Meet strongylodon macrobotrys

     Under ordinary conditions, we would not have rushed back to the Orchid show 11 days after attending the opening of the 1960s-themed "Feelin' Groovy."
     But we have houseguests, and "Take 'em to the Botanic Garden" is our go-to host move.
     Not that we didn't enjoy our second visit. We did. Particularly this distinctly blue-green pod of flowers found hanging off a vine in the Tropical Greenhouse. Not part of the show — not an orchid, obviously, but strongylodon macrobotrys, also known as a jade vine, a woody creeper endemic to the Philippines. It's not new — the woody vine grows all the way across a wide doorway. I just don't recall ever seeing it in bloom. One of the many appeals of the Garden: no matter how many times you go, and we go a lot, you always see something you didn't notice before.

     Its name, strongylodon macrobotrys, begs for dissection. Strongylos is Greek for round, also describing certain worms and parasites (as well as a village in Cyprus) and odous is tooth, giving us the dread "orthodontist" and showing up in Hebrew, such as in the "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" passage in Matthew. Macro is "large," of course, but also "long," and botrys," is a very old word, found in ancient Greek and Babylonian Aramaic, to describe a bunch of grapes, or unripe dates.

    So "round-toothed long cluster," which certainly describes the flowery calyx (a pod of flowers; good Scrabble word).

     The plant itself is related to — and the Trump administration wouldn't want me to tell you this, which is reason aplenty to dive into the story in detail — a notorious moment in the intersection between botany and colonialism.
     In 1836, Congress authorized the U.S. Exploring Expedition, "for the purpose of exploring and surveying the Southern Ocean, ... as well to determine the existence of all doubtful islands and shoals, as to discover, and accurately fix, the position of those..."
     The six-ship flotilla, with 500 officers and men, as well as nine civilian scientists, left Chesapeake Bay on Aug. 18, 1838 and was gone for four years, logging 87,000 miles and hitting the Philippines in 1840, where strongylodon macrobotrys was first collected. It was the last U.S. nautical mission to circumnavigate the globe completely under sail. led by a New York naval officer, Charles Wilkes, experienced with charts and instruments (he studied under Nathaniel Bowditch, whose "American Practical Navigator" is used to this day), but not actual seafaring or relations with native populations. When two sailors were killed in Fiji, bartering for food, Wilkes seized 80 Fijians and killed them.

     The U.S. Naval Institute described Wilkes (no relation to John Wilkes Booth; I checked) who was considered by some a model for both Ahab and Capt. Queeg, this way:

     "Wilkes never doubted his ability to complete with total success any task he undertook. With this self-assurance, however, came a huge ego, and this ego was in turn covered by a paper-thin skin. Wilkes was quick to detect a slight or insult, real or imagined, and was unforgiving of the perpetrator(s). He was extremely excitable and suspicious by nature, constantly suspecting officers of forming cabals to plot against his authority."

     Nevertheless, the mission was considered a success. Naturalist Titian Peale declared it had elevated “our country in the rank of Civilized nations.”

     A reminder that it is the engaging in science, not the dismantling of it, that brings respect. Or did. 

     When he returned, Wilkes was court-martialed for excessive cruelty to his men but retained his position — it isn't just the CPD that lets its bad apples stick around and fester — and during the Civil War, Wilkes seized a British Mail ship, almost drawing Britain into the war against the Union, for which he was court-martialed again. He retired a rear admiral.

     Well, I'd say we got enough for today from some interestingly-colored flowers.