Lately, though not influenced by the morning drama series, I have become curious about the wildflowers that grow casually around me when I take a walk. I wanted to know what they were, what kind of name they went by, what kind of body condition they were in, whether they were edible, whether they had medicinal properties, and what they were.
But then, a long time ago, I got a rash when I was mowing the grass in my neighborhood. Since then, I have had a bad experience with wildflowers, not only by touching them, but also by looking at them.
Wildflowers are a pitiful thing when you think about it. If they are called “wildflowers,” they are still called weeds. Naturally, even such weeds have names and scientific names.
According to some sources, prior to the Edo period (1603-1867), wild plants were only named if they were edible or poisonous.
Perhaps, through long history, wild plants that were worthy of love were promoted to so-called “flowers,” those that could be used for medicinal or herbal purposes became “medicinal herbs,” and those that could be eaten were given a different value as “vegetables.
Other wild plants, which were of no use to humans, were lumped together and treated as “weeds” as they were a nuisance to the garden and vegetables.
However, perhaps because of my age, I began to realize that I was not a valuable “flower” or “medicinal herb,” but a mere weed.
This feeling grew, and perhaps it was this that led him to take an interest in nameless wildflowers. Perhaps I am somehow projecting myself onto them.
Anyway, I wanted to get a botanical dictionary (there is an app for smart phones, but you have to pay for it…why?) I searched Amazon.com for a botanical dictionary (there is an app for smart phones, but it is expensive…why?
I went to a used bookstore and bought a book at a reasonable price.
The book was thick like a Kojien, and covered almost all wildflowers (or so it seemed).
However, the photos in the book were old and most of them were taken in the Showa period (1926-1989).
The next day, I took a picture of a wildflower I saw on my walk with my smartphone, went home, and opened the dictionary with excitement.
It got worse as I flipped through the pages, and finally my whole arm started to itch and tingle. Being more sensitive to itching than most people, I soon realized that the book was the cause of the itching.
The book was covered in some kind of mites. Immediately, I remembered getting a rash from wildflowers as a child and almost screamed. I had no idea that a wildflower (a book) would get me again. ・・・・
I immediately looked it up on the Internet and found that there were various measures to deal with it, such as drying it in the sun, putting it in a bag, and dripping a liquid tick repellent on it, but I just couldn’t bring myself to touch that dictionary again to revive the book. Again, back to the used bookstore.
So, I still can’t remember the name of a single wildflower.
Autumn sky, autumn winds, my consciousness is melting away.
