Chitra Pothi Lives On
Illuminated letters or temple decorations? Palm leaf painting dates back to medieval India and survives among artisans in a few small villages of Orissa. Back before there were computer screens to write on, there was this stuff called paper, made from plant material. It’s true.…
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Gardenias On The Left — Billie Holiday
With vocal improvisations to beat the band—and white flowers behind her ear—Eleanora Fagan became Billie Holiday. Athena had her helmet and Spanky McFarland his two-tone beanie. Where would The Cat in the Hat be today except for that teetering stovepipe with the stripes? Curled in…
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Hovirag: Hungary’s Hot Snowdrop
The cherished emblem of early spring in Hungary is now off limits to sellers and embroiled in a national dispute over genetically modified plants. Our man in Budapest, journalist Gabor Miklosi, took a break from political muckraking this week to hunt for hovirag. Also known…
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Kiku Ningyo — Bodies In Bloom
The craft of making chrysanthemum dolls, an imperial entertainment and art of the Edo period, is dwindling, but one town north of Tokyo soldiers brightly on. We don’t go in for “bucket lists,” really, but having learned about Japan’s chrysanthemum fairs several years ago from…
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Evergreen Surrealist — Pearl Fryar
A topiary artist bends the lush Carolina landscape to his will. Lee County, South Carolina, calls itself “the land of cotton,” failing to mention kudzu and pigweed. Staying even here means constant pushing back against green: mow, chop or you drown in vegetation. On the…
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Get Down With Bissap
Build your verve and calm your nerves with a glass of festivity, gift of the hibiscus. What’s red and healthy and drunk all over? Hibiscus tea. It goes by many names across the world – karkade in the Sudan, roselle in Thailand, flor de jamaica…
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Laura Pollán’s Gladiolas of Freedom
The leader of Cuba’s Damas de Blanco has died after winning the freedom of their family members. But the cause goes on, fortified by her defiant flower. Why symbolism? And, at the root, why flower symbolism? The direct floral action of Laura Pollán Toledo can…
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Flores De Mayo
When the rains come to the Philippine Islands, out come “las reynas,” beauty queens who balance red lipstick and piety. As May, the month of Mary in the Roman Catholic faith, nears a close, the Philippines celebrates its bounty—human, floral, cultural, religious. The rainy season…
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Mandorla: Intersecting Worlds
With a tragedy in Russia, mourners and their florists turn to an old figure of Eastern Orthodox iconography, shaped like a seed. Overnight floods in Krymsk, a southern Russia city east of the Black Sea, killed at least 172 people early Sunday morning. There had…
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Heartthrob of the Fall Line
Along an ancient border of the American Southeast, it’s showtime for the rocky shoals spider lily. Throughout the land of gracious drawl—the Southeastern United States—people refer to “The Fall Line,” where the Appalachian Piedmont meets the coastal Atlantic plain. “Its name arises from the occurrence…
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Raise The Majstang
At the feast of St. John the Baptist, June 24, up goes the Swedish “maypole,” a high sign to both Christians and pagans. After many months of darkness Midsummer is a pile-on holiday in Scandinavia. In light-deprived lands like Sweden, Finland, and Norway, it’s a…
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Plant Patents: Potted Gold
A variegated redbud won’t make Allen Bush a mint, but if you enjoy growing ‘Alley Cat,’ please buy him a beer. My friend Mike Hayman phoned the day after “The Decision” —the LeBron James’s televised public relations disaster. LeBron and his handlers had spent the…
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