strangulation...
This is the fruit (I believe..) of a climbing fig that has taken over the Chinese Tallow tree at Jo Ann's mom's old house. In the beginning, it clings tightly to whatever it con reach, and covers it with tiny green leaves. You've seen it covering brick walls so thickly that the wall looks like a carefully sculpted topiary. It's pretty, as long it's kept trimmed and under control.
But left unchecked, it takes over the host plant, and slowly strangles it with vines that grow under the green leaves, and sucks the life out of the tree that supports it.. And the fruit it produces - these fig-shaped things in the photo - are not really fruit. They are really seed pods, that provide no nourishment for man nor beast. They are hollow except for the seeds, kinda like a bell pepper, except that they are probably poisonous.
I can't help thinking about the parallels between this fig, and the way it lives off the efforts of the host, and produces nothing - and the system we have set up (with the best of intentions) for subsidizing the millions of people living off the government...
strangulation...
This is the fruit (I believe..) of a climbing fig that has taken over the Chinese Tallow tree at Jo Ann's mom's old house. In the beginning, it clings tightly to whatever it con reach, and covers it with tiny green leaves. You've seen it covering brick walls so thickly that the wall looks like a carefully sculpted topiary. It's pretty, as long it's kept trimmed and under control.
But left unchecked, it takes over the host plant, and slowly strangles it with vines that grow under the green leaves, and sucks the life out of the tree that supports it.. And the fruit it produces - these fig-shaped things in the photo - are not really fruit. They are really seed pods, that provide no nourishment for man nor beast. They are hollow except for the seeds, kinda like a bell pepper, except that they are probably poisonous.
I can't help thinking about the parallels between this fig, and the way it lives off the efforts of the host, and produces nothing - and the system we have set up (with the best of intentions) for subsidizing the millions of people living off the government...