far down from their eyes, ready to strike up an arachnid conversation.
I kid you not.
A Bumblebee and a Small Beetle at the
Bloom of a Cardoon
My cardoon is blooming early, an unusual event at the plant is only two-feet high. But
the blossom quite resembles one of the sky fireworks expected to fly over the city of Asheville
tonight in celebration of the Fourth of July. Cardoons are marvelous plants for a special spot in
the center of a garden bed or used for their silver-gray leaves alone at the edge of a stunning
border.
"The Wild Gardener" Is Back on the Air--TWICE!
That's cyber-air but air none-the-less. Once a week I'm again
voicing my hort-thoughts on Asheville-Fm and all you have to do is click the link
The Wild Gardener and the
voice and the thoughts are there, if you know how to listen to radio from your computer.
The Naked Ladies Are a Bit Early!
Their scientific name is Lycoris and their leaves appear--without flowers--in early
spring and then in about a month, the leaves vanish and nothing more is seen until in mid-September,
suddenly blossoms appear on stems naked of leaves, hence the common name. Down south they are also known
as hurricane lilies but in this year of 2019, the lilies began to bloom last week just after celebrating
the Fourth and unlike previous years this time around we are celebrating monsoon rains instead of hurricanes,
so, in celebration, the stems are now twenty inches high.
A Carpenter Bee Awakes in the
Blossoms of the Great Blue Lobelia
Early Monday morning of August 20, I was about to plant a great blue lobelia (Lobelia
syphiliticus) out in the new meadow garden when I noticed that a carpenter bee was sound
asleep wrapped in the beautiful blue petals of this fascinating wildflower. So I let him snooze
until the morning sun touched the plant and the bee woke up to a new day. Back in the 1700s
it was believed that a drug made from this plant would cure syphilis but, unfortunately, for the
New World and the Old World, it didn't work. Carpenter bees are almost identical to bumble bees,
the difference being that the body of the carpenter is black and the body of the bumble is black
striped with yellow. Both make honey.
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An Eastern Box Turtle Rests in the Garden
Their scientific name is Terrapene carolina carolina and it's our only turtle species that
can enclose their bodies completely in their elegant hinged shells. We have a garden not far
from a lake best described as an open woodland and these land turtles have a home range of about 250
yards so the turtle above continues to roam while searching for berries, funguses, and fruit;
they abandon the carvierous live style upon reaching adulthood.
An Antlion on a Coleus Leaf
.jpg "Antlion Pit")
The image on top is the adult flying form of the antlion, a beautiful insect that looks quite tame and benficient,
but when growing up to fit the lion in their name, the larva are both are vicious and predatory beyond belief.
In North America that larval form is called a doodlebug because of the looping and seemingly unplanned
trails they leave while wandering about the area where they construct their pits, pits used to trap small
and wary isects, including a host of ants. The antlion's scientific name is Eurolon nostras and they belong
to a group of about 2,000 species of insects in the family Myrmeleontidae. Most members of this family are especially
reknowned for those fiercely predatory habits practiced by the larvae. And the members of many species dig pits that
passing small insects fall into, then to be devoured by the lion that waits with open jaws at pit bottom.
Imagine the drama that waits for you in the garden where all looks normal, peaceful and serene, while vegetables grow
and produce fruits for our table.
The drawing above at left shows the antlion larva at the bottom of the pit, jaws gaping, and waiting for the ant
walking the rim to fall into the trap below. The pit is usually found in the neighborhood of a working garden, where the
soil is loose or has a good deal of sand. The drawing came from the Third Edition of Field Book of Insects
by Frank E. Lutz, PhD, first published in 1934. The book is a prized possession that has been in my library since the 50s.
The colored image on the right is from an old scientific illustration--hand-colored--best described as a portrait
of the antlion larva, published towards the end of the 17th century.
The Harvestmen Are Early
Harvestmen are members of the spider family but have their own order. They resemble
the visiting Martian spaceships described in H. G. Well's sci-fi novel The War of the
Worlds but are far more beneficient. Often called daddy-long-legs, some scavenge on
dead invertebrates and others on bird droppings and some even sip drops of flower nectars.
Until the arrival of winter when they are driven to shelter in leaf litter on the ground,
you'll see them harmlessly wandering through the garden as they look for something to eat;
they are harmless.
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The Triple Daylily 'Kwanso' Blooms in
Gardens and along Roadsides
Originally blooming in Eastern Asia and carried along the Old Silk Road by carts, wagons, and feet,
the tawny daylily eventually made the journey to the fields and roadsides of America. During most
of the 1900's daylily hybridizers have delighted in breeding tetraploid plants, plants
that tend to have sturdier sepals and petals with many color traits not found in diploids.
Until this time nearly all daylilies were diploid. Called "Tets," by breeders these
plants have 44 chromosomes, while triploids have 33 chromosomes and diploids have 22
chromosomes per individual. Hemerocallis fulva 'Europa', H. fulva 'Kwanso',
and H. fulva 'Flore Pleno' usually do not produce seeds and reproduce with underground
runners. A polymerous daylily flower has more than three sepals and more than three petals.
Some gardeners link "polymerous" with "double," many polymerous flowers have over five times
the normal number of petals.
The Single Most Important
Architectural Treasure in Asheville!
