Magical Botany I

         Welcome to the #AtoZChallenge !  My theme this year is the Botany of the Realms of Imagination, in which I share a selection of the magical plants of folklore, fairy tale, and fantasy.  You can find all my fellow A to Z bloggers on the Master List of participating blogs here. 

        Following up on the last post, the ancient Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh features another magical plant, which I’ve got today under I because it’s often called the “flower of Immortality,” although it’s really neither.  What it grants is youth, though possibly not eternal youth or actual immortality, and it doesn’t seem to be a flower at all.  We know that it grows at the bottom of the sea, that it looks like box-thorn, and it has a thorn like the dog-rose.  It’s called šammu nikitti, which literally means “plant of the heart-beat.”  Gilgamesh never does get to eat it and regain his youth, because he wants to test a bit on someone else first —then while he’s taking a bath a snake steals it, and the snake then sheds its skin as it slithers away, fresh and young again.

        The second illustration of the Flower of Immortality comes from the island of Amarantos, to which we were first introduced at the letter D.  

        And while we’re here, I wanted to share two more of the plants from that island, a huge number of which are insect-plant hybrids.  

Most of the flowers are capable of independent flight like butterflies, and I’ve also selected one with winged seeds like dragonflies.  It’s mysterious and wonderful that whatever pressures drove the evolution of the plants on this isolated landmass, they’ve ended up demonstrating many of the survival strategies used by insects in the rest of the world.

        I couldn’t go through an entire alphabet of magical plants without mentioning Plants vs Zombies.  This video game (or a whole franchise of games by now, I guess) is based on the simple and logical premise that your best defense against a zombie attack would be a yard full of magical plants.  As representative samples I have chosen two that start with I.  The Intensive Carrot, whose name is a reference to “intensive care,” has the ability to revive other plants using vitamins and sorcery.  The Infi-nut is a hologram projection of a Wall-nut, and can absorb damage, as well as regenerating itself over time.

        The Irrwurz, on the other hand, is not one of the good guys.  Like the hungry grass at G, it works its cursed magic on those who step on it.  It grows throughout German-speaking areas in Europe.  While different subspecies can have slightly different effects, the common trait is that stepping on Irrwurz causes you to go astray from your path and become helplessly lost.  The possible remedies, which may guard against the problem in the first place, or may just help you find your way again after you’re lost, include switching your shoes onto the wrong feet, going barefoot, or turning an article of clothing inside-out.  The effect will also be knocked off you once someone else comes along and steps on the Irrwurz after you.  As for what this troublesome plant looks like, there’s a certain amount of disagreement.  The top three theories are that it’s some kind of fern, that it’s related to plantain, or that it’s a tree with roots that are crossed in a particular way.  Similar plants can be found in France and Ireland, where they’re referred to by the general name of “stray sods.”

        The gardening tip of the day comes from the plant of “immortality”: don’t get cold feet and put off doing something you want to do, lest you lose your opportunity.

        The moral of Intensive Carrot and Infi-nut is that you can always identify a zombie because they’re the only people who hate gardens.

        The moral of Irrwurz is that if you try to hike around with your clothes on inside out and your shoes on the wrong feet, you won’t get lost — because you’ll be too uncomfortable to walk beyond sight of your own front door!

        Have you ever gotten lost while hiking?  Did switching your shoes solve the problem?

[Pictures: Plant of Immortality (actually, this is African broom), illustration by Mîrzâ Bâqir from Arabic translation of De materia medica, 1889-90 (Image from The New York Library);

Flower of Immortality, illustration from Amarant, by Una Woodruff, 1981;

Insect-Plants, illustrations from Amarant, by Woodruff, 1981;

Intensive Carrot and Infi-nut, images from Plants vs Zombies by PopCap Studios (Images from Fandom);

Irrwurz (actually, this is plantain), hand-colored wood block print from De Materia Medica by Dioscorides, 1555 (Image from Library of Congress).]