Nerd!

Keanu Reeves looks like an Asian man, and then he looks like a teenage girl, and then he looks like an older, balding guy in coveralls.  Wearing some kind of outfit that constantly changes the way he appears, he stands in front of a group of civic-minded businessmen and tells them about the dangers of  “substance D”. 

Last night I started to watch A Scanner Darkly, which features a cartoon version of Keanu as a cop in a drug addicted, futuristic society in which nearly everyone is addicted to “substance D”. 

The drug, Keanu claims, comes from a plant he identifies as Clerodendron ugandens, which sounds remarkably like a plant called Clerodendron ugandense, which I have planted by my kitchen door.  I guess I just didn’t realize it was such a dangerous plant.  Then Keanu shows his audience a picture of “Clerodendron ugandens”, and the picture he shows is actually of Plumbago auriculata.  Plumbago is also a pretty flower, but it’s no Clerodendron.  I spent the next 20 minutes thinking about Clerodendron and wondering what else he was going to mis-identify throughout the movie.  And this is the problem with being a plant-nerd.



The dangerous and apparently addictive Clerodendron ugandense



Plumbago auriculata

I am a plant-nerd.  I have been for years.  Moreover, I love being a plant-nerd.  I like being around other plant-nerds.  I like the language (all those obscure Latin names and lanceolate thises and alternate or opposite thatses).  I love how plant-nerds remember places and times by what was either leafing out or blooming.  But there’s a drawback to this hyper-awareness of plants.  The process of plant identification can get in the way of, for example, watching a movie.  And, be warned, it can get annoying to non-plant-nerds.

About fifteen years ago I lived with three other guys while we all went to school.  At some point, a copy of a Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition showed up, which I guess is not that unusual in a house full of college-age guys.  I remember one of my roommates flipping through it one day and making some comment like “Gee, look at this young woman.  She looks like she comes from a nice family, and she’s probably a great cook as well.”  Granted, my memory of the comment may be a bit fuzzy.  In any case, he turned the magazine my way, and there was this woman in a bikini with a hibiscus behind her.  Fifteen years later, I have no idea is she was a brunette or a blonde.  I don’t remember what the bikini looked like.  I do remember wondering if that was a ‘Lord Baltimore’ hibiscus behind her.  Plant nerdness strikes again.

This is an advertisement for a Crinum called 'Elizabeth Traub'.  Trust me, there's a flower in the picture.

My wife and I decided to watch the original ‘Star Trek’ series.  For over a year we watched Captain Kirk smirk his way across the universe with Spock and Bones.  Whenever they found themselves on Albyron-6 or some such thing, and if it was supposed to be a tropical planet, I was always amazed at the foliage they had to hack through.  Apparently there are a lot of Philodendrons and Pampas Grass in space.  And if it's a really alien planet, the Philodendrons are painted silver.  Consequently, I missed some of the plot lines, though that doesn’t really matter with Star Trek.  Here’s the plot to three-fourths of the Star Trek episodes: the Captain and crew encounter some kind of weird, alien life-form- Spock says “logically”-  Captain Kirk seduces any female alien that looks even remotely human- the entire ship allllllmost either blows up or dissipates into pure energy- Captain Kirk gets a far-off look in his eye and comments that by learning about the aliens, they actually learned about themselves.  Throw in a few Ficus trees, and you’ve got a show. 

The Captain contemplates a dangerous Philodendron.

Pretty much wherever my wife and I go on vacation, we wind up in a plant nursery somewhere, looking past that seasonal annuals or the tomatoes for that plant that we just can’t find around Austin.  This has led to us once carrying a nearly thirty-gallon tree back to Elgin from Medina.  Or holding our luggage in our laps because the back seat was full of perennials.  Or nearly causing a wreck because we’re trying to identify a rose on a fence as we zip past at 70 miles per hour.  Or keeping plastic baggies in our pockets whenever we go on a walk because you just never know when a few errant seeds might happen to fall off a really interesting plant. 

So this is the dark side of plant nerdiness.  Go ahead, put some marigolds in your front bed, or some petunias in a pot.  Those are just gateway plants.  Soon enough you’ll be planning your weekends around whatever is coming into bloom.  Now you’re a plant-nerd. 

Enjoy!