Nepenthe

   Nepanthes maximum, a carnivorous plant that eats insects (Photo: LadydragonflyCC/Flickr ) Once the idea of a giant, flesh-eating plant enters the imagination, it can be hard to dislodge. Imagine this: you’re in the jungle, and you discover a plant with surprisingly large, tentacle-like leaves. The clearing is full of a heavy, sweet smell. Maybe there’s an animal skeleton under the plant. Did the leaves move? Was that just the wind? You move closer, and the plant seems to yearn towards you…. Or this: in a grey European greenhouse, there’s a strange plant growing. No one has been able to identify it, and it’s yours to study. This could be your shot at botanical immortality; for now, no one needs to know that you’re keeping it alive with hunks of meat... These are tales that get told over and over again–whether they’re about a “man-sucking tree” in east Africa or the Devil’s Snare in Central America, whether the strange plant is in a hothouse in En...

I am not a fan but, even as a layperson, I concede the man was a genius. Check all the photos by Matthew M. Kaelin

  When first seen by botanist and explorer Joseph Dalton Hooker in 1859, he described them as "one of the most striking vegetable productions hither-to discovered," but it wasn't until 1862 that someone first notice just how unusual these plants really were. Nepenthes Rajah is the largest of the pitcher plants, and is also the largest carnivorous plant in the world, sometimes referred to as the King of the Pitcher Plants. It is essentially a trap filled with up to three and half liters of water and two and a half liters of digestive fluid. It is evolved to lure insects to it, and when the insects fall in, they are unable to escape and are digested by the plant. While insects, particularly ants, are by far the Giant Malaysian Pitcher Plant (aka the Rajah Brooke's Pitcher Plant, aka the King of Nepenthes, aka Nepenthes rajah) main staple, occasionally the large plants catch bigger prey. On a number of occasions rats have been found half-digested inside the pi...

Barely noticeable, but perhaps significant, was the reference in The Odyssey to the drug nepenthes , which may have been opium. Certainly in classical Greece the god of sleep wore a garland of poppies. From A History of Sin , currently under translation.

He may be best known for his mellifluous tones and gentle manner, but for one group of botanists Sir David Attenborough clearly conjures up different associations. Explorers who discovered a new species of giant rodent-eating carnivorous plant have named it after the TV naturalist. Nepenthes attenboroughii , a previously unknown variety of pitcher plant discovered on a remote mountain in the Philippines, is so big that small rodents could be trapped inside and slowly dissolved by flesh-eating enzymes. It is thought that only a few hundred of the plants exist, growing only on one mountain on the island of Palawan. The species was discovered by a team of scientists who had heard reports from missionaries who got lost in the dense jungle. Stewart McPherson, Alastair Robinson and Volker Heinrich decided to name the plant after Sir David as an “expression of gratitude” for his decades of work celebrating the natural world. “He has inspired a generation into protecting ...

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore-- While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. "'Tis some visiter," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door-- Only this and nothing more." Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December, And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly I wished the morrow;--vainly I had sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow--sorrow for the lost Lenore-- For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore-- Nameless here for evermore. And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Thrilled me--filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before; So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating "'Tis some visiter entreating entrance at my chambe...

WHEN he moved there from France in 1940, Henry Miller, who had grown up in Brooklyn, called Big Sur his “first real home in America.” Running from Carmel, 150 miles south of San Francisco , to San Simeon, Big Sur's mass of tight mountains pushes brazenly against the Pacific swell. Kelp forests sway at the feet of rugged sea cliffs. Deep valleys shelter some of the southernmost redwoods. The only way through this fastness is along winding, breathtaking California Route 1. Nearly two decades after settling in, Miller wrote “Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch,” a collection of fond, philosophical sketches that expressed a nostalgia for the place born of his fear that Big Sur's magic could only wane as more people came to visit. Certainly, summers can be a crush here, a paradise lost of RV traffic jams and overcrowded facilities. Yet in winter, nature reasserts itself. Whales, elephant seals and monarch butterflies arrive after travels that have taken them thousan...

"Then methought the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer Swung by Seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor. 'Wretch,' I cried, 'thy God hath lent thee- by these angels he hath sent thee Respite- respite and nepenthe , from thy memories of Lenore! Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!' Quoth the Raven, 'Nevermore.' " [The Raven - Edgar Allan Poe]

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Esta é a milésima vez que afixamos qualquer coisa (tinha que fugir ao termo que, para variar, não se tem traduzido, post ). Conheci-o na América. Nos Estados Unidos da América, no estado que se pretende mais emblemático, a Califórnia. No coração do Silicon Valley - que não se podia ter revelado mais disperso nem maior - porque somos ambos tradutores informáticos. Grande palavrão, muita parra pouca uva, isto depois de sermos ambos ratões de biblioteca e apaixonados por línguas. Somos ambos ibéricos - coisa que não podia ser mais díspar, tanto que nunca me dá para dizer isto - eu sou portuguesa e ele é espanhol. Tem havido mais amizade e cooperação do que a pertença à mesma multinacional deixaria entrever. Em língua franca, a inglesa, ou a americanizada. E por isso gostamos sempre da América. Viva a blogosfera, até daqui a mais mil posts ! (e pronto!) Nepenthe! Esta es la milésima vez que vamos a publicar algo. Ya parece que fue ayer cuando echamos a andar este blog, con el ...

nepenthe SYLLABICATION: ne·pen·the NOUN: 1. A drug mentioned in the Odyssey as a remedy for grief. 2. Something that induces forgetfulness of sorrow or eases pain. ETYMOLOGY: Alteration of Latin népenthes , from Greek népenthes ( pharmakon ), grief-banishing (drug), nepenthe, neuter of népenthés : né , not; see ne in Appendix I + penthos , grief; see kwent(h) - in Appendix I. OTHER FORMS: ne·penthe·an --ADJECTIVE From Bartleby