Adoxa; A-doxa: without doxa, as in asymmetry, asexual, atheism. So doxa is apparently glory, yes. It kind of makes sense given orthodoxy (look it up), Chionodoxa, the glory-of-the-snow, replete with its hyphens unlike what might otherwise have been the glory of the morning. And lovers and prostitutes were doxies. Oddly OED says origin unknown, but they were probably glorious, at least some of them.
So up it pops, every year, quietly, round about now. Fascinating, faithful, unique. Makes you glad you live around here. I never heard anyone call it townhall clock let alone five-faced bishop, already three faces more than is good for anyone, let alone a prelate. In fact, I like this name, but you can’t just start calling something by a name you’ve never used before can you?
No glory, but rebelliousness nonetheless. The cubic inflorescence is no more than a minimal umbel, but why four flowers plus one?
Why a PA system informing the hills of the north, the isles of the southern seas, the awaking lands of the east and the shores of the utmost west? They get five petals each but the skywards one only four. There is an evolutionary whodunit here, like the sepals on a rose. Wtf?
And why choose green? Not the scaly green of the grass’ bracts, but a full-blown flower, in the company of Veratrum and the hellebores. But then I suppose who am I to cast nasturtiums on a plant’s evolutionary satnav when it’s probably the insects in the driving seat. Hang on a minute! Pollinators can’t see colour. So maybe the colours we see are inadvertent? There’s no reason for the green other than that some unrelated biological process has switched off a gene for red paint, leaving yellow? Or in this case green. Flower arrangers, sick from diversity, crave this sometimes.
So fascinating, faithful and unique, but most obviously without glory. Without the sunbeams bursting through the clouded blue and lighting up the ceiling where saints frolic, each in a cassock of a different primary colour. But not so fast, Batman! Along come the knights in shining armour of APG III. Caprifoliaceae is split, and elderberries and Viburnum hived off, and the Adoxaceae has priority, and suddenly moschatel makes a burst for the line and eclipses even Viburnum x bodnantense Dawn, no less, getting its moment on the podium. The odds had seemed somewhere between Slim and none, and slim had just left town.