Alien in the Garden

"E.T." was my all-time favorite movie in grade school. But I could never appreciate or understand why Spielberg made the alien a botanist. To me this seemed like the most unexciting occupation for a space explorer. Why not make him a geologist or a cartographer?

Thinking about it now, I am not surprised that I was not impressed. I never saw myself possessing a green thumb. My only experience with the leafy kind was watering the class plants whenever it was my turn to be "cleaner". I was always envious of the boys who hacked at the earth with their small shovels and hoes in the little garden behind the grade school building. All we girls ever did during "Work Education" was sew, cook, paste things together, weave and sew once more. Any chance for me to become a botanist was squashed by our grade school curriculum.

Now, here I am taking pictures of plants and scrambling to identify them using the mighty oracle (the internet) and three thick plant guides. Crash course, ika nga. This is work that I do for measely student wages, but I am learning a lot. I take pictures of the rain garden plants all summer, catalogue them, identify them and am learning how to put them together in a website. It's an intimidating task, considering I never bothered to take any any Biology or Botany classes in college. But I am surprising myself by enjoying the work.

Plants have interesting and majestic scientific names pala. Take for example Aronica melanocarpa (Black Chokeberry), or Eupatorium maculatum (Joe Pyeweed). Some of them sound like the musica sacra pieces I used to sing in choirs in Quezon City. See, these are songs: Ubi caritas, Et misericordia, Fecit potentiam, Ave verum corpus. And these are plants: Viburnum trilobum, Geranium maculatum, Carex stricta. They kind of sound alike sa unang dinig and, well, if you did not take an elective course in Latin.

Some plant names sound like a disease, like Aster simplex (what you get when you sleep with a loose woman called Aster, or Aster umbellatus (sex with Aster's umbrella?). *Shudder * Or they sound like a neurosis, like Atennaria neglecta (what happens when rich parents neglect their Atenean kids). And some plants make me wonder about the hobbies of those who named them. Take for example Panicum virgatum "Heavy Metal" (common name Switchgrass). Ano raw? Could this be the panic one botanist felt after the booze buzz wore off and he realized that he deflowered a teenager picked up from a heavy metal concert?

Learning about these Minnesota plants makes me regret not knowing much about plants in the Philippines. I can't even name the plants I played with as a child. I wonder what the Makahiya is really called. How does it do that? You know, recoil when touched? It's an amazing plant. Nakakahiya that don't know much about the makahiya. Note to self: kidnap a botany major when you go home to Quezon City.

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If you're interested, check out the pictures of plants I've successfully indentified so far.

If you're wondering what the UMD Rain Garden is, check here.