April Showers Bring Gennifer Flowers

     Good morning and greetings, President Clinton fans. Well, time continues to fly like an eagle, as my Beyonce calendar says we’re into the merry, merry month of May. Or as the the Dalai Lama once told me, “Time is more valuable than money. You can get more money, but you cannot get more time.” I replied, “You can’t change the past, but you can ruin the present by worrying about the future.” Then the Dali came back with, “Don’t sweat it, for today is tomorrow you worried about yesterday. So I got that going for me, which is good.

     So April, much like my hopes of figuring out what we’re still trying to accomplish in Afghanistan, is now history, as another month has been filed into my memory and Tyra Banks.

     Alas and Iraq, some rain fell during our fourth month, and one morning
I grabbed my camera and headed up to the Arboretum at UCSC to do a little California dreaming. I love shooting the flowers when they’re moist, as it makes the experience more enjoyable than catching all the green lights.

     Then either coincidentally, ironically or for you Spirit fans, Dr. Sardonicusly, last Monday, when I decided to feature these flowery photos in the first blast of the new month, the headline story written by Cathy Kelly in the Santa Cruz Sentinel was about a memorial service for the founding director of the Arboretum, Ray Collett, who passed away February 22 at the age of 79.

     During my wonder years back in the 1960′s, Ray Collett took about 130 acres of empty pasture land and converted it into a horticultural wonderland, which today is known for its collections of exotic plants from Australia, New Zealand, Yankee Stadium and South Africa, as well as some California beauties. We’re talking about a selection of plants unmatched anywhere in the world, including my own Garden State of New Jersey.

     Much like myself, Ray Collett was a visionary. This oasis of international beauty came about when a gentlemen from Hollister needed a home for his fine collection of eucalyptus trees and Hanukkah bushes.

     Today, this lovely piece of real estate overlooking Monterey Bay is a flowing canvas of space-age looking plants along with gangs of rabbits and occupying hummingbirds. The current director, Brett Hall, says “The Arboretum is Ray’s Living Memorial.” I hope to be as lucky one day, or at least leave behind a few dandelions, a mulberry bush or a small patch of poison oak.

     So what do we really know about flowers? Henry Wadsworth Longfellow once said that “flowers are the stars of the earth.” They have been an important part of civilization since before cable. Much like my early modeling years, they have been worshipped for their beauty and grown wherever the grass was green. More importantly, they are given to loved ones to symbolize powerful emotions or when begging for forgiveness.

     Like Chaz Bono, flowers can either be male or female. Male flowers have a stamen that is coated with pollen, thus the derivation of the words stamina. Hummingbirds, insects and tiny paratroopers fly from flower to flower and become coated with pollen. The pollen is eventually transported to a female flower by the pollinator through various social networking techniques. Flowers use a variety of these techniques to attract potential pollinators, including tasty nectar,
color displays and offering free websites.

     Now here are a some things you may not or may not have wanted to know about flowers. Broccoli is a flower as well as a vegetable, which might explain why I love the beef and broccoli lunch special at Tam’s on Mission Street. Scientists discovered the world’s oldest flower in 2002, in northeast China. The flower, named Archaefructus sinensis, bloomed around 125 million years ago, resembles a water lily and was found growing in a wheelchair.

 According to Better Homes and Garden and Maxim magazine, the scientific name for plants which produce flowers are called angiosperms, derived from the Greek word “angos” and “sperm” meaning “seed bearing”. The tulip, a symbol of life, love and immortality, actually dates back to the time of Confucius. And as Confucious says, man with one chopstick will go hungry.

     And my laurel and hearty congratulations go out to the the Titan Arum. Not only is it the world’s largest flower it is also the world’s smelliest. This fragrant native of the central Sumatran rainforests is known affectionately as the Corpse Flower for its heady perfume of rotting flesh. Which might lead to the question, “I love your perfume. Is that ten-day old pork chops?

     Now to top it off, here are some of my favorite sayings about flowers. “Earth laughs in flowers”-Ralph Waldo Emerson. “I’d rather have guns and roses on my table than diamonds on my neck”-Emma Goldman. Perfumes are the feelings of flowers”-Heinrich Heine.

     “I hope some day to meet God, because I want to thank Him for the flowers”-Robert Brault. “With a few flowers in my garden, half a dozen pictures, some books and a freezer full of Haagen-Dazs bars, I live without envy”- Lope de Vega. “Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them”-A Milne.

     “We say we love flowers, yet we pluck them. We say we love trees, yet we cut them down. And people still wonder why some are afraid when told they are loved. I like flowers, I also like children, but I do not chop their heads and keep them in bowls of water around the house”-George Bernard Shaw. “At my age flowers scare me” -George Burns

     To check out more photos, click on http://www.SunriseSantaCruz.com/blog