Antipodal reduplicative flowering just down the street from me in Palo Alto, discovered on Thursday on a little neighborhood exploration with León Hernández Alvarez (hereafter, LH). A gorgeous display of an exotic plant in the otherwise featureless recessed back entrance of a company that’s sandwiched between my condo complex and the one to the south.
Here’s the building:
(#1) 744 Ramona St. (from Google maps), with nothing inside or outside of the building
And the plant in bloom (quite a surprise in the context of #1):
(#2) A mass planting along paths in the Sydney, Australia, Botanic Gardens (from the GardensOnline site); at 744 Ramona, it’s a somewhat smaller planting in a big pot, but still quite stunning
So, four things: the plant, Arthropodium cirratum, native to New Zealand; the location in my neighborhood, 744 Ramona St. (the backdoor to 745 Emerson St., which runs all the way through the block); my little venture around the block, the first in many months; and LH, in a return engagement as my all–around homecare person (well, for 4 hours a week).
Rengarenga! From Wikipedia:
Arthropodium cirratum (renga lily, New Zealand rock lily, rengarenga, or maikaika) is a species of herbaceous perennial plant, endemic to New Zealand, where it may once have been farmed. It is used for medicine as well as food, and has symbolic importance in traditional Māori culture.
The Māori name rengarenga is a reduplication of Proto-Polynesian *renga which in other related languages corresponds to turmeric, especially its powdered form (see Samoan: lega, Hawaiian: lena); this association is due to both plants’ similar stem and root characteristics. [AZ: no, you cannot escape linguistics, not around me]
… The flower stalk often reaches one metre, and bears many white six-petalled flowers, in groups of two or three, each about 2 cm (0.8 in) across. The stamens are tricoloured — purple and white, with yellow at the curled end.
A flower, close up:
(#3) Arthropodium cirratum ‘Matapouri Bay’ flower (from the Plantin site)
The renga lily is in the asparagus family, Asparagaceaea (which includes the garden plants asparagus, yucca, and hosta as well as the houseplants spider plant and snake plant).
744 Ramona St. Just down the street from my condo complex, and (on the other side) next to another little condo complex (at the Ramona and Homer corner) that I’ve posted about a number of times. When 744 Ramona / 745 Emerson was built, it served as as an automotive repair shop; the University South neighborhood was at that time part workers’ cottages (mostly for the Southern Pacific Railroad) and part automobile-oriented businesses (including a car dealership that became the local Whole Foods; and various kinds of automotive service shops), most of which have been converted to other uses or built over.
744 Ramona / 745 Emerson spent some time as a bowling alley, and since then has housed a variety of tech-related businesses.
My venture into the neighborhood. With my excellent outdoor walker (which has wheels that can cope with the irregularities of the ground outside and brakes to hold it in place and a padded seat to rest on for a moment along the way). The rain is over — I can’t manage the walker in the rain, have no way to protect myself or the machine — and it is, for the moment, merely summery warm, not blisteringly hot, so it’s actually pleasant to go out in the world.
Two problems: my DoE (dyspnea — shortness of breath — on exertion), which means I have to stop a lot to catch my breath; and my dysfunctional gut (still not working properly after my gall bladder surgery, a year ago), which keeps me very close to a bathroom for about two hours after I eat anything, so that I’m mostly confined to my house.
But there are times of the day — mornings around 9 or 10, afternoons around 2 or 3 — when I can venture out, to go on medical appointments or just to walk a bit in the neighborhood (for pleasure or for the exercise).
All conditions were good on Thursday, when LH, here doing deep housecleaning, offered to walk with me.
We went out my front door, across Ramona and though the library parking lot to Bryant St., where there are huge coast redwoods and wonderful gardens that people tend to lovingly; around the corner onto Homer Ave. to Ramona; then along Ramona, past the condo on the corner, then the building at 744 (#1 above), where the renga lilies were a delightful surprise, and along the units of my condo till we came to mine. We got to stop and identify flowers, shrubs, and trees (in both Spanish and English; LH carries a Mexican phone and a American phone), so our progress was stately. My DoE was minimal, but for one leg of the tour I was light-headed and had some trouble word-finding (bruise went out of my head for a while; it was relevant because I have a lot of them, thanks to the blood thinner I’m taking, and LH didn’t know what they were called in English); I realized later that the problem was a spell of too-low blood pressure, which righted itself by the time we got to the renga lilies.
A small but very significant pleasure. LH is plotting more outings.
León. LH came to me after my gall bladder surgery and took over all the housework as well as caring for me physically; his English was minimal (as was my Spanish), but his work ethic and his empathy were extraordinary. He became my companion and my friend (we are two gay men, widely separated in age, from very different backgrounds, so there was a lot to talk about) but when we couldn’t justify having him come in every day of the week any more, the service he worked for switched him to full-time care for a dementia patient in Pacifica, and, sadly, I no longer got to see him face to face.
But in my 9/8/23 posting “Japanese symbolic culture, inscribed on León’s arm”, I posted
About my friend (and former caregiver) … [LH] and the tattoos covering his left arm, from wrist to shoulder, reflecting his deep sympathy with the symbolic culture of Japan.
Now the patient in Pacifica has died, and LH was cut loose from his service and became available to do one 4-hour visit a week for me (a gigantic improvement in my life). Much has changed: he has a car (which he could use to take me on outings) and a boyfriend and dramatically improved fluency in English (thanks to night classes he took on top of all the other things he does; LH is a demon for self-improvement). He’s also becoming Americanized, not giving up his love for Mexico, but increasingly casting his lot in life with the US.
Now we think about going to the Gamble Garden (where I haven’t been for years), and he’s proposing to cook some Mexican meals for me (or I could teach him to cook American food, or both).
Social bonus. This week ends with a visit from a former Stanford grad student of mine (and good friend), the Francophone Armenian-Canadian — I just love saying that, but then I’m a Pennsylvania Dutch Anglophone Swiss-American — Luc Vartan Baronian, briefly in California from Québec. Truly, my cup overflows.
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