Cobra Lily (Darlingtonia)
"Judith Hindle" trumpet pitcher cultivar (Sarracenia)
I was surprised and excited to find not one but two Darlingtonias at my hardware store this weekend. Later I found a Pinguicula and several cultivars of Sarracenia at a nursery near my family's house...
The bitter irony is that this nursery was built upon a cherished place from my childhood: a large meadow that was once a thicket of forest cleared for some unknown purpose back in the 60's, but by the late 70's it had overgrown with every manner of flowering bush. Most importantly for me at the time, it was the best place in the area to find butterflies. I spent countless days there alone with my net and jar, stalking, chasing and catching--but mostly daydreaming and marveling at the strange new insects I encountered. The wildlife was fairly limited around my suburban neighborhood--one had to venture into the nearby marsh, brush and woods to find the native fauna and flora. Thank heavens they still existed then.
I wandered outside the nursery greenhouse out to where they kept the trees, and found the spot where in long-dead summers I once surveyed the field for my quarry, a place I had not stood upon since I was twelve. When I reminisce about the happiest days of my youth, my thoughts inevitably drift to this place--now a bleak gravel lot populated with bundled shrubs and plastic bird baths. A parody of Arcadia, set to Muzak. I'll admit that tears did indeed well up when no one was looking.
Knowing that the pitcher plants and butterworts would die if I didn't take them, I bought them and left.
I sometimes dream of this dead meadow, placed there by my mind when a mood of desperation, grief and loss is called for; one's cerebral cortex is an apt if not cruel location scout.
~W
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