Alders, Alderflies, and Cicadas

Line 109: iridule

An iridescent cloudlet, Zemblan muderperlwelk. The term "iridule" is, I believe, Shade's own invention. Above it, in the Fair Copy (card 9, July 4) he has written in pencil "peacock-herl." The peacock-herl is the body of a certain sort of artificial fly also called "alder." So the owner of this motor court, an ardent fisherman, tells me. (See also the "strange nacreous gleams" in line 634.)

-p166

A Wikipedia search for alder brings up the alder tree which one would of course assume to be entirely unrelated to the alderfly or to Pale Fire in general. However, as Shelby's blog reminds us, everything is related to everything. Both the Alder and Hazel trees have catkins (a word remarkably similar to botkin, which is to say it is extremely similar to Kinbote). A catkin is "a slim, cylindrical flower cluster, with inconspicuous or no petals." It is often the case that the male plants (alders) form catkins while the female plants (hazels) form singular flowers. The singular flowers of the Hazel trees are usually unisexual, a condition which "in angiosperms this condition is also called diclinous, imperfect, or incomplete." Current theory on the flower arrangement of the Hazel tree suggests it is result of convergent evolution.

Being the non-science major that I am, I of course followed the wiki link to convergent evolution from which I have pulled the following quote found at the top of the page: "The wing is a classic example of convergent evolution in action." Convergent evolution is the process by which unrelated species acquire similar traits which their ancestors did not have.

Moving then, from alder trees to alderflies, the more literal translation of Kinbote's words, I found an image essentially like that of a cicada. The alderfly is the image on the left. On the right is a picture of a cicada.

Interestingly, the cicada and the alderfly are not at all related. They both belong to the class Insecta, and that is precisely where their relationship ends despite their extreme external similarity.

"Adult alderflies stay near to the water, in which they had lived in when they were younger."

"I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
By the false azure in the windowpane"     -Canto 1, lines 1-2

So you see, it really is all related after all.



*all quotes not taken from Pale Fire can be found in wikipedia