"And that blue vase came from a famous pottery near Nice. I forgot the name. (Is it Vence?) And that leatherwork, is from the Canary Islands. And that bottle of liqueur which nobody will drink ..." And so on. The season of souvenirs has begun. In fact, with all the sun holidays it never stops. But the best thing of all to bring back from a place that you have liked is something that grows, preferably into a tree. Now take the umbrella pine of the Mediterranean, more correctly the stone pine of pinus pinea. You'll recognise it from its popular name, and it can be found all around the Mediterranean coast. In autumn or late summer you'll see the seeds, covered in purple dust, just fallen from the cone along many roads. About three-quarters of an inch long, and the inside delectable to eat. Sold as pine kernels here or pignons. A few years of collecting such nuts have resulted in a nice grove of the same here in Ireland and a regular Christmas decoration for the table - eight or ten-inch evergreen tree-lets. From the south of France, too, acorns (you can't bring in anything with soil attached) of an oak which doesn't grow naturally on this island. It is the smallest of all - Chermes oak or quercus coccifera. A tiny plant with spiky leave like a miniature holly. The acorns take two years to mature, and here they have failed to hold on to even the first year at all. Just drop off. But keep trying.
Often pick up things here at home. A tiny, tiny birch (say 4 inches) idly picked on an island in Lough Ennel with the idea of bonzaing it, came to nothing when it was neglected in the process one year. So it was taken out and planted on a wide lawn. Now it is a five-branched huge tree, white and shining. Many oaks grown from acorns picked up from the roadside.
And, of course there is the story of a vine, propagated by a member of the family from a cutting brought from Switzerland. It grew into a fine vine, first in County Wicklow, then transferred to the West. Later, the whole vine, root and all was put into a furniture lorry with all the trappings of the house, when a move had to be made. It gave good crops, indeed splendid crops, until the progeny of the original grower moved house and, again, one of the family took it over, whether with roots and all (for it was moved only a few yards), or from a new cutting, is not remembered. Still producing lovely black grapes. Green fingers run in families. There was also a cutting from an indoor tree which moved from East Prussia, more or less, to Switzerland to Ireland - known in German as Zimmerlinde - indoor or room lime - but botanically Sparmannia. Huge, incredibly green leaves month in month out and beautiful flowers. That's enough for today on living souvenirs of travel, but there are others.