Magnolia x soulengeana

Dear Readers, I am just about to put Mum and Dad’s bungalow up for sale – we need the money to pay for Dad’s nursing home fees. However, Mum was a great lover of colour, and we suspect that some rooms (the candy-pink living room, for example, or the aquamarine bedroom) might need a coat of a rather more neutral paint to enhance the property’s sale price.

‘Magnolia?’ asks the decorator, and I agree. But then I get to thinking what a ridiculous name for an off-white paint this is. Some magnolias are pure white, some are tinged with pink, some are bright pink. None of them are a vague kind of cream colour.

For most of the year, magnolias sit around greenly, doing plant-y things but without much in the way of berries or autumn colour. But goodness. A magnolia in full flower is one of those miracles of the plant world, one of the few trees that can actually stop me in my tracks. I particularly like the old-school magnolias like the one above, with their waxy blossoms opening slowly and prolifically. One storm can ruin it all for the year, of course, but if you’re lucky, they can produce a show worth pondering.

Of course, I missed the height of the flowering of the tree above, but you get the idea.

And here is one from Montreux, in full flower.

Magnolia tree in full flower in Montreux, Switzerland (Photo One)

Magnolias belong to a very old family of plants (fossil magnolias have been discovered from 95 million years ago), and evolved before bees did. Instead, they are believed to have been pollinated by beetles, and as a result have very tough carpels ( the female reproductive part of the flower) as presumably the beetles were rather more thuggish in their attentions than the later pollinators. Some species of beetle actually ate the magnolia while others distributed the pollen and some did both, so I imagine anything that slowed up the destruction of the flower was a good thing.

There are over 200 species of magnolia, and they grow in Asia and the New World, but not in Europe or Africa. It had never occurred to me, but I associate magnolias both with the paintings of Chinese artists, and the plantation houses of the Deep South of the USA. Siebold’s Magnolia is the national plant of North Korea, while Bull Bay or the Southern Magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora) is the state plant of Louisiana and Tennessee.

Siebold’s Magnolia (Magnolia sieboldii) (Photo Two)

Southern Magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora) (Photo Three)

The association of the magnolia with the Deep South has resulted in many artistic connections. The film ‘Steel Magnolias’ featured a group of women who lose their one of their own, and explores their resilience. The poster reads like a summary of the key female actors of the period, and won a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination for Julia Roberts.

Poster for Steel Magnolias

In 1939, however, Abel Meeropol’s song ‘Strange Fruit’, memorably sung by Billie Holliday, referenced the magnolia tree as a symbol of the southern US where many lynchings of black people took place:

Pastoral scene of the gallant south

The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth

Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh

Then the sudden smell of burning flesh

If trees could speak, I sometimes think they would tell some of the saddest and most brutal stories on earth. From the blasted oaks of the battlefields of the First World War to the tropical trees of Vietnam and Cambodia, they have borne unwilling witness to our worst atrocities.

Pink magnolia (probably Magnolia liliiflora)

With all those waxy petals waiting to be plucked, you might expect someone to have tried eating magnolias, and you would be right. The flowers can be pickled, the buds can be used to flavour rice, and there is even a type of miso which is flavoured with magnolia. Pickling the petals apparently started in England, but I can’t find a specifically English recipe. The ever-interesting Eat The Weeds website does suggest how to do it, however, and mentions some other flowery favourites as well.

Humans and beetles are not the only creatures who like to take a bite out of a magnolia – in the USA it is the food plant of the magnificent Giant Leopard Moth(Hypercompe scribonia). The male reaches 2 inches in length and has a three-inch wingspan, which would give any one pause. When the male finds a female, mating can take up to 24 hours, and during this period the male will pick the smaller female up and carry her to a warmer spot if it gets too cold. What a gent! However, mating can rub some of the scales off of the female’s wing, impairing her ability to fly.

Giant Leopard Moth (Hypercompe scribonia)(Photo Four)

Female giant leopard moth showing post-mating damage (Photo Five)

Giant leopard moth caterpillar curled up in a defensive ball (Photo Six)

Fruit of Cucumber Magnolia (Magnolia acuminata) (Photo Seven)

The wood is fairly soft, and is used in everything from pallets and boxes to furniture.

Cucumber tree timber (Public Domain)

And, naturally, here is a poem. I love this work by Lisel Mueller who was Illinois Poet Laureate. It is full of nostalgia for the joys of spring.

