Tanakaea radicans
24th April 2014
There are times when my ignorance is more tangible than the clutter of artifacts that have become the foundation of culture.
Tanakaea radicans is one of the names that represent something tangible but invoke nothing but ignorance in me. Tangible
ignorance.
I was gripping it tightly when I was attracted to the name on a label at an AGS sale, and shortly after I was attracted to the
owner of the name and grasped it. Ignorance in one hand and the subject of that ignorance in the other, I made my way home
in that strange state I sometimes experience when I look up a familiar word in a dictionary and come away understanding it better.
I have since learned that it is a Japanese creeping shrublet, evergreen, with small white flowers in summer.
It is the sort of thing I would have spent my life aware of without knowing in any way and it was chance that threw it
under my nose. I am becoming more familiar with it though the ignorance remains as real.