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According to Greek mythology, Selene is the daughter of of the Titans Hyperion and Thea.
She is the goddess of the moon, twin sister of Helios, god of the Sun and Eos, the goddess of dawn.
In the lunar cycle Selene represents the full moon, along with Artemis, the crescent moon, and Hecate, goddess of the waning moon.
Selene was also the tutelary deity of magicians.
In art, Selene is represented as a young woman driving a silver chariot drawn by two horses, or sometimes, by two oxen. She was involved in many love affairs, however, not as many as her sister, Eos, the dawn.
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Selene bore Zeus two daughters, Pandia and Erso. According to one legend, the Nemean lion, which fell to the earth from the moon was also the result of an affair of Zeus and Selene. Another one of her lovers was Pan who gave her a herd of white oxen.
But her true love was a mortal, Endymion - and this is the love affair that brings Selene the most fame.
In different variations of the legend Endymion was either the king of Elis, a hunter, or a a beautiful shepherd boy of Mount Latmus, near Milete, in Asia Minor. Yet another myth connects the story to Mount Lamos in Caria - where Selene found Endymion asleep in a cave.
Selene visited Endymion every night and kissed him with her rays of light. It is said that Selene's moon rays fall upon sleeping mortals and her kisses fell upon her love, Endymion. They had fifty daughters, one of which was Naxos.
Endymion wished to have the ability to sleep forever with open eyes so that he will never age and retain his good looks for all time. Selene begged Zeus to grant him eternal life so she might be able to embrace him forever. Zeus complied. In another legend, the perpetual sleep was a punishment inflicted by Zeus for having dared to fall in love with Zeus's consort, Hera.
One version of the myth says that Selene asked Hypnos, the personification of sleep in Greek mythology to let Endymion sleep forever. That is a rather special twist, because Hypnos is the sibling of Thanatos, the personification of the death itself. |
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Ethernal youth, ethernal love, ethernal sleep -
the choice is yours ...
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ORCHIDACEAE
Subfamily
Cypripedioideae
Genus
Selenipedium
Reichenbach f. (1854.)
Type species
Selenipedium chica Rchb. f. (1854.)
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Heinrich Gustav Reichenbach f. recognised Selenipedium based on the trilocular ovary of certain Neotropical species with plicate leaves.
The association with Selene is based on contemporay reports stating that insects are virtually charmed so much by the strong, vanilla-like scent of the flowers of Selenipedium chica that upon escaping from the puch-saped labium most of them repeatedly dive back into the flower.
This single-character taxonomy Reichenbach f. applied here later became quite characteristic of German orchidologists and has been challenged by K. L. Blume in 1858, who pointed out that in a number of Cypripedium spp. the ovary is also trilocular, even if partially, i. e. near to the proximal end of their ovaria.
Nevertheless, Bentham and Hooker (1883.) accepted the Selenipedium concept, which remained valid up to today.
Selenipedium species are rare, not well known and being not really attractive as ornamental plants due to threir tall growth and small flowers opened for example on the type species yards above the ground, they are not cultivated by orchid enthusiasts.
Recent, excellent research work in progress in Brazil by João Batista Fernandes da Silva and others is resulting in important contributions to our knowledge related to these so far relatively neglected orchids.
From November 2000 their results are published at a website devoted exclusively to this orchid genus. The site is a must for everybody interested not only in horticulturally attractive but other orchids as well. The link to the informative, excellently designed site is here.
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