VI: Myrtle
How myrtle gets involved in the holiday of sukkot.
Good morning. Today is sextidi, the 26th of Thermidor, Year CCXXXI. We celebrate la myrte, a small tree best known for its flowers.
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The familiar crape myrtle is not in any way related to the traditional myrtle plant of the Mediterranean that was so beloved by the Romans. Crape myrtle does technically belong to the same order, but is more closely related to pomegranates. There's also wax myrtle from an entirely different family, which has berries coated in a natural wax that can be used for candles or insect repellant. And finally creeping myrtle, which is as unrelated as it gets and we've already met under its more common name, periwinkle.
This is the only of the special "four species" mentioned in the French Republican calendar, so this is, despite being more than a month early, a good time to talk about the Jewish traditions for the festival of sukkot. I'm not Jewish myself, but I've been around enough to have gleaned that sukkot is the fun picnic holiday, and, as with all things Talmudic, there are a bunch of conflicting interpretations for what are some highly specific commands.