It's in the news again! Another hotel threatens an area right in the
middle of Asheville's downtown, the home of the Basilica of St. Lawrence
(1909). Designed and built by Rafael Guastavino Sr., this magnificent structure is a salute
to the entire spirit of humankind and the master's last project completed in his lifetime. It's
one of only two churches built worldwide where Guastavino Sr. served as the primary architect. And
please grant the City of Asheville the wisdom necessary to provide the gracious and dignified surroundings
necessary for such a great ediface by supporting the church in its efforts to control
development in the line of sight surrounding the church's property.
A Salute to Leeks and Garlic:
Morris Graves (1910-2001) remains today one of the more interesting of American artists, a man who
devoted most of his life to extolling the wonders and beauties of nature. In 1932 after graduating from
high school he settled in Beaumont, Texas but soon returned to the Northwest living around Seattle. His early
work featured oils and often touched on birds, especially birds that were metaphysical orphans of the
storm. In the early 30s he bagan to study Zen Buddhism and in 1934 built a small studio in Edmonds, Washington
that soon burned to the ground and included all his works to date. In 1940, Graves began building a new house,
which he named The Rock, on Fidalgo Island. He lived at The Rock with a succession of cats and dogs, all
called Edith, in honor of poet Edith Sitwell.
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Tough Plants
The following pictures (except for the Arundo donax,
photographed in a Wake Forest garden) were taken in my garden during the late spring,
summer, and early fall of two years ago. I call them tough plants because they are
growing in garden clay laced with shredded leaves and if in pots, bagged potting soil
that is fertilized two or three times during the growing season.
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Here's another bit I was tardy about:
Some Trees, Shrubs, and Perennials that Grow Under Black Walnut Trees
Many months ago I promised to run the old column on what you can grow in the vicinity of walnuts.
Walnuts, as most gardeners know, produce a poison chemical known as juglone, a chemical that attacts a number of other
plants causing them to languish, then slowly fade away. Plants include important food crops and esthetic
landscape and garden plants grown for their beauty alone. The most important garden vegetables,
like peppers and tomatoes, refuse to exist in the company of juglone but, fortunately, there are many other plants that will.
Apples and Crab Apples, lilacs, viburnums, white birch and river birch, larch, lindens, most maples except silver maple (Acer spp.),
hydrangeas, pines, spruce, oaks, eastern red cedar, dogwood, staghorn sumac, hawthornes, arborvitae, white ash, honey locust, American elm, elder trees, cherry trees, pears, plums, and roses, among many more.
Among veggies, look for cabbages, potatoes, rhubarb, blueberries, and grapes, among others.
Flowering plants feature columbine, peony, violets, coneflowers, bee-balm, yarrow, and calendulas.
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And let's not forget the squirrels of Asheville,
rather entaining but by some considered trouble-makers, as they spend
their fun-filled days in eating birdseed, chewing off high branches of
oak trees, and using the tactics of jewel thieves in Topkapi
when finding that birdseed. Look below and hear that tap of clashing
sabers. Listen! You can almost hear the memorable score of Manos
Hadjidakis as these furry critters play at fencing (courtesy of a
Victorian stuffed-animal display in a small antique shop just down the
road from Sissinghurst).
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Two Favorite Books from The Wild Gardener are offered for sale at Local Bookstores--and the new edition of "Loves Me--Loves Me Not!"
is also on the stands.
Two new books from my studio, the first is a second edition of Solving Deer Problems, first published in 2003,
originally using with black and white photos but now brightened with the over 100 color shots, many of fantastic plants
that are generally shunned by deer and ready to grow with exuberence and brighten
your garden world. The second book is titled Hydroponics for Houseplants and includes everything you ever needed
to know about growing houseplants in water instead of soil. This book contains dozens of my pen and ink drawings of plants
along with a number color photos of live plants doing great without a hint of soil in the neighborhood.
And thanks to the good graces of Bella Rosa Books and its publisher, Rod Hunter,
The Wild Gardener, that award-winning book that opened up American gardens to the wonderful world of native plants,
is back in print. Selected as one of the 75 Great Garden Books by the American Horticultural Society and winner of the
Garden Writers of America Art of Communication Award, this book is not only full of hort-knowledge but entertaining
as well.
In addition Mr. Hunter has also republished Thoreau's Garden and in addition now
stocks that great children's book The Moonflower.
In Asheville, the books should be found or ordered from Malaprop's downtown or at the bookstore of the
NC Arboretum. The hydroponics book is available at Fifth Season, the new Asheville store devoted to
horticultural pursuits and located in the Whole Foods Plaza, across from the Asheville Mall.
Remember the World of Strange Flowers--
There are a number of very, very strange flowers living in the world today, having nothing to do with prehistoric times.
One belongs to a group of tropical plants with blooms referred to as pelican flowers or calico flowers.
The most bizarre is the pelican flower, Aristolochia gigantea, which first arrived in England being shipped from
Guatemala in 1841. This is a high-reaching vine that can top ten feet or more in an Asheville backyard, and bears flat,
smooth, heart-shaped leaves that emit a slightly rank odor when crushed. The six-inch flowers are off-white, veined with purple,
and sit on top of a U-shaped tube of a greenish color and also with an unattractive odor. Best as a flower for the evening garden,
this is a showstopper.
The vines do best in pots that hang on wires, allowing plenty of room for growth. They can also be carefully unwound from
one wire and rewound on another but remember to maintain the counter-clockwise turns.
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