Photograph Works

You know those times when you see something and it seems to represent far more than what you are looking at? What I am getting at are those times when your feelings just feel all that is right and good about the world.

The way the branch on the medlar tree looked almost like a swing seat with the blackbird on it made me think that way.

I couldn’t remember the word that represents what I meant, so I googled ‘what is the word that means something described by a part of it‘ and Google found it straight away. Clever Google.

Synecdoche

A synecdoche comes from the Greek meaning ‘simultaneous understanding’.

Google voice pronounces it ‘suh·nek·duh·kee’ – with the stress on ‘nek’.

It is a figure of speech in which a part of something refers to the whole of something or vice versa.

The website Literary Devices gives the example of “all hands on deck” which means that all of the crew should come and help, and not just their hands.

Metonymy

Metonymy (which is pronounced pretty much as you would expect) is a freer association between the part and the whole. Literary Devices gives the example of ‘the crown’ to refer to royalty. ‘The crown’ cannot be an example of synecdoche because crowns are not part of the royal person except in a symbolic sense.

The Blackbird in the Medlar Tree

Was it synecdoche or metonymy that described what I was feeling? I was thinking how fitting it was that the medlar grew that way and the blackbird discovered it and liked it as a place to sing. I was thinking about Nature (with a capital N) and how it just all gels together. And I was thinking about the precious feeling of all that is in balance and radiant.

In the comments on my post about White horse chestnut trees and Red horse chestnut trees, Deb Weyrich-Cody helpfully posted a link to the Morton Arboretum in Illinois.

It explains that the red horse chestnut is a cross between the White horse chestnut and a red buckeye.

And it says the Red horse chestnut is non-native. Is that a reference to the buckeye or to the white horse-chestnut?

Well the Morton Arboretum says that red buckeyes are native to the southern United States, up into the southern tip of Illinois.

So that makes sense and ties up nicely with the information that White horse-chestnuts originally comes from the Caucasus in south-Eastern Europe.

According to the Morton Arboretum, red buckeyes grow to 15-25 feet, and that perhaps explains why Red horse chestnuts are smaller than the white, at least in all the ones I have seen.

Another Look At The Trees

One thing I have learned is that it is easy to look and hard to see. But armed with that bit of tree architecture I went out to look at the trees again.

Now I see what I had seen before but brushed under the carpet of my brain – that the leaves on the red and the white are not the same. You can see that in the photos above.

Of Chestnuts and Conkers

Another thing I know from last year is that unlike the familiar spherical shape of the conker on the White horse chestnut, the Red is more oval in shape – a bit ‘walnut’ in shape.

Let’s see what the Latin names say;

White horse-chestnut: Aesculus hippocastanum
Red buckeye: Aesculus pavia
Red horse-chestnut: Aesculus carnea

The name “hippocastanum” means, literally, “horse chestnut” from the use of the seed to treat coughs and broken wind in horses and to distinguish it from the chestnuts that people eat (Spanish chestnuts).

Here are the young conkers forming on a White horse chestnut.

When I can, I will go searching for the conkers of the Red. Although, it is a question as to whether they can properly be called conkers at all. Nuts, yes. But conkers?

Would any self-respecting conqueror / conker-er use a nut from a Red to battle his or her opponent?