As I flew back to London from my winter holidays spent in Sicily (where I saw my closest family and barely met my friends due to all the understandable restrictions ), I assisted to another spectacular view of Her Volcanic Majesty Mt. Etna a few minutes from departure from Catania’s airport Fontanarossa.
A stunning view of Mount Etna from North-East; Visible beyond the silhouette of the volcano is what I believe to be the town of Bronte (I may be wrong!), all surrounded by little shiny water bodies and a far, dazzling Pozzillo lake (?). A sunset enlightened, golden Mediterranean Sea embraces the southern Sicilian coast in the distance.
Southern Europe sky.
Mount Etna and Ionian blue off the shores of the Gulf of Catania.
After a fairly long pause, I am back to guide you through the English rural landscapes, and in the near future, I aim to create some “ambience rooms” in the blog to bring you all with me in my meditative walks, where the fields meet the concrete and where the sounds of nature invade the outskirts of the civilised world.
As of now, enjoy a new addition to my herbarium, and see you very soon folks!
Knautia arvensis
Field scabious (🇮🇹 Ambretta)
Present in all Europe and western Asia, the name of its Genus (Knautia) was given by Linnaeus himself to honour the memory of the Saxon botanist Christian Knaut, who died in the same year (1716) of the publication of his principal book: Methodus Plantarum. The species name derives from Latin: “arvensis” = “of the fields” since the favourite habitat of this plant is the meadows. The common name “field scabiuos” is due to the fact that species of the scabious group (like the Devil’s bit scabious or Succisa pratensis) were treated to treat scabies and other affliction of the skin including sores caused by the bubonic plague. The word scabies comes from the Latin word for “scratch”(scăbo, scăbis, scabi, scăbÄ•re).
The first page of the Methodus Plantarum by Christian Knaut (1716)
Succisa Pratensis (Devil’s bit scabious) – from Wikipedia
This post resumes the herbarium I started on the post “Misterious Shapes”, adding some new flowers’ scientific names and the related trivia that caught my eyes while roaming the wondrous hidden meadows of the internet. Yyppee!
Papaver rhoeas
Poppy (🇮🇹 Papavero)
The common poppy is a flowering plant originating from Eurasia and North Africa. It is closely related to the Opium poppy (Papaver somniferum), from whose fruit morphine and other alkaloids are derived. Instead, people traditionally used the common poppy’s leaves to prepare a calming infuse for kids for their mild calming properties. I’ll leave you below a Papaver somniferum picture from Wikipedia for your reference.
In the Commonwealth, people refer to it as a symbol of remembrance of the soldiers who died during WW1, as many poppies grew in the Flanders, one of the main settings where the trench warfare took place.
Imagine yourself walking through an English field. It’s midsummer, and the sun is setting below the bushes and meadows, under a clear pink-tinged sky. The wind blows gently, carrying all the fresh fragrances and the aroma of the evening blooms, where the bumblebees clumsily bump into to collect the last pollen of the day.
I went for a stroll to Hobson park a couple weeks ago, where I have found a moltitude of tall yellow flowers blooming in the fields. I decided to make an effort and memorise the scientific names of the most common flowers in the park. There you have a few pictures and names in the caption.
🌿PS. Enjoy the sounds in the video as well 🙂
– Herbarium –
Oenothera glazioviana
Large-flowered evening primrose (🇮🇹 Enagra di Lamarck)
Biennial herb, can grow up to 1.5 m high, and has a large bundle of flowers on top, each sustained by a red sepal or calix. It is originally a North American species, brought in in Europe in the late 17th century in the botanical gardens of Padua, in northern Italy, for its beauty. Intrestingly, its flowers bloom at sunset in a matter of seconds and by dawn they lose their beauty and wither. On the following evening, new flowers bloom.
Hugo De Vries, dutch botanist, studied this species extensively for its genetical transmission patterns, and even though arriving to erronous conclusions, it helped boosting the interest and the research in the field of mutations (term actually invented by De Vries himself).
Verbascum thapsus
Great mullein (🇮🇹 Verbasco / Tasso barbasso)
Biennial flower, can grow up to 2 metres. Caravaggio used it in many of his paintings, such as the “Riposo dalla fuga in Egitto” (Rest on the flight into Egypt) representing its common ancient meaning of redemption and rebirth, or in the “San Giovanni Battista” (St John the baptist) as an allusion to the “Root of Jesse”, where Jesse was the father of King David in the Bible, therefore referring to Jesse’s ancestry, i.e. the Israel or Davidic family line.
Centaurea nigra
Lesser knapweed or black knapweed (🇮🇹 Fiordaliso scuro)
The generic latin name Centaurea refers to the mythical character of Chiron, who used a cornflower to heal his wounded foot. In greek mythology, Chiron was the wisest and most gentle of the centaurs, born half horse and half human since his father Chronos turned himself to a horse to seduce his mother Filira. He had many apprentices, including Achilles, Jason and Asclepius, the greek god of medicine. For this reason Chiron is considered the forefather of the medical sciences in the greek myth.
