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an angel ghost, an unexpected guest
I did a chalk drawing of an angel offering an apple to a fox (... if foxes can crave grapes in Aesop, then they can be offered apples)--I had the angel leaning out of a sky window because I love that conceit. The fox came out VERY wonky in the body, but I like his face.
The feet belong to the next-door neighbor girls
I finished right before a good, drenching rain, so now the angel is a ghost:
In other remarkable news, a plant grew in the pot I had planted calendulas in. It looked vaguely familiar--some kind of nightshade-family plant, but what? Not a potato; you can't accidentally plant a potato. The leaves were wrong for tomato, and they didn't match up with common nightshade that I see around. They were fuzzy and lovely. Recently it got buds, and finally a flower, and with THAT I was able to take to the internet.
It seems to be Physalis peruviana, known in English as Cape gooseberry or golden berry, and first encountered by me in Colombia under the name of uchuva. It was available as a compote every morning for breakfast where we stayed, and I bought a bag of them at the market the day we left.
It's a kind of ground cherry. A more common-for-here ground cherry is Physalis pruinosa--in fact, the first place we lived in western Massachusetts had those growing wild. And the flowers look pretty much identical--it would make more sense for P. pruinosa to pop up unannounced in my flowerpot than a plant that's native to Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia.
But the local ground cherry ... grows along the ground. It doesn't stand up straight. This is standing up, proud and tall--which is what P. peruviana does. And although it's not ***native*** to this area, it's **cultivated** all over the place.
Either way, it's edible. But I'm going to think of it as P. peruviana, and look forward to some home-grown uchuvas at some point.
Never mind: I remembered that the plant we had at the other house was a "clammy ground cherry," and THAT plant's botanical name is P. heterophylla and guess what. THAT is what I have. It stands up tall, too. Ahh, well. This one is edible too! Will see if I get any clammy ground cherries ;-)
The feet belong to the next-door neighbor girls
I finished right before a good, drenching rain, so now the angel is a ghost:
In other remarkable news, a plant grew in the pot I had planted calendulas in. It looked vaguely familiar--some kind of nightshade-family plant, but what? Not a potato; you can't accidentally plant a potato. The leaves were wrong for tomato, and they didn't match up with common nightshade that I see around. They were fuzzy and lovely. Recently it got buds, and finally a flower, and with THAT I was able to take to the internet.
It's a kind of ground cherry. A more common-for-here ground cherry is Physalis pruinosa--in fact, the first place we lived in western Massachusetts had those growing wild. And the flowers look pretty much identical--it would make more sense for P. pruinosa to pop up unannounced in my flowerpot than a plant that's native to Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia.
But the local ground cherry ... grows along the ground. It doesn't stand up straight. This is standing up, proud and tall--which is what P. peruviana does. And although it's not ***native*** to this area, it's **cultivated** all over the place.
Either way, it's edible. But I'm going to think of it as P. peruviana, and look forward to some home-grown uchuvas at some point.
Never mind: I remembered that the plant we had at the other house was a "clammy ground cherry," and THAT plant's botanical name is P. heterophylla and guess what. THAT is what I have. It stands up tall, too. Ahh, well. This one is edible too! Will see if I get any clammy ground cherries ;-)
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That's really good! I am glad of your ground cherry, too, even if "clammy" is not the most reassuring of colloquial adjectives.
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And I'm hopeful about the clammy ground cherries. One advantage to their being native is that they're adapted to the climate. I could put this one in the ground somewhere in my yard and it might come back next year.
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I love that medieval trope of angels leaning out of the sky!
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And yeah, me too, re: leaning out of the sky.
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I'd be really interested to know how the clammy ground cherry got its defining adjective. Or is it one of those local-language names that got anglicised into something inadvertently silly?
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If angels would stick to giving apples to foxes I wouldn't be so apprehensive of them. Maybe the fox feels similarly.
In what sense do the fox's feet belong to your neighbours?
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