Human Flower Project

Science

Saturday, September 20, 2008

St. Michael’s Garden: Turn the Pages

There’s a link between literature and botany, and two professors at a Vermont college are bearing that out.

Harry Potter book and a remembrance of Aunt Petunia
Books in Bloom, St. Michael’s College, Burlington, VT
Photo: St. Michael’s College

The people most attuned to flowers tend to be book people, too.  Why is that? Our hero Jack Goody, the late anthropologist of Cambridge, offered proof but never really ventured an explanation. He wrote that the civilizations that developed early writing systems, elaborate ones—China and India—also cultivated the richest floral traditions.

“The appearance of flowers is linked, strongly but not exclusively,” Goody found, “to the use of the brush or pen on flat, portable media such as paper, hide, cotton and canvas, and to the motor skills associated with writing.” (The Culture of Flowers, p. 20)

At St. Michael’s College, Burlington, Vermont, two professors have demonstrated this affinity—literally, and literarily. Education professor Valerie Bang-Jensen, biologist Mark Lubkowitz, and their students have constructed “Books in Bloom,” a living botanical library of children’s literature.

 

 

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Thursday, September 18, 2008

Where’s a Nanoflower When You Need One?

Chinese chemists have made a floral breakthrough and created a better battery, but not in time for millions of people across the U.S., still in the dark after Hurricane Ike.

Conventional (?) flower flashlight
Photo: Schylling Toys

This morning my 87-year-old mother and 94-year-old father stopped by a local hardware store looking for D batteries. They’d tried three other stores: all sold out.

“Yes, we have some,” said the clerk, “but we’re limiting each customer to only eight.” So eight it was.

My folks have been without electricity since Sunday. They don’t live in Galveston or Houston, but three states and 1000 miles away from where Hurricane Ike made landfall. A bizarre confluence of weather conditions—hot surface temperatures and a cold front descending from the northwest—met Overland Ike as it reached the Ohio River Valley. It produced a 5 hour windstorm in Louisville, KY, my folks’ hometown. More than 200,000 people there are still without electricity four days later.

One sister-in-law (an angel of mercy—still without power herself) brought by three battery powered lanterns for my parents to use in the lengthening “interim.” My mother’s solution of candlelight, while romantic, has already set off the smoke alarm twice.

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Friday, June 06, 2008

A Flower for the Pleiades—Matariki

It’s the Maori New Year, observed across New Zealand with the making and presentation of harakeke flowers.

A flower made from woven flax is the traditional gift of New Zealand’s New Year, in early June
Photo: Ali Brown

Thursday, on the final dog walk of the night, we spotted the head and claws of Scorpio coming over a neighbor’s house. Summer is here.

Or winter if you live in New Zealand. And in the early mornings, Taurus the bull rises with the sun. In his horns you can see the twinkling Seven Sisters – the Pleiades. In Maori they’re known “Matariki,” and their appearance both marks and names the Maori New Year (in 2008, it fell on June 5th).

An old custom of Matariki is the weaving of kites and flowers out of a native plant called harakeke (Phormium tenax) – or New Zealand flax. From pictures, it looks like a cross between palm and agave.

Harakeke seems to have been THE basis of Maori material culture: “The long strap-like leaves were ideal for plaiting into mats, containers, shoes and even shelters. …Strong flexible fibre could also be extracted from the leaves for weaving into clothing, or for making rope and fishing nets.”

Phormium tenax varieties growing at Landcare Research in New Zealand
Photo: Warwick Harris, via Fernwood Nursery

Among “observant” Maori there is a quite extensive protocol both for gathering the leaves and for working them into objects. To wit:

“A prayer of thanks or karakia may be said before cutting.  Flax is not cut at night or in the rain or snow.
 Only enough flax is cut to complete the weaving project.
 Flax is not cut by women who are menstruating,  although 
they are able to weave.”

…the very sorts of requirements and prohibitions that indicate sacredness. So do these woven flowers, because the first putiputi (or flower) made from flax at the New Year must be presented to someone as a gift.

A flax “lily” by Sema
Photo:  Flax Flowers by Sema

As one would expect, there are now crafts specialists who make flax flowers to sell, both for special local occasions and as New Zealand souvenirs. Today schoolchildren make putiputi at the New Year, too. Like so many human-flower traditions, the Maori custom has taken on a secular, nationalistic, and commercial flavor. If you have some New Zealand flax (or a similar plant on hand) you might ask a blessing and then try weaving your own New Year’s flower with these instructions. Now, don’t forget to give it away!

We’d be negligent if we didn’t show you the flowers harakeke can make all by itself. They’ll bloom six months from now, in December – the height of New Zealand summer. We understand they’re used to sweeten foods and drinks.

The Maori are just one of many cultures that have marveled at the Pleiades, and considered them divinely creative. Count contemporary scientists among these stars’ most awed admirers.

The Pleiades, in the constellation Taurus: a planet incubator?
Photo: Space Spin

“Rocky terrestrial planets, perhaps like Earth, Mars or Venus, appear to be forming or to have recently formed around a star in the Pleiades (“seven sisters”) star cluster, the result of ‘monster collisions’ of planets or planetary embryos,” according to astronomers at Gemini Observatory in Hawaii. “This is the first clear evidence for planet formation in the Pleiades,” says Joseph Rhee, an astronomer from UCLA. “The results we are presenting may well be the first observational evidence that terrestrial planets like those in our solar system are quite common.”

A happy, humbling thought for the New Year.

Friday, May 09, 2008

Warm the Cacti, Cool the Computers

An Indiana city saves on heating, while the university pays less to chill its super computers. Kiss your brain!

 

Computer scientist 
Paul Brenner of Notre Dame explains how the university’s computers and the city’s desert plants will make beautiful climate together.
Photo: University of Notre Dame

Better than a stroke of genius, here’s a spike of conservation brilliance.

The University of Notre Dame’s computer experts have teamed up with botanists of South Bend, Indiana, to save energy. They’re moving several of the university’s 400-pound computer processors into the city’s Arizona Desert Dome.

The computers shed heat, which is just dandy with the cacti and other Southwestern plants, and air circulating through the 26,000-square-foot greenhouse will help cool the machines. Big computers like these are very expensive to keep cool. “According to The South Bend Tribune, the plan will save the university about $100,000 in utility costs, even after the university pays for the electricity to power the processors.” Nobody knows yet how much the computers’ warmth will save the city, but last year South Bend’s parks department spent $70,000 to heat the desert dome and other conservatories.

According to Kathleen, a South Bend blogger and conservationist, this region of Indiana “relies heavily on coal-powered generators for electricity,” so this Desert Dome/Computer partnership should reduce emissions from burning coal, heating the desert greenhouse while cutting down on greenhouse gases.

This forward-thinking human flower project grew out of the city of South Bend’s commitment to climate protection. Last month, South Bend became one of 800 Cool Cities dedicated to reducing the causes of global warming.

With amaryllis looking on inside the Potawatomi Park Greenhouse, Mayor Stephen Luecke (right) is honored by Christine Fiordalis and Steve Francis of the Sierra Club. South Bend became a “Cool City.”
Photo: Kathleen, If We Only Connect

“This Green computing initiative proves that global challenges can bring out the best of our creativity,” said Mayor Stephen Luecke, “especially when the public and private sector join together to find solutions. It is only the latest of a history of ventures by the City of South Bend to reduce our carbon footprint and make a real difference for the future of our planet.”

Couldn’t such a climate partnership work between any botanical garden (or private business) with greenhouses to heat and any company or institution with computers to keep cool? Congratulations to scientists of Notre Dame and the city of South Bend. May your initiative spike others into collaboration.