The legend of the Vegetable Lamb goes back as far as the year 436, and it tells the tale of a plant that grew living lambs as if they were flowers. According to the legend, the lambs were able to bend down and eat the plants surrounding it and were thus able to feed themselves for a while. Once all the surrounding plants had been munched away, the poor little lambs shrivelled up and died, that is if they didn’t get devoured by a wolf first.
@ Diary of a Dandelion Diva
A plant with lambs as its flowers seems like something right off an Amy Ross canvas. Speaking of whom, though my daughter is only a week old today I’m already understanding what Ross wrote recently about the impact of parenthood on how she sees nature. Why not a vegetable lamb, after all?
PS Also via DDD, a call for submissions to an upcoming journal issue intriguingly themed “The Garden in the City.”
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Thank you for this! A friend had mentioned the vegetable lamb to me a long time ago, and I had completely forgotten about the idea until now. (Not to mention I’m in a sudden creative slump, and this might just jump start something interesting…) And congratulations on the birth of your daughter! It is definitely a wild ride to be parenting a little girl.