MAGNOLIA

by Lisel Mueller

This year spring and summer decided
to make it quick, roll themselves into one
season of three days
and steam right out of winter.
In the front yard the reluctant
magnolia buds lost control
and suddenly stood wide open.
Two days later their pale pink silks
heaped up around the trunk
like cast-off petticoats.

Remember how long spring used to take?
And how long from the first locking of fingers
to the first real kiss? And after that
the other eternity, endless motion
toward the undoing of a button?

Photo Credits

Photo One by By Roylindman at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17959956

Photo Two by By Wendy Cutler from Vancouver, Canada – 20120522_CamelliaPath_OyamaMagnolia_Cutler_P1240017, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22926817

Photo Three by By Josep Renalias Lohen11 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27938081

Photo Four by By Jeremy Johnson – http://www.meddlingwithnature.com, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=41471642

Photo Five by Phlintorres98 [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)]

Photo Six by Asturnut at English Wikipedia [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]

Photo Seven by By MikeParker (talk) – Photo taken by Michael Parker, CC BY 3.0, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17722886

Asparagus (Asparagus officinalis)

Dear Readers, I am always excited when I see the first English asparagus on sale at Tony’s Continental on East Finchley High Street. There is usually some asparagus in the shop, but I would rather feast from spring to midsummer on the English stuff than have Peruvian asparagus all year round. Much like the Seville oranges, asparagus is a real seasonal treat and doesn’t taste the same to me at any other time of year.  But what exactly is it? What is it related to? And how long has it been a treat?

Firstly, asparagus belongs to a genus of 300 varied species. Some are climbers, some are drought-adapted thorny species with tubers which store water. To my surprise, the asparagus ‘fern’ (Asparagus setaceus) is actually closely related to edible asparagus – often plants are named because of a superficial resemblance, but in this case the name has a scientific basis. Edible asparagus (Asparagus officinalis) probably has a native range from western temperate Asia through to western Europe. It was grown as a vegetable from at least 3000 BC, when it appeared in a frieze in an Egyptian tomb, and was mentioned by the Roman chef Apicius in the first ever cookbook, written in 300 BC. It was grown in Norman monasteries, but was first mentioned in the UK in 1538, arriving in the New World as late as 1850. The world has taken to it with great gusto, however, and it now features in cuisines all over the planet. China is by far the major producer,

Asparagus fern (Asparagus setaceus) (Photo One)

You can see the similarity when compared with the delicate foliage of the ‘domesticated’ plant, here left to go to seed.

Mature asparagus with seed pods (Photo Two)

Edible asparagus, in its wild form, was probably a coastal plant – it can certainly grow in soils too salty for other plants, and one way of preparing asparagus beds historically was to suppress the weeds with salt. This did mean that you were stuck with growing asparagus forever in that site, however. The soil needs to be well-drained and also fertile, a tricky combination to achieve. Furthermore, only the young shoots are edible – asparagus quickly becomes woody. When I was working in the Netherlands I noticed how much they preferred white asparagus – this is the same plant but the shoots are ‘earthed up’ as they develop, so that they don’t have access to light and so don’t photosynthesize. My colleagues said that the resulting vegetable was much more delicate in taste, but I always found the white stuff a bit too squishy, preferring the subtle toothsomeness of the green shoots. Each to their own, of course.

Asparagus is a favourite regional crop in many places. In the UK the Vale of Evesham in Worcestershire is an asparagus hotspot, and hosts a music festival called ‘Asparafest’ every year. In the US, the city of Stockton in California holds an annual asparagus festival. In Germany, many cities hold celebrations to herald the arrival of white asparagus: those in Bavaria involve lots of beer, naturally, but the city of Berlin’s festival featured the uncontested world record for asparagus peeling by television chef Helmut Zipner, who peeled an entire tonne of asparagus in 16 hours. This earned him the title of ‘Asparagus Tarzan’.

The eating of asparagus has long been thought to have two major effects. It was long said to be an aphrodisiac, probably because of the shoots’ phallic appearance (if you don’t look too closely) and the fact that they arrive in the spring, when all of nature’s thoughts turn to getting jiggy with it. Madame de Pompadour apparently feasted on them, calling them ‘points d’amour’.

