What cues you into your self-awareness? For me, it’s a particular plant.
Plants that seem to follow a circadian rhythm of waking and resting are objects of curiosity for me.
For years now I’ve marveled at my oxalis triangularis plant—otherwise known as the purple shamrock or love plant. The name, love plant, is fitting.
Apotheosis of natural beauty. It is the one plant that has held my gaze since I first encountered it years ago in my oldest daughter’s Montessori classroom.
Its lovely aubergine painted leaves, with rose-colored markings that flow forth like water stains from the center of each delicate leaflet, beckon me to take a step closer, to notice the subtleties of its beauty.
Each leaflet looks like the wingspan of a moth connected to each other at its tip as if by a wee spoke so that when all three leaflets drop down, the leaf resembles a kind of teepee with flared corners.
A bonus delight is the pink tiny blooms, shooting out in clusters from slim green stems amidst the dark leaflets. These blooms add another interesting shape to the geometric wonder of this plant.
Oxalis is the largest genus of the 900 known species of the wood sorrel family, Oxalidaceae, that thrive in Brazil, Mexico, and South Africa. It is a wild plant that offers edible tubers New Zealanders consume as yams and limited medicinal benefits that go back millennia.
It’s a special sight to behold as it rests on the counter of my kitchen bay window. It looks otherworldly.
I feel very drawn to this plant. It is an apotheosis of natural beauty in my opinion.
Besides its beauty, what I love about this plant is how it changes over the course of the day.
Continue reading “What’s Your Zeitgeber? Mine Is The Oxalis Triangularis Plant.”