PS. Have you noticed this beauty laying on the bract? 👆 😉 I think it’s an aphid?
I potted all of the succulent plants today ( I realised I had far less dirt than I needed but hopefully for now it’ll do).
I did it for all apart from the Aptenia Cordifolia, whose stump I dipped in a couple inches of water to let the roots sprout, then I will be able to pot it too).
As I promised I try to look for the common and scientific names of all, but for a few of them I am not convinced of what I have found yet, so I decided to put a question mark on their presumed names. Theeere you go
My IT skills are so advanced I decided to edit the image on paint. Classy.
Altough I am all set for a very productive day of work from home (and day 3 of self-isolation after my arrival from Italy), I aim to make a little pause later today or maybe in the evening after I finish to chill with my beloved photosynthesising friends.
I brought a juicy batch of succulent plants from Sicily. I picked them from my parent’s rather spectacular balcony and I let them rest for a couple of days before transplanting them to their new pots. (Also I am waiting for the cacti transplantation kit to be delivered today, mostly for the plastic tray that I can use to avoid making a huge mess in my room).
There is no rush, plants know how to chill, that’s why we get on so well togheter.
For now I’ll leave them to their “plant yoga”.
I promise I’ll write down their common and scientific names one by one later today 🙂
I haven’t mentioned the really nice couple of days spent in Sila, a mountainous region in Calabria, where me and my friends have decided to set our destination a few days after my arrival to Sicily. We had to cross the Messina Channel that divides Sicily from the Italian mainland and then we aimed to reach lake Ampollino as our first stop.
Ampollino Lake (Sila, Calabria)
We then moved to some stables in the town of Camigliatello, which is also a stunning winter destination. It was my second time riding a horse, the place was extremely beautiful and calm; One wouldn’t necessarily expect such a beautiful and ancient forest in the most southern region of Italy (Well the Etna Natural Park is even more to the south actually).
The following day we moved to Tropea, renouned coastal beauty, and the locals suggested to visit a -secret- bay, hidden by vegetation, known as “Paradiso dei Sub”. I had quite of a jaw drop when I saw it.
Needless to say, the water was pristine and its temperature warm enough to let us stay a good hour swimming around the bay before getting out of water. Calabria is cool, people.
In the last months Mt. Etna has erupted almost continuously, making it currently the most active volcano in the world.
Mt. Etna erupting, view from Ognina (Catania). A tiny red spot on the crater announces the start of the eruptive event.
I was dining with my family at the Ognina dock in Catania (one of my favourite spots, I like it for its authenticity), when we saw in the distance a lava fountain emerging from the summit crater (I believe it was the south-east crater, the most visible from Catania).
Needless to say, Mt Etna gave us an amazing show.
And no, it’s not dangerous, as these eruptions allow the volcano to decompress its inner pressure and the lava flows into a huge valley called “Valle del Bove” which resembles a lava desert from a Peter Jackson movie ( Look at it! )
So it doesn’t come towards the cities, and anyhow the amount has been limited*.
*All the above is valid untill the day we are all gonna die. ha 🙂
Few days later, we had an amazing eruption. It was rather spectacular and it lasted for a couple of hours. I had never seen it like that. The lava fountain has been estimated to be around 800 metres high!
It may sound silly, but I feel a very deep connection with mount Etna. First of all is a stunning natural reserve, and very diverse with a very florid flora and fauna. From people around the world it can be seen as a scary calamity, but the whole region got his fertility and unicity from it, and we have always lived in harmony and balance, benefitting from the natural riches coming from it.
I spent a lovely time back to Sicily. After a long year I managed to visit my parents and gather with one of my two sisters (she came from Venice). I needed the warmth and sunshine I used to despise as a gloomy italian teenager…
A golden sunset welcomed me at my stopover in Rome; 2. Lush grass and silk trees, all pink with flowers at a friend’s place in Costa Saracena; 3. Fontante Bianche shore; 4. A fluffy customer relaxing in Varco 23 Lido in the Plemmirio Nature Reserve
I kept myself, my family and friends very busy exploring the eastern shores of the island, especially the area of Siracusa, which I genuinely enjoyed to re-discover.
The territory is starkly different from Catania’s. While Catania sits under the lush volcanic slopes of Mount Etna, where the soil is black with volcanic sediments and nutritious lavic dust, Siracusa is dominated by white calcareous mountains and low rural sandstone walls, contouring a countryside that gets quite yellowish and dry during summer, with green patches of olive trees (🇮🇹 ulivi) and prickly pears (🇮🇹 fichi d’India).
The sea is charged with an almost sub-tropical beauty, the water painted with shades of light green and blue but so transparent that the many coastal fishes and shrimps seem to fly above the shallow seabed.
Funky Lab 