Catalinias
Catalinias I ran into them by chance. I had arrived at the International Polar Research Station to study the influence of cosmic rays on the Earth's magnetic field. I left the station for a moment to enjoy the colour of an extraordinary aurora borealis, when I heard something similar to a hissing sound. I stopped to avoid making noise with my steps on the snow, and I heard that sound again. Its intensity gradually increased, and suddenly it stopped. When I returned to the shelter, I told what had happened to me, and a colleague at the station told me that it was about flowers, the catalinias. They called them that because on closed nights, when the auroras borealis appear in all their splendour, the flowers whisper the word 'catalin'. You have to get very close to them to listen to them. Catalin was a 19th century Russian poet who, following his beloved, found a aurora borealis and was imprisoned in it. Since then, the flowers reproduce the voice of his beloved...