I thought I'd start today's show off with a quote by Beverley Nichols from his book, Sunlight on the Lawn: “Why do insurance companies, when they want to describe an act of God, invariably pick on something which sounds much more like an act of the Devil? One would think that God was exclusively concerned in making hurricanes, smallpox, thunderbolts, and dry rot. They seem to forget that He also manufactures rainbows, apple-blossom, and Siamese kittens. However, that is, perhaps, a diversion.” This quote by Nichols came to mind when I heard the wondrous story about the little tomato plant that had sprouted on a piling by the Brooklyn Bridge. It made the Nightly News after the story was first published by the New York Times on Wednesday along with a photo taken by a passerby, Matthew Frey. Paddle-boarding between Pier 1 and 2 in Brooklyn Bridge Park, Frey saw the leaves first. His incredible image of a lone tomato plant growing straight up with no supports and with one perfectly red little tomato was heartwarming. It reminded me of the Charlie Brown Christmas Tree but with only one red ornament hanging proudly in the middle of the plant. Frey, who is 54, told the times:  “I’m used to seeing things grow here, but nothing as special as that... Things like that just make me happy.” Beverley Nichols would have loved seeing the little tomato plant that could. To him, it would have been heaven sent - a little gift to us all from above.     Brevities #OTD On this day in 1513, James IV of Scotland, along with other Flowers of the Forest, were killed in the battle of Flodden.   The Scottish army led by James, was taking advantage of Henry VIII's absence in France but they were resoundingly crushed by an army organized by Katherine of Aragon, Henry VIII's 1st wife. It was the largest battle ever fought between England & Scotland, and it was a devastating defeat for the Scots who remembered   the pain of an estimated 12,000 dead sons of Scotland in an old Scottish folksong called “The Flowers of the Forest.” There are many variations of the lyrics that have surfaced over the years. One of the oldest verses ends this way: "'The Flowers of the Forest that fought at the foremost, The prime of the land are cold in the clay'" In 1765, the socialite Alison Cockburn wrote her own lyrics to the Flowers of the Forest. Here's the first verse: I've seen the smiling Of fortune beguiling, I've tasted her pleasures And felt her decay; Sweet is her blessing, And kind her caressing, But now they are fled And fled far away.     #OTD  Today is the anniversary of the death of the botanist and the incomparable botanical illustrator Georg Dionysius Ehret who died on this day in 1770.   Ehret was born in Heidelberg, Germany to Ferdinand Christian Ehret, who was a gardener and also had a talent for drawing. He taught his son both skills- gardening and drawing - before he died. Ehret made his way to Regensburg. There, he met an apothecary who hired him to draw of specimens from his herbarium and garden. Ehret earnestly took on the job; drawing over 500 pieces in one year. Taking advantage of his young employee, the apothecary fired Ehret and told him he should have completed 1,000 drawings and was fired. It was basically his way of avoiding paying Ehret. After this dreadful experience, Ehret made his way to England and worked at the major botanical gardens - Including Chelsea Physic. Isaac Rand, the first director of the Chelsea Physic Garden in London, told Ehret to paint the rare plants in the garden. The uniqueness of the specimens added to the demand for Ehret's work. As a result, Ehret was on friendly terms with the plant collectors and naturalists of his time.  Chelsea was formative professionally and personally for Ehret; He married the head gardener's sister-in-law, Susanna Kennet.  In The Art of Botanical Illustration, Wilfrid Blunt noted that, “By the middle of the century he had become a popular figure in London society: the highe