A Centesimal Post--Exploring What's Outside the Florida Museum of Natural History

"I sate alone, and drew the blessing in
Of all that nature..."
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"I wakened, opened wide
The window and my soul, and let the airs
And out-door sights sweep gradual gospels in,
Regenerating what I was..." --Elizabeth B. Browning, Aurora Leigh, First Book

Leaving Northwest Florida behind us for a couple of days, SAM and I traveled to Gainesville last week. He had a job interview, and I tagged along so I could see what the area had to offer. Home of the famous Gators college football team, the University of Florida offers up a host of other delights for the senses. The Florida Museum of Natural History was not yet open when we arrived on campus, so we took a stroll outside down a bamboo-lined path...

...alongside a palm-tree-studded butterfly rainforest, enclosed, of course, for the safety of the exotic butterflies and for the pleasure of the people paying to see them.

The choices we have made determine some difficult paths we must take, but we still find things to celebrate along the way...

Lotus flowers, for instance, make this gardener desire a water feature someday, somewhere.

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"...O life,

How oft we throw it off and think, -- 'Enough,

Enough of life in so much! -- here's a cause

For rupture; -- herein we must break with Life,

Or be ourselves unworthy; here we are wronged,

Maimed, spoiled for aspiration: farewell Life!' (EBB)

Too much lotus perfection makes me wish for wildflower chaos, and I found it farther down along the path, past the enclosed rainforest. SAM and I were the only human visitors to this garden.

A Gulf Fritillary, Agraulis vanillae, (I had to look it up in my trusty Audubon Society insect field guide) paid a visit of its own and found something sweet. Like so many other butterflies, its caterpillar form protects itself and what it will become from harm by ingesting something toxic. In the Fritillary's case, the caterpillar's poison pick is the passion vine's foliage. The adult butterfly favors wildflowers like this Snow Squarestem, Melanthera nivea, a member of the aster family.

"And so, as froward babes, we hide our eyes

And think all ended. -- Then, Life calls to us

In some transformed, apocalyptic voice,

Above us, or below us, or around:

Perhaps we name it Nature's voice, or Love's,

Tricking ourselves, because we are more ashamed

To own our compensations than our griefs:

Still, Life's voice! -- still, we make our peace with Life." (EBB)

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To be continued...