mmmm ... Liverwort ... sounds delicious

...



I was wandering around my favorite unlikely nursery, the CVS (formerly the Über Long's) on Pleasant Valley Road, and I noticed that they had some really lovely Blue Eyed Grass, for a very low price. And then, I noticed that the pots had something growing in them, in addition to the flowers.

"Liverwort?" my brain asked itself.

And until someone tells me otherwise, I'm going to call this Marchantia polymorpha, or Common Liverwort.

Liverwort is one of those plants that get referenced when discussing the Doctrine of Signatures, which (for those of you who weren't paying attention to all the weird stuff they taught us in school) is the belief that objects were shaped to resemble the ways in which they were useful. Thus, liverwort was thought to cure diseases of the liver, due to its resemblance to a liver.

Even when I was so sick with hepatitis, I can't imagine that my liver looked quite so peculiar.




But you know me. Even though this plant is considered a greenhouse weed, I rather love it. I'm the girl who cozies up to sea slugs, and exploding fungus, and slime molds. I'm endlessly fascinated by the tiny, uncanny life forms that (I suspect) most people have never even noticed.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Hmm.. you cozy up to weird things, and then wonder how you get sick!

I march in my towns local St Patty's Day parade this weekend- hopefully it's not going to rain and be gross out.
Wow those photos are fantastic
Eli said…
It is blooming! great pictures.
Lisa said…
Oh, what fun to find liverworts in a pot! They must have really been watering them a lot...

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