Every Wednesday, I hope to find a new ‘weed’ to investigate. My only criterion will be that I will not have deliberately planted the subject of our inquiry. Who knows what we will find…..
Dear Readers, on this longest night of the year, here is some brightness. There are two yellow-flowered plants that I associate with winter. The first is mahonia, which is in full-bloom in several places in East Finchley at the moment, and which in a recent study was shown to provide early-emerging/over-wintering bumblebees with 69% of their nectar. The second is a plant much favoured here in the County Roads, the winter jasmine (Jasminum nudiflorum).
In the language of flowers, winter jasmine is said to be a symbol of elegance and grace, It is also the flower of Epiphany, and is dedicated to the Virgin Mary in the Christian calendar. Because it flowers at a time when not many other plants in bloom, it does catch the eye in a way that it probably wouldn’t in the height of summer, when so many other flowers are competing for attention. I have noticed how much more attention I pay to flowering plants when the days get shorter and any glimpse of life is welcome. Winter jasmine flowers are liked potted sunshine.
As you know, I like to broaden my ‘Wednesday Weeds’ into any artistic context that the plant might have had, and so I came across this image.
This is an illustration from a series of children’s books called the ‘Dumpy Books’ which were published between 1898 and 1904. Nellie Benson did the illustrations for ‘A Flower Book’ by Eden Coybee, and there are many, many pictures in the style above, including one of a child grasping a (most unlikely) yellow carnation. Depending on your tastes, you might find them charming or slightly disturbing. What is a tiny, underdressed child doing standing under a winter jasmine in December anyhow? There is a touch of late-Victorian coyness about her expression that also worries me. But like all things, we need to take into account the tastes of the time – one has only to read Dickens to know that small, pouting girls with golden curls were all the rage.
Slightly more to my taste is Cicely Mary Barker’s Winter Jasmine Flower Fairy. Note that I said ‘slightly’. I’m more of a Caravaggio and Carpaccio fan myself, as you know. But at least the child here is adequately dressed for the season, and there is a rather fine blue tit. And the infant looks like as if he’s heralding the turn of the year, the moment when the nights start to get shorter. Winter is not yet over: in fact in the Northern Hemisphere the coldest times are yet to occur. But the world is turning its face toward spring, even now.
Photo Credits
Photo One – By User:Vmenkov (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Thank you for all the great and often uplifting posts this year.
Have a Happy Christmas and a plant filled New Year.
My opposite neighbour has a bush of this and it delights my eye every time I look out of the window.
I would like to thank you for the excellent posts you make here, not least for the photographs. I hope you enjoy the festivities and wish you an exciting new year.
Thank you Toffeeapple, and I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and New Year too…x
Was surprised to see Winter Jasmine in full bloom this morning in next door’s garden. Hmmn -toooooo early,I thought. But, I have since been for a wander through the local park and there….. Mahonia in full bloom!
I am learning now,forget what it says in the text books, just open your eyes and enjoy nature,because she is doing her ‘own thing’ -I think to remind us that we’re messing about with her!
I’ve seen winter jasmine without knowing what it was, now I’ll look out for it and see if I can spot it flowering over the winter!