Bottoms-Up for Nectar, Bumblebees, Bombus 'sursum culi', and Apis mellifera, Honeybee, on Artichoke, Cynara scolymus, Shaffy's Tuin, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
We ambled off to Shaffy's Tuin, a folksy, local garden where you can rent square-metre boxes for your own cultivating fun. The Garden gives color to a rather 'industrial' site of railroads and shipping. Many of the boxes are filled to overflowing with flowers and vegetables; obviously they attract lots of insects.
Here's a photo of an Artichoke Flower being visited by 'Bottoms-Up' Bumblebees and a Honeybee, all avid for its nectar.
The other day I had Artichoke at dinner and looked up what one of my botanical heroes, Abraham Munting (1626-1683), one-time professor of botany at the then young university of Groningen, had to say about it. As is his wont, he gives a nicely full description of the kinds of Cynara he knows. His pieces always end with a list of the uses of the plant described. He writes matter-of-factly that eating Artichokes "vermeerder(t) het Zaad, en verwek(t) een grote begeerte tot het Echte werk" (increases Semen and generates great desire to the 'Real Work'). Earlier in the Middle Ages and also during Classical Times, Artichokes had been regarded as an aphrodisiac, and they were strictly forbidden to women. Munting is clearly modern and he makes no mention of any moral prohibitions against eating our plant. But he is a bit coy in his choice of words: "het Echte werk" ('Real work'), here means: sexual intercourse
Bottoms-Up for Nectar, Bumblebees, Bombus 'sursum culi', and Apis mellifera, Honeybee, on Artichoke, Cynara scolymus, Shaffy's Tuin, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
We ambled off to Shaffy's Tuin, a folksy, local garden where you can rent square-metre boxes for your own cultivating fun. The Garden gives color to a rather 'industrial' site of railroads and shipping. Many of the boxes are filled to overflowing with flowers and vegetables; obviously they attract lots of insects.
Here's a photo of an Artichoke Flower being visited by 'Bottoms-Up' Bumblebees and a Honeybee, all avid for its nectar.
The other day I had Artichoke at dinner and looked up what one of my botanical heroes, Abraham Munting (1626-1683), one-time professor of botany at the then young university of Groningen, had to say about it. As is his wont, he gives a nicely full description of the kinds of Cynara he knows. His pieces always end with a list of the uses of the plant described. He writes matter-of-factly that eating Artichokes "vermeerder(t) het Zaad, en verwek(t) een grote begeerte tot het Echte werk" (increases Semen and generates great desire to the 'Real Work'). Earlier in the Middle Ages and also during Classical Times, Artichokes had been regarded as an aphrodisiac, and they were strictly forbidden to women. Munting is clearly modern and he makes no mention of any moral prohibitions against eating our plant. But he is a bit coy in his choice of words: "het Echte werk" ('Real work'), here means: sexual intercourse