Photograph for Friday, October 31 I think this flower must work together with the spider in Wednesday’s photograph. It gives off an odor that attracts flies. The spider strung its web nearby. I don’t know the name of the plant that produces the flower. This one has a traceable history, like a family tree. The plant in our yard grew from a cutting of a plant in Margaret’s sister’s yard which grew from a cutting taken at least thirty years ago from a plant which Margaret’s mother had on her porch, where it had lived happily for many years.

Margaret’s mother was one of the gentlest, sweetest persons I’ve ever known. She absolutely refused to say bad things about anybody. She didn’t gossip. She refused to participate when people tried to get a gossip session going. She wasn’t unkind about it. She just kept quiet when invited to be snide or otherwise unkind. It is appropriate that this strange plant thrived on her porch. The flower isn’t exactly pretty. It’s lumpy. It’s petals aren’t delicate, and it smells bad (if you get your nose right down close to it). She liked it anyway; so I have also liked it for a long time. I often think of Mrs. Martin when I walk past this grand daughter plant on our porch, and I sometimes wonder what I might do to be more like her.