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

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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

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FEATURE

Nicodemus: Evening Primrose

Evening primroses can open the Bible, kick off a party or alleviate PMS.   ‘How can this be?’

Evening primrose, Oenothera , comes into bloom in early summer across much of the central U.S. and flowers on for weeks. As its name gives away, it’s one

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FEATURE

The Nuclear ‘Daisy Girl’

Child’s play became political weaponry with a notorious attack ad from 1964.

Probably the first political attack ad was painted on a cave wall somewhere in France. But the one we first remember was aired on U.S. television September 7, 1964, during Monday Night at

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FEATURE

Reward & Risk ~ Money Bouquets

What happens when you turn cold cash into a faux-floral tribute? 

Giving gifts is a gift. Giving money is a contribution. So what is giving a money bouquet?

In Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Ghana, and Nigeria, it’s illegal.

And it has been for several years. Around

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FEATURE

Dorothea Tanning: Sunflower to Griefbane

A painter moves past the mirrors of Surrealism to invent flowers all her own.

Several months ago we came upon this work—” Eine Kleine Nachtmusik ” (“A Little Night Music”), from 1943 by Dorothea Tanning. Who wants to venture in–presuming to explain these tense, swooning

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