PENANCE

We must suffer a little bit longer. Although it's been unseasonably warm (again), little of novel interest is pushing its head through the earth.   

Citygarden's plantings are designed in four tiers, reflecting the seasons and ecological zones of our region. Since I am someone from the streets of New York with a black thumb, I cannot tell you what this area represents, only that the first week of March is too early for Persephone to make her appearance.            

Queen Of The Underworld

Technical difficulties. The friendly American Telephone and Telegraph Company - ATT - managed to disconnect all Internet, television and phone service to my home on Wednesday. We have to wait for a technician to come this evening. I've been trying to persuade Mrs. C to let me drop their cable TV service altogether since we watch it so little and the price is so outrageous. At the moment, I can only get Internet service using my mobile phone as a hot spot and it ain't real fast.

Persephone, as all you classicists know, was the queen of the underworld and wife of Hades in Greek mythology. But, because she was allowed to return to earth in the spring and went back down below in the fall, she was also the goddess of plant fertility and, along with her mother Demeter, of agriculture. I guess that's why her statue has this prime spot in our botanical garden. It is a beautiful art nouveau-ish work seen on these pages before.                  

Persephone

The statue of Persephone has long stood beside the home of Henry Shaw, founder of the Missouri Botanical Garden. She was a goddess with a complex role in Greek mythology, most importantly for the growth of grain and vegetables. (She doubled as queen of Hades.) The sculpture is lit for maximum drama at night.

Persephone

According so some website or other

Persephone was the goddess queen of the underworld, wife of the god Haides. She was also the goddess of spring growth, who was worshipped alongside her mother Demeter in the Eleusinian Mysteries. This agricultural-based cult promised its initiates passage to a blessed afterlife.

This statue of the goddess is an old favorite of ours in the Missouri Botanical Garden. Like so much else, she is illuminated in blue during Garden Glow. It is an appropriate representation of her withdrawal, along with vegetation, under the earth during winter.

                

Back Corners Of The Garden

The Missouri Botanical Garden has broad open areas where the events of the Japanese Festival were held. It also has beautiful back corners with a more intimate scale.

These photos are of Tower Grove House, home of Henry Shaw, the founder of the Garden and adjacent Tower Grove Park. The turret on the right side of the building is the tower. You can barely see a railing on the very top, from which Shaw could observe his, well, um, groves.

The white statue is of Juno, queen of the Roman gods. If you look at it from a certain angle you'd swear she was hitchhiking. The third photo is a wraith-like figure within the glass walls of Shaw's tomb. The last was moved to the Garden from our 1904 World's Fair. It represents Persephone during her time on earth on parole from Hades, pouring water so crops may prosper.