Lavender: Too Much Information?

This is Spanish lavender from my backyard in a little lavender hand-blown glass vase (the vase is actually shaped like this–for once it’s not my drawing). I used my magnifying lamp to see the details and discovered teeny purple flowers with yellow centers on the bud-shaped thingee that the lavender petals come out of and that bud thingee is shaped like a mini pine cone. I tried looking up the actual names of these parts but the diagrams I found didn’t really apply to this flower.

While Googling for the plant parts I also uncovered the following “facts” about lavender on the web:

• Lavender can be used to treat burns, rheumatism, muscular pains, neuralgia, cold sores, insect bites, head lice, halitosis, dandruff, vaginal discharge and anal fissure.

• Pheramones cause people to be attracted to you and causes mother-baby bonding. Pheramones (like pretty much everything else except for weight) decrease as we age. That’s why men prefer younger women.

• The same website also explains that too much washing causes divorce: “By the 1940’s, many Californians bathed or showered daily and washed away their personal pheromones, while most of the USA stuck to weekly bathing. California soon led the USA in divorce rates and family breakdown.”

• The source of the name lavender is Latin lavare “wash.”

• The combined odor of lavender and pumpkin (ewww!) were found to be a much stronger aphrodesiac than expensive perfume (they actually did scientific tests that get a bit x-rated so I’ll skip the details here).

Ink and watercolor in big watercolor Moleskine notebook.