Edward Piercy

Datura, Vol. 1

Sunday, 30. November 2008, 00:05:18

The first 20 of 40 plants mentioned in
Tori Amos' song "Datura."

I've never been a gardening type of guy.
All of this was a new world to me.

So come take a walk in Tori's garden.

Passion vine.

Texas sage.

Indigo spires salvia.

Confederate jasmine

Royal cape plumbago.

Arica palm.

Snow-on-the-mountain.

Pink powderpuff.

Datura.

Crinum lily.

St. Christopher lily.

Silver dollar eucalyptus.

White african iris.

Katie's charm ruellia.

Variegated shell ginger.

Florida coontie.

Ming fern.

Sword fern.

Dianella.

Walking iris.

Happy Thanksgiving (Not Worried At All)Countries I Wish I Could Be Banned From

Comments

edwardpiercy # 30. November 2008, 00:28

NOTE:

In some cases there are more than one species or sub-species for a plant with a particular name. Datura, for example, has something like 35 species, and there is a great variety in how they look.

Not knowing which she intended, I simply picked my favorite examples.

ellinidata # 30. November 2008, 01:56

awwwwwwwwwww Eddie,
this is the most beautiful post on Opera ever!!!! I love the colors the unusual names,
some like Datura I never saw before in my life !!!
I came over with my carrot cake picture but I will not add it,
I want to give you a hug for this post so here I go again

edwardpiercy # 30. November 2008, 02:07

Thanks, A.

You know, there is this girl Opera member who posts pics of flowers all the time. But I can't remember who she is.

Anyway, she certainly has a great blog for that kind of stuff.

ellinidata # 30. November 2008, 02:38

I hope I come across to her post,
flowers bring such beauty to our lives! A great job Ed,
I am looking forward to the next one,
of course this has been bookmarked

Stardancer # 30. November 2008, 04:12

Beautiful, Edward. Spring flowers on such a cold gray November day.

My spirit was lifted beyond words.

edwardpiercy # 30. November 2008, 04:17

Gray there too, huh? I sort of like overcast days. But we've been having a long consecutive streak of them here.

I'm glad you enjoyed the flowers.

Volume 2 will be coming very shortly.

Stardancer # 30. November 2008, 04:22

Can't wait.

gdare # 30. November 2008, 05:49

Never heard of Datura before. But it certainly looks nice.
I didn`t know Tori Amos is such a flower lover. Must be a girly thing

edwardpiercy # 30. November 2008, 05:54

I don't know about "girlie" really. I have the proverbial "black thumb" -- just about anything I've ever tried to grow dies, sooner or later. So I guess I've wished that I could be better at it. Maybe at least good enough to put a damn fern up in my living room. But I'm afraid to try it.

Except for evil bastards, I hate to see anything die. Although I know it is the way of things. It's just that when it's a plant I've been trying to convince to live, and it dies, that just really bothers me.

ellinidata # 30. November 2008, 07:55

did my Ed have a

tonight ?? He seems too sensitive or it is my idea??

Ed,
you are great in other things!! I can not write like you but I can plant pop corn and have a new plant!

see one can not be perfect on every thing !

edwardpiercy # 30. November 2008, 08:19

No, no beer here. Too bad.

There are popcorn plants? I thought it was called "corn." --

What you say makes me think that there must be an art to it -- the thing with plants.

Thanks for the compliment!

PainterWoman # 30. November 2008, 10:30

Beautiful post Ed. I've got one of those Silver Dollar Eucalyptus trees in my backyard. They get so incredibly huge that I have it 'topped' every couple of years. I've only had it five years or so and it is 20 feet tall already even with the topping off. They say it shortens their life by topping it.

I also have Texas Sage in the back and I had a Passion Vine in the backyard of my old house. They are an amazing looking flower.

Have never seen Datura. It looks like a flower to be used in a romance movie. Or a vampire movie. Isn't there a drug extracted from that flower? It sounds very familiar...like a heart drug or something.

edwardpiercy # 30. November 2008, 10:39

Glad you liked the post. I worked pretty hard on it.

As I was culling for photos I did run across one that had medicinal properties, unfortunately I forget which one it was.

Yeah, the Datura looks incredibly romantic. As you suggest, from an Anne Rice novel or something.

The Dianella reminds me of a spider!

studio41 # 5. December 2008, 02:05

This Datura picture is amazing! And I love the scent of that Jasmine... drink it in.

L2D2 # 30. June 2009, 18:54

Edward, I have grown or worked with nearly all these plants at one time or another. these are beautiful. The Datura is poisonous if imbibed in quantity, but an hallucinogenic drug if used in right dosage. It belongs to the Solonaceae family, which is also the genus of deadly nightshade and the un-poison and lovely tomato. One common name for Datura is Angel Trumpet because the flower is a huge, yes, trumpet shape.

Nearly all the plants shown grow very well in my area. The passion vine flower is one of the most complicated and loveliest of all flowers. It is used as a calmative in herbal medicine. It also makes a very tasty fruit. Grows wild here but there are also cultivated varieties, including a gorgeous red one.

edwardpiercy # 30. June 2009, 19:01

Wow thanks for the supplement, Linda.

Is the Datura flower on this post one of the trumpet ones -- if seen from the side?

I'd like to see that red passion vine one.

L2D2 # 30. June 2009, 19:31

I believe the photo you have is the sacred datura. The more common one is also called jimson weed. You might know that sometimes cattle would eat jimson weed and die or act nuts.

red Passiflora