Showing posts with label Koine Greek. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Koine Greek. Show all posts

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Late season flowers: Glottiphyllum pygmaeum

Our early Fall warm weather is bringing forth a wealth of flowers from a variety of places. This one is Glottiphyllum pygmaeum, actually a dwarf form of G. nelii. But though it is not recognized as a separate species by most botanists, it's generally sold as such.
Like fat-tongued green gummy bears, these are quite easy to grow. Except for reducing the quantity of water while dormant during overly hot periods or during the short, dark days of winter, they enjoy moderate water with good drainage. The leaves will vary considerably depending on the conditions under which they are grown.
For those for whom Greek is "Greek" (like me, though I studied "Koine" Greek many (many) years ago, so I do have a little advantage.), the genus name comes from γλωττίς (glottis), meaning "tongue" and φύλλον (Phyllon), "leaf", thus "Tongue Leaf". [Aren't those botanists clever? Who'ld a thought it?]
Yesterday and today have been hectic as I do the task of transferring things from our old Windows XP to our new Windows 7. I hope to get it finished tomorrow...and then we hope (!) to be able to take a couple of days off next week over at the coast.