Yellow Coster Larva

Yellow Coster (Telchinia issoria, 苎麻珍蝶). Larva.

Cold weather is coming: it is the time of year to revisit some old pictures. This caterpillar was romping around Hengshan, mid-October 2023.

An Excess of Wonder

Umberto Eco, Interpretation and Overinterpretation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 50:

an excess of wonder leads to overestimating the importance of coincidences which are explainable in other ways

East Asian Eurya

East Asian Eurya (Eurya japonica, 柃木).

A fairly tall shrub, it blossoms in spring and early winter and has been used in Traditional Chinese Medicine to reduce dampness, swelling and bleeding. Growing here in Wangling Park.

Happy Life

Stephen Paget and J.M.C. Crum, Francis Paget (London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1912), pp. 25-26 [From a letter from Francis Paget to his sister c. 1870-72]:

"I have come to the conclusion that old china & a good conscience are, after all, the chief requisites for a happy life."

Muskmelon

Muskmelon (Cucumis melo, 甜瓜).

Growing wild in the mud by the Xiang river. This plant has been widely cultivated from antiquity, but who knows how long ago its progenitor escaped some local garden to grow here.

Philosophy Retreating

Jonathan Haidt. The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion (New York : Pantheon Books, 2012), p. 141:

However, philosophy began retreating from observation and empathy in the nineteenth century, placing ever more emphasis on reasoning and systematic thought. As Western societies became more educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic, the minds of its intellectuals changed. They became more analytic and less holistic.

Slender Bracken

Slender Bracken (Pteris ensiformis, 剑叶凤尾蕨).

A species of bracken growing on Yuelu Mountain and a reminder that at some time I wish to look more closely at local ferns. It is used in Traditional Chinese Medicine to clear away heat and to promote diuresis.

The Sea

Richard Powers, Playground: A Novel (London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2024):

No human being knew what life on Earth really looked like. How could they? They lived on the land, in the marginal kingdom of aberrant outliers. All the forests and savannas and wetlands and deserts and grasslands on all the continents were just afterthoughts, ancillaries to the Earth’s main stage.

Tropical Milkweed

Tropical Milkweed (Asclepias curassavica, 马利筋).

A plant that originates in the Americas; it has been naturalized in Jiangsu but this is from a spectacular late Autumn garden display in Xuanwu, Nanjing. The rose gardens were also splendid this time of year: one can only imagine Spring.

An Even More Sinister Analgesic

Zadie Smith White Teeth (London: Hamish Hamilton,  2000), p. 167.

If religion is the opium of the people, tradition is an even more sinister analgesic, simply because it rarely appears sinister. If religion is a tight band, a throbbing vein and a needle, tradition is a far homelier concoction: poppy seeds ground into tea; a sweet cocoa drink laced with cocaine; the kind of thing your grandmother might have made.

The Doctor's Art

non est in medico semper relevetur ut aeger:
   interdum docta plus valet arte malum.

A doctor cannot always cure the ill:
   sickness, at times, is beyond all proven skill.

Ovid, Ex Ponto, I.iii.17-18. My translation.

Japanese Giant Gecko

Japanese Giant Gecko (Gekko japonicus, 多疣壁虎).

Although they are rare to see during the day on Yuelu Mountain, they are very active at night. In any of the open buildings scattered around the mountain, they can reliably be found after sunset, lying in wait for insects on the roofs and walls.

Courage and Artlessness

Claire Harman, Sylvia Townsend Warner: A Biography (London: Penguin Books, 2015; 1989), p. 185:

The naval war of the winter of 1939 may not have seemed too threatening to the population of West Dorset, but the events of early 1940 did. Hitler overran Denmark and Norway in April with alarming ease, and the Royal Navy had difficulty holding the position won at Narvik. By the summer, the governments of Poland and Belgium, the King and Queen of Norway and the Queen of the Netherlands were all in exile in London; the British Expeditionary Force, once so sure of hanging out its washing on the Siegfried Line, had been caught in a pincer movement, and was trapped at Dunkirk. France was within weeks of capitulation to Germany. Early measures taken at home to provide some protection for civilians now lost their air of pointless routine and were undertaken in earnest, and in the wake of earnestness came a deal of inefficiency. Sylvia wrote wearily of an ARP air-raid rehearsal in Maiden Newton: ‘It is like a knock-about farce film done in slow motion, and at intervals some member of the local gentry pipes up to say, “Well, let’s hope it will never be needed”, or “We can’t really get on with it without Mr Thompson”, or “Has it started yet, do you know?” The most melancholy thought is, that if there is a real raid they will all dauntlessly turn up to mismanage it, for their courage is as unquestionable as their artlessness.’

Gray-capped Pygmy Woodpecker

Gray-capped Pygmy Woodpecker (Yungipicus canicapillus, 星头啄木鸟).

A small woodpecker, spotted in Xuanwu Lake Park in Nanjing during a morning walk (I was there for a conference).