A quiet notice V2Melody closes at midnight on , Spanish time.

Closes

A note from Richard

V2Melody will close at midnight on 20 January 2028

This site has been a retirement project in musical poetry: poems chosen with care and set to music, offered freely for as long as it felt right to keep the garden open.

After the death of my mother, the work no longer holds the place it once did in my life. I have gone as far with it as I wish to go. Like a sand mandala, it was made to be completed and then released. I am not attached to its permanence, and I do not believe any of it needs to last beyond the time it was given.

My wife and I are simplifying our days. The server, the monitoring, and the residual obligations that come with keeping a site alive no longer fit the quieter life we want.

From 4 November 2026 I will not be adding new poems or musical poems to the site.

Until midnight on 20 January 2028, Spanish time, everything remains available exactly as it is. That is when my VPS server contract comes to an end, and it will not be renewed. After that, the server will be switched off and the site will disappear.

Thank you to anyone who found a poem, a track, or a quiet moment here.

The pleasure was in the making.

Richard

Home › Glossary › Letter P

Pittosporum

Flora
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

An evergreen shrub with glossy leaves and fragrant white or cream flowers, often used in hedging.

Detailed Definition
Pittosporum appears in garden poetry as symbol of reliable beauty, structure, and the fragrance hidden in modest flowers. Its use in formal hedging makes it represent order and shaped landscape. The small flowers' intense honey scent contrasts with their inconspicuous appearance, representing hidden sweetness and rewards for close attention. In poetry, pittosporum might symbolize the supporting players whose roles are structural but whose own beauties are overlooked, or the discovery of unexpected sweetness in seemingly purely functional plantings.
Example
Example in poetry:
Pittosporum's glossy evergreen leaves and fragrant flowers represent understated elegance; In hedging poetry, pittosporum symbolizes structure, background beauty, and supporting roles; The flowers' honey-vanilla scent in spring creates unexpected sensory pleasure from modest blooms; In coastal poetry, salt-tolerant pittosporum represents adaptation and maritime gardening; The plant's use in floral arrangements connects to poems about cut greenery and lasting foliage; Japanese pittosporum adds exotic texture to temperate gardens
Additional Notes
Pittosporum is valued in hedging for glossy leaves and sweetly scented flowers, so it’s useful when a poem wants suburbia or coastal gardens with a hint of perfume in the air. Because it’s often planted as a screen, it can symbolise privacy, boundary-making, and the quiet architecture of greenery. Its scent can function like a half-heard memory: subtle, drifting, not as overtly “floral” as rose. The plant’s neatness can also contrast with wilder vegetation, marking human intention.
Also Known As
Australian Laurel (common usage)
Skip to main content