Wisteria Redux

I just cannot get enough of wisteria! And no, this is not wisteria season. I'm just nostalgic for them. For their droopy chandelier look, their wistful, not-quite-lavender scent, their shades of mauve, lilac, lavender & purple.....

The Chinese wisteria, now so familiar, was not the first of its kind to be discovered. My vade mecum & other notables inform me that the honour goes to the variety called wisteria frutescens which was grown in England in 1724, then known by the rather prosaic name of "Carolina Kidney Beans"; in other words, like the Holy Roman Empire, neither holy, nor Roman, nor quite an empire!
Wisteria was so named in 1818 by the Anglo-American botanist Thomas Nuttall after the German-American physician-anatomist, Dr. Caspar Wistar of Philadelphia.
This plant flowers twice a year. Shimla is given a pretty opulent display in spring on branches which are otherwise almost bare. The summer version is scantier and often the victim of fierce hailstorms. These lovely flowers are accompanied by bunches of coppery-gold young leaves. A marvellous contrast of warm & cool palette.

I don't care for what anyone thinks!

I love wisteria! Love its lavender scent. Being intoxicated by it on my way to work. The shades of light purple, violet and pale lavender. The frail tendrils that drape like so many candelabra on the gazebo.

What do I not like about wisteria - the clinging vine act, for sure!

For the scientific-minded among my gentle readers, here are the details:

Wisteria or wistaria, any plant of the genus Wisteria, woody twining vines of the family Leguminosae (pulse family), cultivated and highly esteemed for the beautiful pendent clusters of pealike flowers, lilac, white, or pink.

Wisteria is classified in the division Magnoliophyta, class Magnoliopsida, order Rosales, family Leguminosae.

Life is the only way

Life is the only way
to get covered in leaves,
catch your breath on the sand,
rise on wings;

to be a dog,
or stroke its warm fur;

to tell pain
from everything it's not;

to squeeze inside events,
dawdle in views,
to seek the least of all possible mistakes.

An extraordinary chance
to remember for a moment
a conversation held
with the lamp switched off;

and if only once
to stumble upon a stone,
end up soaked in one downpour or another,

mislay your keys in the grass;
and to follow a spark on the wind with your eyes;
and to keep on not knowing something important.