The Botanical Instinct 



They gather it and use the base of the flower 

 in making omelettes not devoid of merit; 

 this base is very fleshy, is saturated in milk 

 with a nutty flavour and is delicious even 

 when raw. 



Sometimes they use the plant as an hygro- 

 meter. Nailed to the lintel of the byre, the 

 carlina closes its flower when the air is moist 

 and opens it in a superb sun of golden scales 

 when the air is dry. With beauty added, it 

 is the inverse equivalent of the celebrated 

 rose of Jericho, an unsightly bundle which 

 expands in wet and shrivels in dry weather. 

 If the rustic hygrometer were a foreigner, 

 it would be famous; being an ordinary 

 product of Mont Ventoux, it is slighted. 



The Larinus, for her part, knows it very 

 well, not as a meteorological apparatus, a 

 very useless thing to her for foretelling the 

 weather, but as provender for her family. 

 Many a time, on my excursions in July and 

 August, I have seen the Bear Weevil very 

 busy on the mountain artichoke wide open in 

 the sun. There is no doubt what she was 

 doing there : she was attending to her eggs. 



I regret that my then preoccupations, 

 which were concerned with botany, did not 

 83 



