The Voyage of the Amaranth

Opisthocomus Hoazin - 1894

A.Caudatus. -- Love-lies-bleeding. -- This is also a well-known hardy annual, from three to four feet high, with blood-red flowers, which hang in pendant spikes, and, at a little distance, look like streams of blood; in July and August. It is sometimes called, in France, "Discipline des religieuses," -- the Nun's Whipping-rope.

Joseph Breck, The Flower-Garden, 1858, p.163

The morning air was claggy as Aristide walked through the gardens of the national history museum. His mind was occupied with the news of the latest debate regarding the classification of Opisthocomus Hoazin; with the notes of the suborder classifications in his hand he went over the facts of the creature. Its exquisite colours, mournful and demonic wails, and almost primeval appearance in the trees made it understandable that its offspring should have clawed wings. It was, in his mind, the pinnacle of humankind's aspiration - intelligence, beauty, and to possess something which created a lasting impression in a fleeting moment. To think that their maker had given all this to a creature and yet also decreed it to be lesser, to confine it to a simpler life where it could not comprehend its blessings, was at best a subject for theologians and at worst a demonstration of Old Testament cruelty.

The grounds of the museum were expansive - established as the royal garden of medicinal plants the herbarium was vast and the gardens of flowers directed the walker through as many climes as one could imagine. Aristide had walked most of them in his years working as an assistant and like many at the start he had favoured the idyllic double alley of Platanus. As time passed, he found himself retreating further into the more secluded, less disturbed paths. The recent opening of the Gallery of Zoology had increased the number of people around the museum and while he enjoyed the business of academic life and the excitement of developing ideas, the gardens became his haven - a place still and untouched by the vicissitudes of Parisian life.

With his notes in hand, Aristide took a seat on a bench midway between the galleries. He rifled through his pockets for a piece of drawing paper and removed a pencil from behind his ear. A lecture on the classification of Opisthocomus Hoazin was to take place that afternoon and balancing the notes on his knee, he sketched the features of the tropical bird. The debate that afternoon was one of a morphological standing in which the speaker was to claim the bird belonged with the turacos, a frugivorous family of birds from sub-Saharan Africa and not the fowl-like bird of the Opsisthocomidae family. Aristide tended to side with the earlier work, and his drawings of the bird's chicks, with their unfeathered faces and bi-clawed wings demonstrated his primeval leanings. He looked up from his drawing and dabbed his forehead with a pocket handkerchief; the August heat was stifling, there had been no breeze for days and Aristide dreaded the heat of the lecture hall. He checked his pocket watch, the golden second hand ticked audibly as it passed the black roman numerals on the white watch face. He closed the lid and sighed as he placed it back in his trouser pocket, the chain glinted in the morning light as it stretched across the linen fabric.

He rolled his notes as he rose, crossing the path to the amaranthus caudatus, a favourite since his youth, the eternally bleeding flowers reminded him of long forgotten battlefields and tragic ballads. Returning the pencil behind his ear, he lifted a stem of amaranthus caudatus, balancing the delicate flowers on his finger, examining the intricacies of each flower. The immortal discipline des religieuse was the first plant he ascribed to the herbarium's records and as it lay directly in the centre of his walk to his office it became a subtle momentary echo to his past. The bloodied flowers cascaded to his exposed wrist and as he examined the leaves for aphids, his mind wandered to the state of his superior - the chair of crustacea, arachnida, and insects - Émile Blanchard.

He stood up, dusted his trousers down and walked towards the imposing windows of zoology. Housing the evolution of life, the large building was split into speciality chairs and while Aristide was not particularly keen on all the creatures he was tasked with logging, he did enjoy the butterflies. Blanchard was particularly fond of the butterfly exhibit and Aristide was looking forward to spending the day in the company of the specimens, it offered a quiet space where both men could work in harmony and mutual enjoyment until the Opisthocomus Hoazin lecture.