セイロンベンケイ (Air Plant)

[The main text of this post is in Japanese only.]


わが家に咲いたセイロンベンケイの花。2020 年 2 月 23 日撮影。
Air plant flowers that bloomed in my home; taken on February 23, 2020.

　セイロンベンケイという植物は、ある程度以上に背が高くならないと花をつけないようだ。現在わが家にこの植物の鉢が五つあるが、今年花を咲かせたのは、背の高さが 1.16 m ほどになった一鉢だけである。他の鉢では背の高さが 1 m に満たない。上掲の 2 枚の写真は同じ鉢の花を別々の角度から撮ったものである。

　いくつかあるこの植物の英名の一つは、Goethe plant である。英文『ウィキペディア』の説明には、これに関連して次のようにある。

The writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who was an amateur naturalist of some repute, was "passionately fond" of this plant and liked to give the baby plantlets as gifts to friends who visited his home. He also discussed his air plant at length in an essay titled: Geschichte meiner botanischen Studien ("History of my botanical studies").

　"Goethe air plant" でインターネット検索をすると文献 1 が出た。そこにあった文は次の通り。

Sunday, 21st February [,1830]
　Dined with Goethe. He showed me the air-plant, (Luft-planze,) which I looked at with great interest. I remarked therein an effort to continue its existence as long as possible, before permitting its successor to manifest itself.
　[...]
　Later, while walking, the air-plant came again into my mind, and I thought how necessary it becomes to every being, after a while, to reproduce itself. This law of nature reminded me of the history of God living alone for a while, and then creating the Son, who is like him. So, too, good masters find nothing more appropriate to do than to form good scholars, by whom their efforts and opinions may be carried down into the next generation. Even so does the poet or artist reproduce himself in his work; if that is excellent, he also must have been excellent. Thus no good work of another shall excite envy in me, while from its existence I must infer that of a man worthy to be its author.

　セイロンベンケイからの考察が生命の再生産、そして詩人や芸術家が自らをその作品中に再生産することに及んでいるのは、この植物の葉が飛び散った先で新芽を出して活着し、台風の暴風をも利用して生息域を広げる（和文『ウィキペディア』による）という再生産力を持っていることからであろうか。

文献

1. Conversations with Goethe in the Last Years of His Life, translated from the German of Eckermann by S. M. Fuller (Hilliard, Gray, and Company, Boston, 1839) pp. 342-343. This book can also be browsed here (Internet Archive).

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　「人気ブログランキング」へ一票を！