Flowers as a Symbol of Friendship - or not

How lovely to present some delicate pansies as a gesture of friendship.

But I'm not sure how a friend would take it if I offered her one of these flowers out of my garden. This is Dranunculus Vulgaris, also known as a Voodoo Lily  (incorrectly, I think) and Dragon Arum - and, yes, it is as huge as it looks.  The bloom is several feet long.

These things grow on the side of my house, where, despite all of my efforts, they are tremendously happy. Let me just clarify that I did not plant these. They came with the house. The previous owner died, and while I can't blame it on these flowers, if she had been teetering on the edge they may just have pushed her over.

Oh, but they're so uh lovely! Yes, and like other plants, they need to be pollinated. But unlike most other plants, these are pollinated by flies not bees.  And in order to attract flies, it helps if you smell bad. In fact, if you can manage to smell like week-old roadkill, then you can greatly increase your chances of successful pollination. And that is exactly what these flowers smell like. It is not a faint smell either, it is an evil cloud that wafts and drifts.

This plant has another odd quality, which is that the smell only lasts for one day. After that you can cut them and put them in a vase in your house with no trace of odor. Often I cut them down before that, so that the mailman doesn't contact the police about rotting corpses. This year we endured the smell so that my neighbor could cut them down and give them to a friend - as a symbol of friendship I suppose.

Oh, if you're still here, this is the back of the lovely pansy card.

Manhattan Beach Railway

Wouldn't it be nice to head out to the Manhattan Beach Hotel for a nice cool dip in the Atlantic? According to this website on Coney Island's history, the hotel, designed by J. Pickering Putnam,  was opened in 1877. Austin Corbin, who founded the resort and built the hotel, also built the railroad to bring people out from Manhattan.  Today's post is a train schedule, not a postcard. Note the hot-air balloon between 'Manhattan' and 'Beach'.

The train would take you out to Manhattan Beach in less than an hour for the price of 25 cents. Here's the route map.

According to Bob Anderson, this schedule was printed just a few years after the hotel opened. Here's what he has to say:

I think the timetable is from 1879. There are a couple of clues: Only the Third Ave. El (opened 1878) and not the Second Ave. El (1880) is shown on Manhattan Island on the map. The timetable says the line is now doubled-tracked over its entire length, which was completed after the 1878 season. And the Kings County Central branch, which ran in 1878 only, is not shown.  By the way, at this time the entire MB Ry. was a narrow gauged line (3’). It was not converted to standard gauge (4’ 8.5”) until 1882.

Bob Anderson runs the Long Island Rail Road History website, where you can find just about anything you would want to know about the New York and Manhattan Beach Railway.  According to Anderson, the Manhattan Beach Hotel was razed in 1907.

If you disembark at the Sepia Saturday stop  this weekend, you can see all sort of other interesting photos, some of which may relate to trains.

Special at the Brighouse Cemetery

I bought this postcard along with some other Yorkshire postcards that I posted previously.  I almost didn't buy this one, but somehow the No Dogs Admitted sign convinced me.  I'm not suggesting there's any logic to that; it's just the way it happened.

I looked for some more images of the cemetery and found some nice ones at Malcolm Bull's Calderdale Companion. I also came upon a site that claimed to be the blog of Brighouse Cemetery and had this to say:

Welcome to the blog of Brighouse Cemetery

Hello! Brighouse Cemetery is in business in Brighouse, ENG, and is interested in doing business with you. Contact Brighouse Cemetery to request a deal, get a coupon or to do business.

I am not sure what kind of deals they might offer...half off? Maybe an Early Bird special? Group discount? Whatever the case, don't delay - I'm sure it's a limited-time offer.

Here's the back of the card.