Wildbuzz: Doesn’t matter how, petals scatter now
Spring's poppies enchant with transient beauty. Hoverflies buzz around, distinct from honeybees. Opium poppy's history contrasts with ornamental poppy species. "Handmaiden moths" intrigue as confiding beauties.
The glimmer of spring’s sunlight through the poppy’s blood-red petals makes for an enchanting, if transient beauty. Poppy flowers don’t last long, they shed petals with the swish of silken dresses as night hastens upon the tricity’s gardens. In a hushed living room, petals from a vase of cut poppies fall in colours so loud and notes sighing so soft as to enthral the poetic muse. Poppies bloom best in spring when winter’s thaw relieves flower beds of the aching frost. But the sun’s cruel April rays are beginning to pierce through the petals. To improvise from Thomas Moore’s verses: “It’s the last poppy of spring, Left blooming alone; All her lovely companions, Faded and gone.”
Honeybees and hoverflies lend a buzz to poppy flowers as these pollinators are immensely attracted to them. The buzz of these pollinators around poppies, if heard carefully on a silent morning, makes for a veritable “hymn to nature”. Hoverflies are often confused with honeybees but the former have only one pair of wings while bees have two.
The large eyes and short antenna of hoverflies render them distinct from bees as does the fact that they don’t sting.
Hoverflies neither make honey nor hang about on hives but roost on leaves. They are unsung courtiers in the kingdom of flowers. A similar confusion arises in the realm of poppies, of which more than 250 species are found globally. Culture, especially the West’s use of the ornamental corn field poppy (Papaver rhoeas) as a flower of remembrance for fallen soldiers, has conflated this species with the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum).
Opium poppy is also associated with warfare dating back to the era of Helen of Troy due to its derivatives alleviating the pain of wounds as well as inducing sleep and a forgetfulness of horrific battle memories. It comes in hues of white, pink and purple petals. It is much taller and sturdier than the ornamental poppy species popular in gardens and cast in petal colours of scarlet, crimson, red, yellow etc. The alkaloids in opium poppy’s resin include the powerful morphine, thebaine and codeine.
Across the globe’s bewildering diversity of flowering plants, it is only the opium poppy that produces morphine. In contrast, the derivatives of ornamental poppy species are milder, producing effects such as sedation and weakly-soporific teas.
Handmaidens at the door
One is left rather intrigued as to why so many moth species are lent the common name of “handmaiden moths”. The answer came from a delightfully novel spot. Rashpal Singh, who markets camera equipment for a reputed international company, spotted an intriguing pair of creatures that seemed like wasps on the glass door of his shop in Ludhiana’s Ghumar mandi. Having nurtured an early interest in the creative arts, especially painting, and also in flora and butterflies, Singh quickly seized the opportunity to take photos of the pair in fusion. How was a dazzling shopping complex sporting such unusual denizens of the natural world? He suspected the insects had been unwittingly transported to the shopping complex by a vehicle as the car park is just yards away from the shop. The remarkable thing about the pair was that it stayed put for hours on the door. Mohali-based birder and naturalist Prof Gurpartap Singh identified the insects as “Amata cyssea, a species of the handmaiden moths or wasp moths. This is a day-flying moth (unlike the typical nocturnal moths). They mimic wasps in their body structure and coloration, which saves them from predators averse to wasps.” The bright colours of such moths denote a bitter or even poisonous meal and deters predators from preying upon them. The species are also lent the common name of tiger moths because of their orange and black colours.
Prof. Gurpartap had a Amata cyssea specimen alight one fine day on his laundered red T-shirt hung in the backyard. Despite being such beauties and worthy of a Cleopatra comparison, what renders them handmaidens? It is their confiding nature, often turning up in human-dominating scenes and sitting pretty without getting edgy in front of looming giants. “Handmaiden is related to ‘a maid that waits at hand; a female servant or attendant’. Since these moths come into human spaces and are easily approachable, it means they are ‘ready at hand’. They remain perched for considerable time at the same place, hence the name, handmaiden moths,” he explained.
