Wistaria hysteria:Six thousand or so people are...
Wistaria hysteria:
Six thousand or so people are going to drop by Maria Feeney’s house in Sierra Madre on Sunday, all drawn by a vine in her backyard. A vine so big it also takes up the backyard of her neighbors, the Solts, who can expect a huge crowd, too.
Sunday is the annual Wistaria Festival, honoring the world’s largest such vine.
Purchased at a nursery for 75 cents in 1894, it now shows off 1.5 million blossoms.
Even wistaria are not immune from controversy, though. Most of the rest of the world spells the plant’s name “wisteria.” There are three Wisteria streets in the Southland. And there was a play, “The Wisteria Tree.” But Sierra Madre insists on spelling it “wistaria,” pointing out that it was named for scientist Casper Wistar, and must have been misspelled somewhere along the way.
Not that the spelling matters to Maria Feeney. She’s thinking about the visitors on Sunday--and what a good job her eight children could do as hosts. “I think I’ll go to the movies,” she said.
THE WEED THAT ATE L.A.: The growth of the wistaria can’t compare to the spread of Bermuda grass in “Greener Than You Think,” a 1947 novel that we’re adding to our list of great L.A. disaster fiction.
Written by Ward Moore, it’s the story of a lawn additive that is applied to the diseased devil grass of a Mrs. Dinkman in Hollywood and soon overwhelms the neighborhood:
“Out through the Cahuenga Pass it flowed, toward the fertile San Fernando Valley. Steadily it climbed to the hilltops, masticating sage, greasewood, oak, sycamore and manzanita with the same ease it bolted houses and pavements.”
Nothing can stop it--not weed-burners, not oil, not aerial bombing by the National Guard. L.A. is evacuated so that the city can be sowed with salt. But the grass jumps to San Diego (another reason to hate L.A.).
Finally, Time magazine reports: “Death, as it must to all, came last week to Los Angeles . . . swallowed up, Jonah-wise by the advance of the terrifying Bermuda grass.”
A bit later, the Soviet Union attacks the West Coast--but its soldiers become enmeshed in the weeds and starve. By book’s end, most of earth’s inhabitants have taken to living on the sea.
Homeowners--remember this story the next time you start to complain about your not-so-luxuriant lawn.
CRAZY CHICKEN: County sheriff’s deputies, lobbying for better pay, have printed up a T-shirt that takes note of a recent L.A. Times series that found that the financially pressed department was feeding prisoners pricey chicken.
IT DIDN’T LOOK LIKE KARL MALDEN: Kathryn Krumm noticed a panhandler in Hollywood who was holding a sign that said, “Homeless ex-office worker needs help. Left home w / o American Express.”
miscelLAny:
A Hooker’s Ball will be held in conjunction with the International Conference on Prostitution at 8 tonight at the Airtel Plaza Hotel in Van Nuys. We said the Airtel Hotel, not the No Tell Hotel.
