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Re: One more take on Dolphin Flower

Hey Jo Ellen Myers Sharp----

Hi to Hoosierland, especially New Harmony. I really miss it---a very happy 10 years there, and the spring ephemerals are the best in the country, boy, do I miss those acres of bluebells and wild sweet William. (Though I don't miss the humidity and tornados one bit.)

If you can stand one more comment on your dolphin flower question (and pls forgive me if this was already covered!)---

I learned to garden at my mother's knee. She quit school in 8th grade to go to work in a silk mill; her parents came from Czechoslovakia and never spoke English. Just to get credentials out of the way.

She taught me all the wild mushrooms to pick, plus lots of names of birds and plants and herbal lore, plus how to eat honey from honeysuckle, and see the doves at the dish in a columbine flower, you get the idea. Backcountry hicks, I loved it, still live that way, even though I'm in PDX suburbia now.

Anyway, Mom always called delphiniums and larkspur "dolphin flowers." Know why? Because the buds look exactly like dolphins, they even have little "mouths."

Now, I never saw a dolphin til I was in my 20s, and my mom never ever saw one. But I could picture them, sort of, from the dolphin flower buds.

I remember when I was like 5, hadn't started school yet (this would be late 1950s), I was looking at a National Geographic and came across a picture of a fountain or statue or something, and there were the dolphins at the corners, exactly like our dolphin flowers. Too cool. I ran out to find my mom (in the garden, natch) to show her. I remember we arched our backs and held the hose behind our heads, pretending to be dolphins like on the fountain.

Thanks for giving me the chance to shoehorn in a warm memory. Have fun with your flowers.
-Sally


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