My father’s fascination with things of the earth, which (if you’ll pardon the pun) took root as a farmboy in Ireland, has continued in all the years he’s lived in the United States, but somehow it never became part of my genetic inheritance.That is, until I got a Coolpix camera, started experimenting with outdoor shots, and noticed how readers of my blog—heck, even I—responded to shots of flora and fauna.
I was especially taken with the image accompanying this post, which I took while on vacation two weeks ago at the Chautauqua Institution in upstate New York. Still, I had a bit of a problem: I couldn’t name this rather exotic-looking plant.
For help, I turned to another visitor at my inn, who had struck me as unbelievably knowledgeable about everything associated with the place.
Sure enough, she didn’t disappoint me.
“Oh, that’s a giant hosta,” she said matter-of-factly.
“A giant what????” I asked, not trusting my ears.
She helpfully spelled out the name of the plant.
A giant hosta? From the image staring out from my camera, it looked to me more like the hosta that ate Chautauqua—no, make that the entire southwest corner of New York State. It summoned memories of the talking and singing plant of Little Shop of Horrors (in the baritone of Motown’s Levi Stubbs), pleading with hapless Rick Moranis with an urgency not even heard on the Four Tops singer's peerless “Reach Out” or “Bernadette”: “Feed me, Seymour!”
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