Candles in the wind
SEVERAL years ago, my attention was caught by a television war correspondent reporting from the conflict in a desolate region of Afghanistan. I became fascinated not by his account of inhumanity, but by the beauty of the setting. Dotted through the bleak landscape behind him were tall spires of glowing white flowers, swaying gently in the breeze. Nature appeared triumphant, even in that hellish place.
‘The bulb is the oddest looking: a fat bud with long fleshy roots like a giant starfish’
The plant was a species of eremurus, a bulb whose magnificent flowers
