| Original Message: Poppy, lotus or melon redo |
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I've been pondering this thread and will post some pictures. I'm an avid plant collector, as well, and to my eye these beads look much more like melons than either poppy pods or lotus pods-I grow all three but the pictures I'm posting are taken from google images. I suspect that the melon may have been a much more important food in ancient times than it is now-it is certainly more important in the Far East today than it is in North America. I have no clue if it was ever considered sacred though I seem to remember that the Japanese use the occasional melon on inro. My research into the native habitat of the African spurred tort showed me that a melon and okra were indigenous to Ethiopia and may have evolved there along with the torts. Humans have been tampering with agricultural crops for, well, ever, so it's unlikely that we know what the ancient melons looked like, The Sacred lotus, as I have pictured and the opium poppy haven't been altered that much through time. I will also point out that an opium poppy pod that has been scraped from top to bottom also looks very like a melon once it is dried.
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