#verpa

As usual I've saved something special for the milestone. Quite likely the weirdest bivalves in the world, and that's a group that includes shipworms and freshwater species that hitch a lift upstream in fish gills.

Originally described as Serpula penis by Linnaeus in 1758. But since Serpula is now a genus of tube worms, it certainly didn't stay there. Exactly whose penis is another question, but I'm sure you could find something similar in the Bad Dragon catalogue.

Another names have included Aquaria radiata, 10 different Aspergillum, three different Brechites, Clepsydra javanica, three Penicillus, and Serpula aquaria. An Aspergillum is a device for sprinkling holy water. One of the definitions of Clepsydra ('water thief') is a hollow brass ball with a long neck and lots of small holes around the bell, that if dipped in water will hold it until you take your thumb off the opening at the end of the neck. The common names also include waterspout shell. So all-in-all it would seem most of the taxonomists were making the same associations, based on the wide end of the shell being covered in dozens of tiny holes.

Most of those generic names are invalid because they'd already been applied to something else. I'm honestly amazed 'Verpa' hadn't already been applied to another animal, and it IS the name of a fungus genus. It means 'erect penis' in vulgar Latin, incidentally. Guess what the fungus looks like.

And they really are bivalves, although there's little evidence of that left in the adult shell.

The Clavagelloidea includes genera that bore into living coral, but Verpa lives in soft sediments, with the wide end buried, and the long tube sticking up into the water. The bivalve's siphons run up the tube, to inhale and exhale water, but they can also use their mantle to pump water out through the small holes at the wide end. This presumably loosens the sand and mud, and helps secure the wide end as an suction anchor. Some have been found with sharp curves and bends in the tube, which probably indicates they got knocked over at some point but survived to keep growing.

Some research suggests that the genera in the Clavagelloidea that currently form the Penicillidae and the Clavagellidae actually evolved seperately, possibly from the Lyonsiidae, but converged on the same bizarre anatomy. Clavagellids first appeared in the Upper Cretaceous, but the Penicillids like Verpa didn't show until the Oligocene at least 40 million years later.

Found off the coast of SE Asia and Australia, but very rare and presumed extinct in some areas since they haven't been seen in 50 years.

Cambridge, UK, April 2023

Thimble cap morels (Verpa conica)

This mushroom is one of the often-demonised ‘false morels’ - fungi that look like Morchella species, but aren’t. In reality, most of these fungi are not to be feared, being edible (when well-cooked, just like ‘true’ morels) and tasty. I also find them every year, although I’ve only ever found a single Morchella! 

Five months ago I made a clay phallus for Dionysus. At the time I mentioned having the plan to gild it, but I was unemployed and gold leaves were definitely out of my league. 

And so, upon consecrating it, I told Dionysus what my plans were, and made the promise that, were I to get a job, I would sacrifice a part of my pay in the form of gold to gild his phallus on the altar. 

So here we are. It’s gilded with 22K gold leaf and took a bit more than 4 leaves out of the 5 I had. It has imperfections, also due to the fact the material is clay, so it’s naturally not perfectly smooth. Despite this, it is now the most precious and visible object on my altar.

Verpa bohemica

Early Morel, Wrinkled Thumb-Cap

Edible for some, poisonous for others. My advice: don’t eat it. Unless you really have to. Then, you do you.

Being childless and living alone makes it so that when I moved in my new apartment I bought a copy of Luis Royo’s erotic art and framed that on my bedroom walls. 

Meanwhile, my also childless sister has had this wallpaper in her bedroom for several years as a feature wall: 

...and I should have done this sooner.

As modern worshippers, we tend to go right for food & drink offerings and kinda forget about the archeological findings in the many hellenic temples. Researching for the posts I wrote recentely made me realize how much clay/terracotta votives have been found in temples. It’s just such a common occurence. And it makes sense, after all, clay was affordable, accessible and much more long-lasting than food, which will end up rotting. And this durability is probably why archeologists find so many of those clay votives. 

 Either way it made me think and realize a few things: 

It’s durable (duh!)

It’s traditional, so if you have recon leanings that’s quite satisfying.

It doesn’t create waste. 

It’s a nice craft activity.

It’s fairly cheap. I spent less than 9€ for 1kg of clay. Depending on the size of what you make, it can last you a while. Just make sure to store it correctly.

Granted, the only downside is that it’s a bit time consumming, but you get to develop a skill in the process. 

A few examples, like this pomegranate (Classic period, 5th-6th cent BC). It pretty. 

Two fruits (possibly an apple and a pomegranate), 3rd Century B.C

Pomegranates are so common. I’ve touched on this in my Hera post, and clay pomegranates were probably just as common as fresh ones. Then, there’s all the clay body parts from people who asked for healing of the specific body part.

I’m going to use one last example, since I wrote on the Haloa festival very recently. There is a myth that explains the implication of Dionysus which goes this way:  Dionysus presented a sheperd called Icarius with the gift of wine as thanks for his hospitality. However, when Icarius shared this gift with his shepherd friends, they mistook the signs of drunkenness as signs of poison, and killed Icarius in retaliation. Dionysus punished the shepherds by taking the form of a maiden, thus “maddening with sexual desire.” But when the maiden suddenly disappeared, the shepherds’ erections remained until an oracle told them that they must placate the gods by dedicating clay models of genitals. This partly explains why genital shaped things are so present during the Haloa. 

pictures of my own clay stuff under the cut (beware, there’s a phallus)