One of the most interesting foods that Khadijah and I tried while honeymoon traveling the near-Earth region of the Milky Way is called Harvest Thyme on Earth, owing to its similar flavor and its appearance: you know when it is ready to eat by the moving of the “hands” of flower bud that are still on it as the first phase of the flowers comes out.
On Cerillia, where the plant is from, a red and yellow variation is the insignia of one of the kingdoms, the five crowns representing Piety, Wisdom, Cooperation, Collaboration, and Peace:
The Royal Harvest Thyme is one of the three variants of the family that is rarely eaten. Rarely do the hands of the buds fully pull away on that variation, and at that point, the plant is still poisonous. If the royal variation does make it to the ripe stage, it is generally preserved in oil and eaten over a long period of time. I bought Khadijah some Royal Harvest Thyme at great price for our kitchen, and we enjoyed it for many years.
The main variation with the purple blossoms goes through several stages as the time of its harvesting grows near, and, just when the two remaining hands approach “midnight”...
… all of them spread wide, and the whole plant is ready to be harvested. The flower head is sweet and reminds me of spearmint while to Khadijah it tastes more like lavender. The rest of the plant tastes quite a bit like thyme.
Harvest Thyme has a number of thoughts around it in the near-Earth regions that really started with humanity and the history of clock-making … one common one is to associate the plants with the seasons of life as seen from the holy soul's perspective – not declining with age, but, as the time of full maturity approaches, growing fuller and fuller until ready for eternity, in which the constraints of time fall away.
That particular analogy is among the most apt because of what happens a quarter of the time when people grow Harvest Thyme on Earth: Earth's iron-rich soil and slightly brighter yellow star triggers a normally-rare third variation that is strikingly lovely....
… but the first time that happened, the native Cerillians had their ambassador put out a warning.
“Harvest Thyme in blue and gold is the color of your heaven!”
That is, blue and gold Harvest Thyme will take you from here to eternity, being in that stage the 10th most poisonous plant to humans in the near-Earth region. Many Earth-plants produce cyanide in certain parts of their anatomy or at different stages of their development, but blue and gold Harvest Thyme warns of it with that true cyan(ide) blue.
“The Cerillians, had they not wanted to be bothered with humanity, could have let millions of us knock ourselves off with this thing,” I said.
“Remember,” Khadijah said, “the first virtue of the crown of the kingdom is piety. The Cerillians think of humanity as maybe a little batty – because they think food and ornamental plants are never to be mixed – but still, made by the Creator and not to be harmed. I'm sure it has never crossed their minds to use their most famous plant to send us from here to eternity, which is why they warned us not to do it to ourselves.”
Five pretty pure fractals in Apophysis 2.09...the first two are the best two colors I found, but then I thought about "Can I work those hands around the clock?" Once I succeeded, then I found one more striking color variation, and the rest is history...