#trumpet

There really is no better place to watch The Polyphonic Spree perform than inside of a sunlit chapel on an early fall morning in Boston.

>>Sit back and enjoy |followwburartery

Miles Davis

(Robert W. Kelley. 1958)

Osa pulchra blooming at the Huntington Botanical Garden, San Marino, California.

Osa pulchra is the holy grail of showy tropical flowering plants and most of us have never heard of it. This spectacular member of the Rubiaceae is exceptionally rare, both in the wild and in cultivation. It is quite unusual that a flowering plant of such exuberant beauty can go virtually unknown for so long in cultivation. Its close relatives of better fame Portlandia grandifloraandCubanola dominguensis, are familiar to some horticulturists in tropical climates.

While in bloom this magnificent shrub may superficially resemble a coffee tree with white Brugmansia flowers hung from its branches, but surpasses both in elegance. The pendent trumpet-shaped fragrant white flowers are thick in texture and 22 cm in length.

I have been working with a good friend, Dylan Hannon, Curator of the Rose Hills Foundation Conservatory for Botanical Science and Tropical Collections at the Huntington Botanical Gardens (San Marino, California) for the past 4 years to help insure this species’ survival ex situ within Hawai'i and in a few other suitable tropical countries.

Until 2007, this endangered species was only known from two disjunct populations in the south of Costa Rica, one on the Atlantic side and the other on the Pacific side in wet lowland rainforest. Less than 30 individuals exist between these two populations in which natural reproduction is very poor. In addition, because of the location and nature of both colonies, botanists have been hesitant to accept that these plants weren’t planted by humans at some point due to their proximity to human dwellings¹. Five years ago Osa pulchra was found for the first time in Bocas del Toro, Panama. University of Panama biologists Reyes Carranza and Fermín Hernández found this species during an environmental impact survey² . This exciting discovery may be the first record of a wild population.

Nearly all plants in cultivation outside Mesoamerica trace back to seven seedlings resulting from a pod collected in 1996 on a Missouri Botanical Garden expedition to the Osa Peninsula. About 100 F1 seedlings were raised at the Huntington and distributed to select conservatories in mainland USA in 2006¹. Notably showy specimens can currently be seen at the New York Botanical Garden, the Atlanta Botanical Garden and the Huntington.

Propagation of Osa pulchra is not for the impatient horticulturist. Growing from seed is the preferred method. Asexual propagation is possible but it exacts a sacrifice of the terminal stem. As with Portlandia,Osa have exhibited stubborn apical dominance, sometimes referred to as the ‘conifer effect’. Hand pollination must be carried out between two different clones because individual flowers are infertile. Gestation will take up to 11 months, upon which seeds must be sown with haste due to their limited window of viability.

¹ Hannon, DP. (2007). Osa pulchra: fragrant trumpet flowers from central america. Tropical Flowering Tree Society Quarterly, (Winter), 9-11.
² Aiello, A, Correa, M, Galdames, C, Alvarado, M, & Calderon, ML. (2007, August 31). Remarkable new plant record for panama. STRI News, Retrieved from striweb.si.edu/strinews/PDFs/August_31_2007.pdf

© Uluwehi Knecht (text) © Dylan Hannon (text)

“At Auxonne, his second garrison, the young Bonaparte escaped death three times. The first, during a drowning, in 1789, at the age of twenty. (He was swimming in the Saone.) Seized by a cramp, he lost consciousness, felt life escaping from him, heard his comrades fidgeting, running on the bank, shouting that he was lost, asking for boats to fish him out. Finally, he sank to the bottom of the river. But his chest struck against a sandbank, his head emerged, he regained consciousness and, thanks to the current, he regained consciousness, got out of the water, not without vomiting a lot, he got dressed and returned to his lodgings.

The following year, he was involved in two duel cases. For the beautiful eyes of a pretty girl, Manesca Pillet, he fights with a sword with a rival, Denis Grosey, who slightly wounds him. Then he quarrels with a comrade, Lieutenant Belly de Bussy, who annoys him by playing the horn, very badly moreover, in the room above his and prevents him from working. Passing him on the stairs, Bonaparte calls out to him:

“My dear, you must get tired with your accursed instrument.”
“But no not at all.”
“Well, you are tiring the others.”
“I’m sorry about that.”
“But you better go give your horn away.”
“I am the master in my room.”
“You could be given some doubt on that.”
“I don’t think anyone was bold enough.”

An appointment is made to fight. But the previous year, Napoleon himself drawn up the rules which obliged them to submit their disputes or differences. It was decided by the jury that in the future Bussy would be allowed to continue playing the horn and that Bonaparte would have to show himself more enduring.

Chance would have it that Napoleon met Bussy much later, on March 6, 1814, during the Battle of Craonne, in the Aisne. On that day, to find out about the enemy’s positions and the topography of the surroundings, the emperor sent two aides-de-camp to seek out the mayor of Beaurieux, a neighboring village. Napoleon recognizes him: It’s Bussy. 

After emigrating during the Revolution, he returned to take care of his land, where he lived alone. 
“Well! Bussy, Napoleon says, do you still play the horn?”
“Yes sire, and still so false.”
Bussy will guide him and follow him throughout the rest of the French countryside, still in hunting costume, for lack of being able to obtain a uniform. The soldiers call it “ the emperor’s pekin.”

- From the book: Napoléon face à la mort by Alain Frèrejean.   

The first image shows Napoleon studying at Auxonne by François Flameng and the second is a meme I quickly made that fits the second story perfectly. 

10th piece for artfight last month! This is @cabij-perish’s character Flare, a supervillian and jazz trumpetist ⁠
Loved his concept and design!⁠

Jeweled Tibetan Buddhist Ceremonial Prayer Trumpet Horn

For more details, or to purchase, visit: https://www.etsy.com/listing/597595687/jeweled-tibetan-buddhist-ceremonial?ref=shop_home_active_1

Circus comes to town

Ph:Signe Vilstrup