This weekend I visited the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park with my mother - to see the temporary Butterfly Zone breeding room. Nothing like dozens of giant, beautiful butterflies fluttering and floating around your head, it makes everyone (and it was crowded) quieter and reverent. One room in the beautiful Conservatory is loaded with carnivorous Nepenthes pitcher plants. Who doesn't love carnivorous plants? These are much bigger in real life than you might think from looking at photos. Growing from vines in groups, some have spikey wings, hairy fringe and some elaborate lids or polka-dots and stripes on their bellies. All of them radiate a vibe of focus and vitality that other plants do much much more quietly. Like stealthy beasts they wait with a goal that they will achieve, but by just hanging there smelling delicious to bugs. Because they have built "it" and food will come. Apparently, in young pitchers who haven't opened yet, the fluid inside is sterile and can be used as a painkiller, for indigestion and dysentery, as an eyewash and an asthma reliever. I would love to have them in my place to see an end to the lame flies that gather in our basement apartment during the summer.
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