Every year in May, without fail, the Matilija poppies in my front yard bloom, yielding huge white flowers atop 5-foot-long stalks. They’re not supposed to grow there; It’s too shady and damp for Romneya coulteri that prefer the dry canyons and sandy arroyos of southern California. But there they are anyway, defiantly thriving to the point of becoming invasive.
The flowers can get as large as a salad plate and are crinkly like papier-mache, a dramatic showing for about 3 weeks, then, like all native plants, they die back and look really ugly – “deadest stickus” as one nurseryman told me.
This part of California is the ancestral home of the Chumash people and there are several legends about the Matiilija poppy, probably all of them bogus. The Ventureno band of the Chumash who lived in and near Ojai, my hometown, explain that Mat’ilha was the name of a Chumash village and the poppy was probably named after the place. Forget the sad tales of the unrequited love of two Chumash lovers who died in each other’s arms and the virginal white poppy that grew to envelope their bodies. Legends created by non-Indians, they say.
Bold and regal, dazzling and defiant, the Matilija poppy has been called “the queen of all wild flowers” by more than a few plant enthusiasts. I’ll give it that much, but I wish the queen residing in my small front yard would behave herself and remember that she does not have the royal right to claim everything in her path as her kingdom.
No comments:
Post a Comment