Welch: Passion flowers, wild apricots and devil’s claws
Ever heard of a wild apricot? Me neither.
In the online world, it’s the intriguing name (I’m easily intrigued) of a software company used by nonprofit organizations for website, membership and event management.
What’s a wild apricot in the real world?
Google knows, but you first wade through 59 descriptions of the software before you learn about the pseudo-apricots of Appalachia that, by any other nickname, are called maypops.
The scientific name is Passiflora incarnata. The regular name is passion flower. The “apricots” are the fruit.
My gripe:
When a business coopts the name of something for its own use, Google search results are skewed to favor the company. Even so, Wild Apricot gets credit for piquing my interest in the namesake plant.
Symbolic connections of the passion flower to the Passion of Christ aside, the wild apricot vines historically have been treasured by the children of Appalachia primarily because the fruit is fun — almost explosive. On one interactive Appalachian site, an adult reminisces that wild apricots made good hand grenades.
An excerpt from Margaret Morley’s 1913 book, “The Carolina Mountains,” says “people call the maypops ‘apricots’ and eat them, though they belong principally to the age of childhood.”
Isn’t that a great way to say wild apricots are made for children? If you don’t throw them as grenades at a playmate, they make good snacks. Or you can step on them to make them pop. Pop! It’s almost enough to make me wish I’d grown up in Appalachia instead of West Texas, but I would have missed devil’s claws.
Besides dirt clods and Bois d’Arc apples, devil’s claws were things we children sometimes threw at each other. Did they ever stick? I don’t remember. Mostly they grabbed our unsuspecting ankles.
DEVIL’S CLAWS PAUSE.
Why am I not surprised that Googling “devil’s claw” produces mostly ads for an herbal supplement made from a totally different plant — Harpagophytum as opposed to Proboscidea? Harpagophytum devil’s claws are cultivated in Africa. Cultivated!
The devil’s claws of the American West are more claw-looking than the South African medicinal so-called devil’s claw. And more fun.
Alas, cultivated and marketable takes Google precedence over wild.
Nothing against capitalism, but when business interests prevail, some stuff must undeservedly take a backseat. Unfair! Yes, I’m essentially repeating myself. Refer to my first gripe.
Can somebody find moneymaking uses for Texas devil’s claws? It’s our only hope for online notoriety.
MORE RESEARCH.
I’m feeling ignorant.
In Arizona, Native Americans from Apache to Yaqui have been utilizing devil’s claws for millennia, even cultivating them, primarily for basketry but also for food and medicinal uses, specifically for arthritis. Who knew? Not me.
If someone could hook all the tribes up with Amazon, our devil’s claws might gain a toehold in the competitive world of Google rankings.
Meanwhile, Amazon should sell some of those amazing wild apricots too. Pop! Pop!
And ship them in poppable bubble wrap. Twice the fun.
You heard it first right here.
Hanaba Munn Welch sums up her weekly thoughts in exactly 501 words and dashes, a tribute to the old Fort Worth & Denver steam locomotive Engine 501 or Levi’s jeans. Take your pick. Farm life often inspires her writing.
This article originally appeared on Wichita Falls Times Record News: Welch: Passion flowers, wild apricots and devil’s claws
