Darkly Orange. Beach Cordia, Cordia subcordata, Mangsit Beach, Lombok, Indonesia
Torrents; deluge of rain; darkness; Noah of primeval times comes to mind. But I have a safe, dry albeit rather damp haven open to the sea, and a Palm Roof overhead. And opportunity to read ancient botanical texts when the internet works.
Just before the fierce storms yesterday I shot this brightly orange Beach Cordia, Cordia subcordata, branches hanging over the black volcanic sands come down from the Rinjani and ground by the surging seas. It's named for Valerius Cordus (1515-1544), a worthy German physician and botanist. That name is modern, supplanting a spate of other designations among which Cordia rumphii. The latter was the way of fey Carl Ludwig Blume (1786-1862), one-time director of Bogor's fine Kebun Raya, to honor Georg Eberhard Rumphius (1627-1702), great naturalist of Ambon, Indonesia.
Rumphius had used Novella nigra or ebbenniformis and waxes eloquent and enthusiastic about our Tree in his utterly readable Herbarium amboinense. He precisely describes it and details its various kinds of wood, among which the inner heartwood, which is ebony black; hence, of course, that 'nigra'. He notes its durability in the face of its lightness, and gives examples of its use by local people. It's quite clear from his description that Rumphius is also looking to Cordia as a possible source of timber for his masters of the Dutch East India Trading Company (VOC).
In his descriptions generally and specifically in this one he also makes anthropological-linguistic notes. Thus Rumphius tells his readers that a local who had traveled widely told him that it was believed that a Cordia on one of the Kei Islands had existed from the Beginning of the World. Surely that can't be the case, writes Rumphius ironically. His informant must have meant 'from the time that this place was inhabited', because the Malays often call 'the beginning of habitation of a given place, the beginnning of the world' (Malaienses enim aliquanda initium inhabitationis certi loci initium mundi vocant.).
As I look up from my writing - in the distance my Cordia still gray - Noah leaps to mind again: darkness, deluge, torrents...
Darkly Orange. Beach Cordia, Cordia subcordata, Mangsit Beach, Lombok, Indonesia
Torrents; deluge of rain; darkness; Noah of primeval times comes to mind. But I have a safe, dry albeit rather damp haven open to the sea, and a Palm Roof overhead. And opportunity to read ancient botanical texts when the internet works.
Just before the fierce storms yesterday I shot this brightly orange Beach Cordia, Cordia subcordata, branches hanging over the black volcanic sands come down from the Rinjani and ground by the surging seas. It's named for Valerius Cordus (1515-1544), a worthy German physician and botanist. That name is modern, supplanting a spate of other designations among which Cordia rumphii. The latter was the way of fey Carl Ludwig Blume (1786-1862), one-time director of Bogor's fine Kebun Raya, to honor Georg Eberhard Rumphius (1627-1702), great naturalist of Ambon, Indonesia.
Rumphius had used Novella nigra or ebbenniformis and waxes eloquent and enthusiastic about our Tree in his utterly readable Herbarium amboinense. He precisely describes it and details its various kinds of wood, among which the inner heartwood, which is ebony black; hence, of course, that 'nigra'. He notes its durability in the face of its lightness, and gives examples of its use by local people. It's quite clear from his description that Rumphius is also looking to Cordia as a possible source of timber for his masters of the Dutch East India Trading Company (VOC).
In his descriptions generally and specifically in this one he also makes anthropological-linguistic notes. Thus Rumphius tells his readers that a local who had traveled widely told him that it was believed that a Cordia on one of the Kei Islands had existed from the Beginning of the World. Surely that can't be the case, writes Rumphius ironically. His informant must have meant 'from the time that this place was inhabited', because the Malays often call 'the beginning of habitation of a given place, the beginnning of the world' (Malaienses enim aliquanda initium inhabitationis certi loci initium mundi vocant.).
As I look up from my writing - in the distance my Cordia still gray - Noah leaps to mind again: darkness, deluge, torrents...