46 thoughts on “Music 62: Mess it up”

  4. Cynthia Jobin

    This flower’s grandmother and motherr were birds of paradise flowers and she inherited that habit of growth but she was thinking the colors garish and unruly and no longer wanted that unkempt, amazed bird-in-the-headlights look, so she went to a specialist florist and had radical cosmetic surgery, (maybe even a sex change, we don’t know for sure) and hoped this neat, new, streamlined, well-coiffed look would make her/him more attractive. But it only incited certain people to try and mess her up!

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    1. Bruce Goodman Post author

      Although I’m not entirely sure about the sex change (I have a male almond tree for example and it doesn’t have any nuts) I wondered about the bird of paradise relation. Although each segment grows out of the other – unlike the individual b. of p. florets. Fashion-wish, I think it “stems” from the dress sense of the ’50s?

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  5. southamptonoldlady

    It is a type of Strelitzia (Bird of Paradise). They used to grow in my garden when I lived in Southern Spain. They love stoney, sandy soil and to be watered well occasionally not little and often. They are related in a round about way to the banana plant.

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    1. Bruce Goodman Post author

      You’re a genius – thanks Prospero (although there was no need to swear) – and I note that “false bird of paradise” is one of the common nomenclatures. Buying it from a Chinese florist put me off the scent… I was gravitating towards Asian.

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        1. Bruce Goodman Post author

          I’m not at all surprised at the uprightness of my Heliconia. The nearest I can find to it online is Heliconia bihai – of which, like most things, there are dozens of shapes and colours developed in all directions at once.

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            1. Bruce Goodman Post author

              I notice that “Bihai stricta” is (on the reliable Wikipaedia) given as a synonym for “H. stricta”. “Heliconia” (generically speaking) is probably broad enough for the purposes of categorizing that which sits in an old milk bottle on my table. I wouldn’t mind starting a collection of the stunning plants but suspect the New Zealand climate gravitates more towards the Antarctic mosses that flourish on offshore antipodean islands.

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              1. exiledprospero

                Botanists are, in the main, afflicted with schizophrenia and other illnesses of the hindbrain, and are apt to change their minds when it comes to breakfast cereals and nomenclature.

                Starting a collection: I grow mine from seed. And the seeds are so pretty (if you like blue seeds).

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                1. Bruce Goodman Post author

                  I do like blue seeds – and in fact, my snail/slug bait is also blue. We are so fond of them in my household that they are referred to as “Christmas decorations”. “I think we need to put some Christmas decorations around the strawberries” was yesterday’s call. I shall stick to my collection of Hippeastrums.

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