Just a Heart

   Here I am in those years deemed to be "the elderly" and I am still learning new things every day.  I guess that old adage "You can't teach an old dog new tricks." is a bunch of hogwash.  In fact, it is good to keep learning.  You know...you have to keep that brain active!  At least, that is what my kids tell me.  So, I research just about everything I come across.  Some of this, I retain.  Some I deem boring so it gets stored in that dusty part of the brain where things go to hide for eternity.

  Today, I found a leaf!  Exciting?  Nope but interesting enough that it brought questions.  The research did not even involve the type of leaf or what caused the odd shaped holes carved into it.  I knew the answers to both.  It is a grape leaf and the holes were the result of pine needles being dropped onto the vine.  Those pierced the soft part of the leaf leaving gaping holes.  Nope.  I did not need any help figuring that.  My research came as a result of me thinking the leaf resembled a heart.  (It did not look like an anatomical heart but rather the cute hearts we all use to decorate things.) Where in the world did that shape come from?  Who thought that a few squiggles should be called a heart?  I had to know.

  Come to find out, the heart shape is all because of a now extinct plant, the Silphium.  This plant was something that was widely used back in ancient Rome.  (This plant is not to be confused with any modern day plant even if it has a similar name. This silphium has gone the wayside.)  Anyway, those ancient Romans decided that the plant was good for a myriad of things but all were centered around "love".  The plant was deemed as an aphrodisiac, a contraceptive and an abortifacient. Hmmm...perhaps that is why it is extinct now.  Overharvesting can indeed cause problems. 

  Still, that does not explain the shape of the cute little emoji heart nor the Valentine heart.  Well...there is more.  Since the plant was tied to all this "love", they needed something to represent the plant and there it was.  What we know as the heart shape comes from the fruit or seed.  The case was roughly that shape.  The mericarp (fruit) was soon representative of the plant itself.  Those ancient Romans started carving the shape of their wondrous plant onto everything.  It became the decoration of the time.  It wasn't long before the mericarp was on the coins used at market.  Geez!  So...there you have it.  What we know as a cutesy emblem came from long ago and depicts a part of a plant.  It has nothing to do with the human heart.

  So, folks...keep learning.  Even if it is something that is just a curiosity and not that useful, learning keeps the wheels of thought going.  That is not a bad thing.