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If you have houseplants, it’s galling to discover that one of the things they breed is small flies. Tiny flies breed in the soil and soon you have swarms of them.
Also, in the summer (in the UK) you have your windows open and flies come in. That’s when you could resort to fly-killer sprays (bad, toxic) or you could put up fly-paper (medium, not very recyclable.) Alternatively you could make house-room for old Barley here:
aka the common Butterbur.
It hasn’t got soil on it, it’s not dirty - that’s flies that it’s captured with the sticky surface of its leaves, and which it is slowly digesting. That big splotch where you can still see a wing is a mosquito.
Never did I think I would love a plant designed to live in a rancid bog which digests flesh for nutrients, but I do. It had a beautiful, delicate purple, violet-like flower in early May and now it’s chomping down on my unwanted flies.
I don’t know what to think about the fact that Tolkien named his friendly innkeeper after a plant that lures creatures in with its lush green leaves and then eats them, but as living fly-paper goes, I couldn’t be more thrilled with it.
…[edit]
Ugh. That’ll teach me to rely on common names and then misremember them.
I went off to google my butterbur last night and discovered that it isn’t a butterbur at all. It’s a butterwort! It is in fact Pinguicula Grandiflora, the Irish butterwort.
Butterbur (Petasites hybridus) otoh looks like this
its big leaves were apparently originally used to wrap pats of butter before they were put in the storehouse, and it’s also the name of a kind of felt hat. So that makes a lot more sense from the perspective of a Tolkien innkeeper.
My Barleyman Butterwort is keeping its name though. It’s fond of it now.
Also, in the summer (in the UK) you have your windows open and flies come in. That’s when you could resort to fly-killer sprays (bad, toxic) or you could put up fly-paper (medium, not very recyclable.) Alternatively you could make house-room for old Barley here:
aka the common Butterbur.
It hasn’t got soil on it, it’s not dirty - that’s flies that it’s captured with the sticky surface of its leaves, and which it is slowly digesting. That big splotch where you can still see a wing is a mosquito.
Never did I think I would love a plant designed to live in a rancid bog which digests flesh for nutrients, but I do. It had a beautiful, delicate purple, violet-like flower in early May and now it’s chomping down on my unwanted flies.
I don’t know what to think about the fact that Tolkien named his friendly innkeeper after a plant that lures creatures in with its lush green leaves and then eats them, but as living fly-paper goes, I couldn’t be more thrilled with it.
…[edit]
Ugh. That’ll teach me to rely on common names and then misremember them.
I went off to google my butterbur last night and discovered that it isn’t a butterbur at all. It’s a butterwort! It is in fact Pinguicula Grandiflora, the Irish butterwort.
Butterbur (Petasites hybridus) otoh looks like this
its big leaves were apparently originally used to wrap pats of butter before they were put in the storehouse, and it’s also the name of a kind of felt hat. So that makes a lot more sense from the perspective of a Tolkien innkeeper.
My Barleyman Butterwort is keeping its name though. It’s fond of it now.