Tree-Wool (article)

Tree-Wool (Mary Johnston, The Classical Weekly, Vol. 24 / No. 8, 1930).

This is a cute little document. The section about "tree-wool" only runs for about half a page, it is sufficient to briefly introduce the two most popular explanations for the origin of the vegetable lamb myth:

"As the western mind associated wool with sheep and lambs, from the idea of 'wool from trees' [cotton] grew the tale of the vegetable lamb, a la,b which grew as a plant".

And, in a note appended to the article, a reference to "the shaggy rhizome of the fern Dickonsia Barometz, which when inverted and suitably trimmed somewhat resembled a small lamb".

Since both ideas are discussed in more detail elsewhere, I'll leave it to my reflections on those articles.

Johnson, however, also points to a couple of places where the veggie lamb pops up in art and literature: first, in the Erasmus Darwin poem "The Botanic Garden", and on the cover of a 1656 gardening book (Parkinson's Paradisi in Solis).

What a funny little creature, no?

I feel an odd kinship with it, particularly in the image I've attached to this blog of the lambs bursting out of fruits on a tree. Of all the curious hybrids I've encountered, this is the one that most strikes me on some strange level. Part plant and part animal, each category rooted and powerful in its own right, this awkward marriage of two very different worlds might by all rights be considered a freak accident of nature, should it exist, or at best a weird symbol that highlights the dangers of mingling things meant to be segregated.

But somehow, it's an enduring figure, an emblem for god-knows-what that pops up in art as a christological symbol, a marvel and a high curiosity that sparks the inquisitive minds of centuries of people.

Maybe it's because I feel like I'm the awkward marriage of two distinct worlds, but for me, the vegetable lamb is the champion of unlike likeness and a refusal (rather than an inability) to transform.

So, there you go. I'm sympathetic toward the little guy. I don't know where I belong either, and no one's categorizations leave me feeling well-represented.

Oh, god, does this mean I'm just a myth as well?