Even in these tightening lanes, the seasons cycle around and around

[sovay]

I have been terrifically wiped out by this set of holidays. The major accomplishment of Boxing Day was taking a walk and a couple of pictures, which I did shortly before sunset. I was very taken with the intertwining of the ember-bright berries and the fruits with their frost-feathers which I imagine would have been even more striking against snow. Both were tangled through the chain-link of a yard.



I believe the feathery vine to be old man's beard, although I am making this identification almost strictly from the illustration in Cicely Mary Barker's Flower Fairies of the Seasons (1988). I can't tell if the red fruits are winterberries or something else seasonally apropos and unwise to eat.



They look like the X-rays of snakes.

This afternoon is Boxing Day Observed, meaning the presence of my niece and my brother. I did not appreciate the prompt return of the contractors at an hour when I had already been unable to sleep all night.

Comments

[sovay]

About three years ago I posted a similar photo to your second one on Facebook, and a friend said, "Wild clematis AKA Traveller’s Joy. When the seed pods are out, as now, it’s also called Old Man’s Beard."

Thank you!

I have read before, but always forget that traveller's joy and old man's beard are different stages of the same plant because according to Barker they are different fairies. (The Traveller's Joy Fairy was one of my favorites as a child.)

[ethelmay]

There's a character nicknamed Traveller's Joy (her actual name is Joy Shirley) in a sentimental but somehow addictive series by Elsie Jeanette Oxenham. She's kind of hyperactive in the early books, always tramping over the hills or zooming about on a motorbike. I don't know if Barker would have known of the character, but it's possible. And she would very likely have known about Juliana Horatia Ewing's mention of Traveller's Joy in "Mary's Meadow."

[ethelmay]

I am reminded that when I was little, if I was sick enough to stay in bed, I was allowed to look at my mother's old copy of Mother Earth's Children: The Frolics of the Fruits and Vegetables. (Content note: racism, national stereotypes.) I don't think we had the companion Flower Children book. The artist, Marion T. Ross, doesn't seem to have a Wikipedia entry: https://www.lambiek.net/artists/r/ross_p.htm "M.T. Ross, who was affectionately nicknamed "Penny", was an illustrator and comic artist in the early twentieth century. He lived in Oak Park, Illinois and had his studio in downtown Chicago. He was one of the first co-workers of Walt Disney, as well as a close friend of R.F. Outcault, with whom he developed 'Buster Brown'. M.T. "Penny" Ross moved to Southern California in 1926 to work for RKO and other studios as a set designer."

[sovay]

The artist, Marion T. Ross, doesn't seem to have a Wikipedia entry

Those vegetable children look familiar to me. I wonder if they were excerpted in my grandmother's Books of Knowledge. spatch has heard of Mamma's Angel Child. I would love to know which films Ross designed sets for.

[sovay]

There's a character nicknamed Traveller's Joy (her actual name is Joy Shirley) in a sentimental but somehow addictive series by Elsie Jeanette Oxenham. She's kind of hyperactive in the early books, always tramping over the hills or zooming about on a motorbike.

I have never read any of her books, but the motorbike is appealing.