The Scaevola story and the Style Icon

Day 29, a plant a day, Lowlands Coastal Reserve, Scaevola,the Fan flowers, 22 November 2020

Scaevola flowering in Lowlands Reserve on 6/11/2020 and 12/11/2020

The fan flowers, Scaevolas , flower for a long period and catch my eye so much, that I have often featured them in Instagram and Facebook posts.

But Pauly had already forgotten my Scaevola story, so I’ll tell it again now, as you may have forgotten it too, or maybe you are not one of my Instagram followers…

The five-petalled Scaevola flower is supposed to look like a left hand , after the Roman Scaevola, a young failed assassin in 500BC, who after killing the Etruscan king’s scribe instead of the king, thrust his right hand into a fire after being threatened with torture. Scaevola declared that there were another 299 crazy Romans who would come to assassinate the Etruscan king, so the Etruscans sent the now onehanded Scaevola back to negotiate peace (read all about it in Livy, the naming botanist Robert Brown had a Scottish education like me ).

Slain scribe, Etruscan king and helmetted soldier incredulous, as Scaevola deliberately burns his right hand to show how crazed-courageous he is. Popular subject for old masters, first photo Rubens, , and 2nd photo is the surprisingly unheroic painting by Danish artist Bernhard Keil. Scaevola- hero or nutter?

Pauly asked is it a true story? So speculating, do you think Scaevola was actually tortured by the Etruscans, and blabbed, and then made up the story so that he looked like a hero back with the Romans, having stuffed up his original mission? *

This painting of Scaevola by Cavallino weirdly reminds me of Harry Styles on Vogue cover, something about the neckline and hairdo and stance

Scaevola, like so many of our Lowlands Reserve plants, is an evergreen perennial. It is a large shrub and very noticeable beside the 4WD track to the Healing Beach.

It has very recognisable lush green foliage , with thick leaves, and is a resilient first succession plant reseeding after bush fires and seems to me completely admirable. So is it possible to believe that this flower’s Roman namesake was also somehow admirable, or a different kind of courage might be to appear on the cover of Vogue in gender-fluid clothing?

Mucius Scaevola with hand in fire, Harry Styles on the cover of Vogue, Scaevola in flower in Lowlands Coastal Reserve 20 September 2020, who is the most courageous?

The green of the new leaves of new Scaevola thickets after wildfires are particularly striking against blackened burnt bush. We could see Scaevola quickly regenerating in West Cape Howe after the fires there. One of the cultivars of Scaevola nitida is named “Aussie spirit”, which is appropriate given its ability to recover after bush fires. We have two very similar Scaevolas growing in Lowlands Reserve, Scaevola crassifolia with thicker rounder leaves near the actual shoreline, and Scaevola nitida nearer the tracks

Scaevola is attractive to butterflies, and the Lowlands Reserve butterflies including the Western Browns, and the Australian Painted Lady butterflies , seem to enjoy frequenting the Scaevolas above the Healing Beach, possibly because of the Scaevolas’ proximity to plentiful Senecio daisies. The hemiparasite Olax phyllanthi takes advantage of Scaevola while growing nearby — I’m saving Olax and Senecios stories for future posts- watch this space.

Lowlands Reserve 7 October 2017 and 3 November 2017

*Graveyard of Lost Words Here, a few , but not all, of the words I edited out:

Family Catchphrases:

“There is no Truth, only Stories”

The Romans were at war with the Etruscans in 509BC, and as we know, the “first casualty of war is truth”, and “there is no glory in war”

Scaevola with Etruscan king Lars Porsenna paintings by Mathias Stomer, Dutch/Italian (he painted the scene at least twice, Sydney Art Gallery has these 2). The slain scribe was supposedly better dressed than the king, and that was how Scaevola made the mistake — However this artist doesnt seem to have heard that version — Stomer has painted the scribe as mostly naked!

Bubbling under are also my thoughts on our First Nations Peoples, and other traditional societies, memory techniques, encompassing stories, place, dance and art. Remembering scientific binomial names is something of a party trick, or information rather than wisdom, but can sometimes be crucial in identifying the correct plant for say medicinal purposes. I unconsciously use locations (the names jump out as I walk) and sometimes consciously and unconsciously use story and song and dance connections as memory aids. Taxonomy is different in the Noongar world, and classifying plants by function becomes more important. Bruce Chatwin, Douglas Lockwood, Margo Neale, Lynne Kelly have all written books and articles on this topic.

Writing this daily blog featuring a plant a day and walking daily is my fundraising effort for Bush Heritage #groundworkchallenge . To join my team or donate go to https://www.groundworkchallenge.org.au/fundraisers/sheilamurray/2020?fbclid=IwAR2HbNn0YsCCc3tiSK-_lbF5xLsssaD8wjGHaUwVYrRqYxM-kdJkijoj2N0

Lowlands Coastal Reserve is on Menang Boodja — country. I celebrate the strength, resilience and capacity of the Menang Noongar people who are the traditional owners of the land.

Lowlands Coastal Reserve is managed by the local community and the City of Albany. Bush Heritage Australia manage many other wonderful reserves.

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