Brighter than Butter. Meadow Sage, Salvia pratensis, Océ-weerd, Meuse Corridor, Venlo, The Netherlands
At the very top of this photo you'll be able to see a fuzzy whitish line. That line is one of the factory halls of Océ van der Grinten, well-known producer of copiers and printers etc. Today it's part of Canon. Whatever... The company has been a major contributor to Venlo's prosperity down through the last century and a half. Morevover, it has always been strong, too, in general community service. This meadow - the Océ-weerd - was partly financed through subsidies given by Océ.
This beautifully bright Meadow Sage, Salvia pratensis, is quite appropriate here. Sage has always been known as a healing plant, and its name dervies from the Latin word for healing. Océ's history started out with healing, too.
In the late 1850s, Lodewijk van der Grinten (1831-1895) was a pharmacist in Venlo. Of course he was professionally interested in common plant-based medicine, but he was also intrigued by chemistry. Now, one of the problems which faced producers of nineteenth-century margarine (much cheaper than real butter) was that people were adverse to using it: it didn't look like butter. Van der Grinten developed a chemical dye to make margarine appear more butterlike. From this work, he became more and more involved in chemical dyes; from this evolved ways of making blue-prints. Later this led to printers and copiers of various sorts. Business was booming, and this was a boon to the economy of Venlo and the entire area. Recently the company was taken over by Canon, who will develop it further on the banks of the Meuse River and near the wonderful nature reserve of our Salvia pratensis.
Whatever the merits of modern color printing - even by butterine Océ -, you've really got to go out into the meadows to appreciate fully the Absolute Gorgeous Bright Purple of our Sage directly in Nature.
't Was a bright Saturday afternoon - today is glum again and cold and rainy. The fields were aglow with White Daisies and just a few patches of the Purple that dominated a few weeks ago.
(Incidentally for those curious about words: 'Océ' stands for '[O]hne [C]omponente"; the name was devised in 1927 to emphasise that differently from other processes, Océ's copying did not contain certain acidic components (Azo-components.)
Brighter than Butter. Meadow Sage, Salvia pratensis, Océ-weerd, Meuse Corridor, Venlo, The Netherlands
At the very top of this photo you'll be able to see a fuzzy whitish line. That line is one of the factory halls of Océ van der Grinten, well-known producer of copiers and printers etc. Today it's part of Canon. Whatever... The company has been a major contributor to Venlo's prosperity down through the last century and a half. Morevover, it has always been strong, too, in general community service. This meadow - the Océ-weerd - was partly financed through subsidies given by Océ.
This beautifully bright Meadow Sage, Salvia pratensis, is quite appropriate here. Sage has always been known as a healing plant, and its name dervies from the Latin word for healing. Océ's history started out with healing, too.
In the late 1850s, Lodewijk van der Grinten (1831-1895) was a pharmacist in Venlo. Of course he was professionally interested in common plant-based medicine, but he was also intrigued by chemistry. Now, one of the problems which faced producers of nineteenth-century margarine (much cheaper than real butter) was that people were adverse to using it: it didn't look like butter. Van der Grinten developed a chemical dye to make margarine appear more butterlike. From this work, he became more and more involved in chemical dyes; from this evolved ways of making blue-prints. Later this led to printers and copiers of various sorts. Business was booming, and this was a boon to the economy of Venlo and the entire area. Recently the company was taken over by Canon, who will develop it further on the banks of the Meuse River and near the wonderful nature reserve of our Salvia pratensis.
Whatever the merits of modern color printing - even by butterine Océ -, you've really got to go out into the meadows to appreciate fully the Absolute Gorgeous Bright Purple of our Sage directly in Nature.
't Was a bright Saturday afternoon - today is glum again and cold and rainy. The fields were aglow with White Daisies and just a few patches of the Purple that dominated a few weeks ago.
(Incidentally for those curious about words: 'Océ' stands for '[O]hne [C]omponente"; the name was devised in 1927 to emphasise that differently from other processes, Océ's copying did not contain certain acidic components (Azo-components.)