The fancy pansy and more

The fringe benefit of our chasing cherry blossom trip at Washington DC and Chevy Chase, MD is that we saw countless pansy flourishing in relative cold, heralding the arrival of spring, and many magnolias in glory.

Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson couldn’t resist the attraction of pansy and we also fall for her beauty.

Ophelia in Hamlet is a doomed innocent life of fragile beauty. Let’s see what she said about pansy. Ophelia is the daughter of Polonius who is King Claudius’s counselor. I was never sure about what’s the relationship between Ophelia and Hamlet. They might have fallen in love, but that’s all inferred or self-proclaimed. No wonder Bernard Shaw said “Hamlet is a half dozen characters rolled into one.”

After her father was killed by Hamlet by mistake, the incoherent Ophelia sings songs of mourning, and then distributed the flowers to others on stage; the second flower is pansy (in Act 4 Scene 5).

Ophelia

There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance.

Pray you, love, remember.

And there is pansies, that’s for thoughts . . .

The name pansy is derived from the French pensee (thought). If one looks carefully one will see its resemblance to a pensive human face (see photo right)

This is the only known picture (technique of daguerreotype in her times) of Emily Dickinson who holds a small bouquet of heartsease (pansy). Emily once sent exquisite pansies “in a bow” with a wonderful little poem to Frances Hodgson Burnett. Her gift of flowers to friends usually came with a poem. In fact, this is how people knew she was a poet as she never published her poems in her life time.

In addition to thought, pansy also signifies faithfulness and modesty. However, when pansy is used as a slang, it insinuates as an effeminate man. We saw these gorgeous pansies at Washington DC, so it is not entirely inappropriate to end this writing by talking politics or politically incorrect language.

While endorsing Hillary Clinton (in Democrat Presidential Primary against then Senator Barack Obama in 2008), Gov. Mike Easley of North Carolina said Mrs. Clinton “makes Rock Balboa (the boxer playing by Sylvester Stallone in Rocky films) look like a pansy,” the governor was probably trying to say Mrs. Clinton is as strong as Rocky Balboa, not a quitter, but some criticized the governor using an anti-gay slur of “an effeminate male homosexual”.

Magnolia in glory

The fringe benefit of our chasing cherry blossom trip at Washington DC and Chevy Chase, MD in early April is that we saw countless pansy flourishing in relative cold, heralding the arrival of spring, and many magnolias in glory.

rough and tough carpels

Dick Figlar said of magnolia, “the flower, the shape, the scent, the leaves, if you wanted to invent the perfect tree, you’d have to work pretty dam hard to make a better one.” Being the president of Magnolia Society International, Mr. Figlar could be biased. But magnolia has been around for 95 million years (one NY Times article said 65 million years); it evolved before bees appeared on Earth; so it evolved to adapt to the beetles as pollinators. One can see and feel the rough and tough carpels (see photo above) that can stand the crawling beetles.

My evolutionary theory is that a chanced mutation leading to a hardened carpel that can stand the beetles and thus survived and thrived, propagating the magnolia trees with the same characteristics. It is safe to say that a species surviving 95 million years has successfully gone through many evolutionary changes to adapt.

magnolia in glory in our backyard

magnolia in glory in our backyard

Shortly after our returning from DC, the magnolia in our backyard close to our garden began to bloom (see photos). Katy said there is a fragrance coming from magnolia flowers, I initially thought she was too imaginative, but staying closer I did smell a lemony scent.

It is good timing to talk about the Magnolia Lane in the Augusta National Golf Club in face of Tiger. Woods’ unbelievable storied comeback as a “Masters” in the green jacket today. This triumphal come-from-behind win took place at Augusta National, Georgia, where it boasts sixty huge magnolia trees at its entrance. Magnolia is also the state flower of Mississippi.

Magnolia Lane at Augusta National Golf Club

Magnolia is the symbol of the South. One can see a magnolia wreath was placed at the foot of a statue of Strom Turnmond, the late senator from South Carolina.

A New York Times article wrote, “magnolia may be best known as the sultry backdrops of Faulkner stories,” I cannot elaborate as I never read William Faulkner. About 15 years ago, after reading his Nobel speech, I was very impressed, I picked up Faulkner’s, but had to put it down as it was too difficult for me. I may try his The Sound and the Fury or As I lay dying one of these days, so I may know why this most famous Southern writer is called Magnolia Master.

Cherry blossom (or cherry in glory) in Washington, DC and Chevy Chase, Maryland

On April 1 Washington DC greeted us with a peak cherry blossom; we consider ourselves very fortunate as the date of visit was set in early Feb. The weather also cooperated; sea of people swarmed along the Tidal Basin where Jefferson Memorial sits.  We also discovered a well kept secret or at least relatively little known that an affluent section of Chevy Chase, north to Washington DC, boasts upward one thousand cherry trees also in full blossom. We walked a few streets and drove around a few more, realizing we haven’t seen it all.

我們四月初去華府賞櫻運氣很好剛好碰到櫻花盛開 （因為二月初就已決定曰期）而且天氣非常合作.  Jefferson Memorial 的 Tidal Basin 人山人海。這次我們也發現了較少人知道的一個秘密：即 Chevy Chase (在華府北邊）的一個高級住宅區種有一千多科的櫻花樹. 我們下車走了好幾條街, 也開車繞了幾圈, 可能都還沒全部看到。These photos were taken on April 2, 3 and 4, 2019.