Winecup or poppy mallow - Calirhoe involucrate is a low growing sprawling perennial with beautiful wine-colored cup- shaped flowers. They are blooming all along our roadways here in North Texas.Native Americans used the roots as a food source. The root is sweet and starchy.
I found a Native American legend, which tells of the wine cups origin. The old king was sick. Many feared that he would die soon. The doctors call the king’s oldest son to the kings bedside.
As he cried over his father, the boy had an idea. He would dance the Dance of the Winecups as a final tribute to his father.
The boy began to dance while balancing cups of wine in his palms. As he danced, he began to spin faster and faster spilling drops of wine on the ground.
The next morning he returned to his father’s bedside. He found his father chatting with friends and eating. The gods were so impressed with the boy’s dance that they had restored his father’s health. On the ground where the drops of wine fell while the boy had danced the evening before beautiful cup-shaped wine-colored flowers had sprouted.
I found some great information at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center website
http://www.wildflower.org/ There is a whole section on wildflower ledgends. Check it out.
Now if you have a wildflower post or link or just something wild, leave me a comment and I will link you.
Matt and Jen at Our First Garden went camping and got some great wildflower shots. Check them out.
Rose cottage Garden wildflower post also.
That's a really neat story. I like folklore.
ReplyDeleteThank you jane marie, I have enjoyed looking into them.
ReplyDeleteI love that story. Thank you for the link. We do not have those wildflowers here in Kentucky. Wish we did.
ReplyDeleteHi barbee, glad you enjoyed the legend. I am having fun looking them up.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the shout out Aunt Deb! I love that NA story. It's amazing how creative people are to make sense of the world around them. By the way, my brother and I used to climb the walls and doorways too. I took one look at that little monkey of yours and had a serious Spiderman flashback. (Being barefoot is the key) heeheee -Jen :)
ReplyDeleteHi, Deb, thank you for the Blotanicals welcome. I visited Texas years ago, when my kids were five and 18 months (they're now 18 and 14). We toured for three weeks, from Houston and the Davy Crockett National Forest down to Brownsville via Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio. I was absolutely knocked out by the wild flowers: lakes of bluebonnets, and Indian paintbrushes and blanketflower growing by the side of the highway. Gorgeous!
ReplyDeleteHi Jen, your welcome. Loved you pictures. You seem to have grown up just fine. You give me hope that he won't grow up to scale buildings in a spiderman outfit and get arrested in France.
ReplyDeleteHi Backyardwoman, So glad you stopped by. We are very lucky here with all the wildflowers. Timing is everything. We are just about past the peak of the season right now.
Sigh... I love winecups!!! And bluebonnets and paintbrushes and... You all are so lucky to have such gorgeous wildflowers. Great legend, too! As for your Monkey antics, I agree with Jen that bare feet are key. I can just see my niece and nephew doing that now! (Good thing *they* didn't see that photo...)
ReplyDeleteofb, glad you are back and had a good time in DC. Considering that child never wears shoes unless I hold him down and put them on him, he pretty much can scale anything.
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