We went to visit the last silk-making town in Europe (Soufli) before going to find black vultures in the Dadia National Park, an area filled with pines and oak trees (and many raptors when they feel like showing up). We were given a guided tour of the silk museum by a wonderful woman who explained all about the life of the silk worm and the production of silk. Unfortunately, I got a bit hung up on her comment that silk worm larvae don’t have a sex – it comes in metamorphosis. I wanted to know how sex was determined since male silk worms are more ‘desirable’ to the industry than females – the females have to use up some of their energy producing eggs, so they produce less silk in their cocoons. Anyway, don’t go there unless you want to end up going down a very long thread (you could make a joke out of that …) of scientific papers and discover that we still don’t really know how sex is determined.
Our trip to see the vultures was great, but I thought I would save you from yet another photo of an indistinguishable blob and, instead, show you a couple of repurposing scenes from the village nearby:
And finally, we were struck by this garden – the owner seems to be completely obsessed with whatever this plant happens to be (someone will know, we are sure!)
Assuming the pair of you haven’t succumbed to gel nails!
Oh please tell me they have!
So sorry, Tash – M and I still a disappointment..
Sadly, no – fingers of excellent guide to all things silk ( including photo of actual living larva that didn’t work as filmed through a magnifying glass though her nails may still have been visible..)
Well, using some random plant ID app, it’s called Celosia Argentea or plumed cockscomb. If you’re any the wiser! If this was a silk town, there should be a lot of mulberries around, though the season might be over.
Plumed cockscomb sounds about right I think. Haven’t seen a single mulberry – lots of cotton and what I think might be tobacco though I’d identified as some kind of potato – must be mulberry groves hidden out of sight?
No – the mulberry groves ended up in Turkey – so bang went the industry, for the most part!
The history of how silk was first discovered, is interesting. Legend has it that an Empress was sipping tea under a mulberry tree and a cocoon fell into her cup and started to unravel, this being in China, many centuries BC. But I expect you know that already
No, I didn’t know that but it sounds pretty plausible to me. How would anyone know that dropping the cocoons of insects in boiling water would produce amazing thread? Sounds like a job for a Chinese Empress to me…
Fantastic street scenes! Btw I think Alison has the right identificationnfor the plant – I remember it from my childhood in Tanzania and we called it the ‘makmal’ (velvet) flower. It was much prized because it was difficult to grow so maybe the gardener who has it by the ton is just showing off!
Difficult to grow perhaps and sort of horrible en masse? I love the idea of you knowing this plant from Tanzania!
I was about to ask how the mulberry groves ended up in turkey but was this a border thing? Not actual transplanting of the trees
Suspect a border thing – there seem to have a lot of actual people swaps between Turkey/ Ottomans and Greece/ Macedonians but doubt anyone actually moved the trees…
Garage forecourt re-purposing a valuable illustration of what might be possible for our local Texaco station, decorated by some very garish tape and plastic barriers at the moment.
Well, you can only hope. Have been avoiding UK news altogether but would just mention that there is ALWAYS a functioning petrol station and 2 pharmacies no matter how remote the area …