genus species: mementius practicytele. origin: Jamaica. English name: little countess of blame
Found in Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States, after being transposed from Jamaica after the second war world. It has not spread beyond where it has been planted in the States, for the seeds do not germinate this far from the equator. New trees have been planted, but not many, given its past.
The seeds from any season can be crushed and added to create an earthier taste, most specifically to alcoholic drinks, that can be fresh yet bitter at the same time. It can spice chicken and lamb alike, but tends to overwhelm fish, causing catfish to taste rotten. But much has been said about the seeds from the first season of this tree. Local legends abound about its involvement in a number of incidents, both historic and inconsequential.
The early events that took place during the Morant Bay Rebellion of 1865, the same rebellion that resulted in hundreds of black Jamaicans to be hunted and killed, have been traced to the mementius practicytele. The city arrested and jailed a black man for trespassing on an abandoned plantation, and when he was broken out of jail by a number of men, the city issued warrants out on the wrong men. Led by Paul Bogle, these men took the city for themselves, but not for long, as the English governor squashed their rebellion by sending government troops who killed blacks, including Bogle himself, indiscriminately.
As legend tells, the man arrested on the abandoned plantation was harvesting the maiden seeds, crushing them, and distributing them to the people. They were being passed around the city because of their ability to inspire passion in the bedroom. But all good things must be handled accordingly, and as it turns out, the judge of this trespassing man demanded to try the seeds himself, in the court room, at the time and place of the trial. As it were, the seeds were ill suited for the courtroom as the judge, supposedly, and truly uncharacteristically, tried and found guilty every man following the ingestion of this seed, despite him claiming the seeds had no effect. His gavel had never been so swift, according to accounts from the local lawyers.
The governor who ordered the massacre too heard tell of the mementius practicytele, and demanded a tasting of its seed. He decided to take the crushed seeds with a glass of warm milk in his bedchamber the night before the order, and finding his wife absolutely irresistible, failed to leave his bed that morning, busy as he was. As he exclaimed the next day, "I had never been so well positioned or found myself quite so elaborate in my choices that night, and day, and night." 9 months later his wife gave birth to twin girls.
The story goes though, that the lieutenant governor that morning made the decision to send the troops, because swift action was necessary in the case of this rebellion, as word had reached that two white soldiers had been executed by Bogle.
The lieutenant governor was the kindest and gentlest of men, and was considered by all in government a weakling, pathetic, and by too many, a baby dunce. But since he came from a long lineage of lawmen (also they were considerably rich and generous), he kept his lieutenant governorship in Jamaica. He was much ridiculed by all these beneath him because his ideologies on fraternity were many, but always inexact. Recently the governor himself had told him to retain his capacity to lead by making frank decisions, separate from his ideologies. He promised no one would undermine him.
Well, the lieutenant governor thought deeply about his action after hearing word of the rebellion and called a large assembly to announce his decision. It also came to his attention all of this was over a love making seed, and wanting to be considered thorough, he brought the crushed seed with him to the assembly. In the middle of a rousing speech, about clemency and good faith in fellow man, in a speech that everyone in the crowd was considering more of the same, he made a show of the seed itself, and either by fate or on purpose, he took a dramatic whiff of the seed, and went on to condemn every rebellion in the history of rebellions, and roused so many, they all clamoured to pass word to the troops to ransack and kill.
And off they did to over 350 men, women, and children.
The other stories of this seed tell much of the same moral, whatever it may be. The little countess of blame has spoken, many a time, and, like all things of any consequence, with her comes life and death. Luckily for the dc area, she can not give birth in our soils.
~contributer
