Feature
FEATURE

The Flowers of Baseball

The baseball playoffs have begun.  Don’t make us wait until our own “season” comes to an end to include flowers.

If Pete Rose is all you know about flowers in baseball, please wipe the mustard off your mouth and take a look at this fabulous

Read More
Feature
FEATURE

Transhumance: Trails of Survival

France’s desalpe, Austria’s almabtrieb, and Germany’s viehscheid overflow with richness. They’re all knockout celebrations with mirrored crowns, wildflowers, clarinets, and beer halls thronged with diners and singers. This fall we saw a less flamboyant but by means no less impressive seasonal livestock drive in Western

Read More
Feature
FEATURE

When the Cows Come Home

A human-bovine-floral custom of the Alps decorates the herds for their descent from high pastures and celebrates the herders who work with them.

From our vantage point in the land of parched, flat and “virtual,” heaven looks like this:

It’s the event of the season

Read More
Feature
FEATURE

Bengali Weddings ~ What’s the Rush?

Making marriages to last (or so they hope), Bengali Hindus bring carved marsh-reeds, grass bracelets, marigolds and tuberoses to the altar.

Indian couples typically don’t hurry into marriage. Even circa 2008, many parents still choose their children’s life partners, often picking out spouses years in

Read More
Feature
FEATURE

Rube Goldberg’s Flowers

The best route isn’t always direct, especially when it comes to pollination.

Thank you to Ernesto Sandoval , curator at UC Davis’s Greenhouses, for sending this news of bird/flower symbiosis.

Babiana ringens , a plant known in its native South Africa as “rat tail,” must

Read More
Feature
FEATURE

The Scarlet Pimpernel

The improbable hero of Orczy’s adventure novel took cover behind a common roadside weed.

Which side of the French Revolution (the 1789 one, we mean) are you on?

In the anti-monarchical U.S., we tend to side with our fellow Revolutionaries, acknowledging that sometimes a few

Read More