Bastille Day

First, planty people, help if you can please. We bought this at a plant sale, as an unlabelled tiny stalk, and the grower didn't know what it was anyway. For weeks it did nothing, then suddenly it did this. As good Latin frauds, we call it Thingyia Purpurea Droopiens. But if you happen to know what it really is, we'd love to know.

Now, since it is Bastille Day, the anniversary of when a nation began to seize control from its autocratic rulers, we happened to trip over Charles de Gaulle at the antique shop, and he's in the extra. Dites-lui bonjour.