However, I would like to concentrate here on asparagus’s historical medicinal qualities. It has long thought to be a diuretic, and to be a useful treatment for urinary disorders, but I wonder how much of this is due to the almost magical way in which asparagus changes the smell of urine? Within 30 minutes of eating the stuff you can tell that you’ve been eating the vegetable, and the effect lasts for up to four hours. I can think of few other foodstuffs that change the smell of one’s bodily secretions so quickly: eating some spices will change the smell of sweat, for example, but not so instantaneously.

The change is brought about by the breakdown of a compound called asparagusic acid. For a long time, it was thought that not everyone’s urine changed in aroma, but it has been proved that actually what happens is that some people are genetically less able to perceive the smell. This reminds me of the way that 10% of the population are unable to detect the scent of freesias, though this seems to me rather sadder than not being able to notice the way that asparagus changes the smell of pee.

A feast of asparagus (Photo Three)

Asparagus’s alternative name is ‘sparrow grass’, which I rather like. In Turkey, it’s called kuşkonmaz which literally means ‘a bird won’t land on it’, referring to the awkward shape of the plant.

Finally, here is a story that combines art and poetry, two of my favourite things. The poem, by Tom Pow, tells the tale much better than I can.

The Asparagus

Tom Pow

A Bunch of Asparagus by Eduoard Manet (1880) (Public Domain). This small painting was bought by Charles Ephrussi who gave Manet 1000 francs, instead of the 800 francs that Manet had requested.

Asparagus by Edouard Manet (1880) (Public Domain) Manet painted this lone asparagus shoot, and gave it to Ephrussi, tellling him that ‘there was one missing from your bunch’.

Photo Credits

Photo One by (c)2006 Derek Ramsey (Ram-Man). Location credit to the Chanticleer Garden. – Self-photographed, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1191941

Photo Two by By SriMesh – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4880679

Photo Three by Muffet [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)]

Shadbush (Amelanchier sp) in East Finchley

Dear Readers, as I am just back from a fortnight in Canada I thought I would feature a North American tree this week, the shadbush or juneberry. The specimen in the photo above was planted a few years ago after the original tree succumbed to a fungal infection, and there is a larger, older tree on the other side of the road. It is fast becoming one of London’s most popular street trees, and you can see why: the frothy white flowers are surrounded by new leaves that emerge as bronze and gradually turn green, and in the autumn the tree has spectacular red foliage. They look a little like cherry trees, but, as Paul Wood points out in his wonderful book ‘London’s Street Trees‘  the bark and leaves are different – the bark of the shadbush is smooth grey with a faint vein pattern, and the leaves are smaller and more oblong.One slight disadvantage though, as I peer along the road, is the sheer volume of dropped blossom once the wind gets up – the car opposite looks as if it’s had a smattering of snow. But I would forgive it anything when the sun lights it up for a few seconds, as it did when I was writing this piece this afternoon. At the moment, I need all the sunshine that I can get, literal and metaphorical.

Incidentally, Paul Wood has a new book out soon called ‘London is a Forest’ and I have already pre-ordered it. Highly recommended!

Shadbush is a member of a genus of twenty-odd species of Amelanchier, a group of small trees and shrubs in the rose family  that are mostly native to North America. I seem to remember that my local tree had a label designating it as Amelanchior canadensis, but this has unfortunately dropped off. This is a group which hybridises with great enthusiasm, and so plants are often described incorrectly. Suffice to say that this particular plant strongly resembles those that I’ve seen in Canada, where they are often trees that pop up early as woodland establishes itself. The name ‘shadbush’ seems to come from the way that the flowers bloom at the same time as the shad start to appear in the streams in spring. This was the subject of a rather lovely children’s book by Carla J.S. Messinger, a descendant of the Lenape people of Eastern North America, and you can have a look here.

And here is a shad, for your delectation. They are members of the herring family, and were presumably very welcome after a long hard winter. When I was in Canada the long hard winter was still going on, and it was nearly April, but fortunately these days the arrival of the shad is not quite so crucial.

Shad (Alosa fallax) (Photo One)

Incidentally, the London place names ‘Shad Thames’ and ‘Shadwell’ are thought to be related not to the fish, but to the location of a nearby St Chad’s Well, although I have heard some other explanations too. Intriguingly, one of the Old English names for ‘fish’ was ‘shad’, though the fish that now bears the name does not live in Europe.

As you might expect from yet another alternative name,  ‘Juneberry’, the tree also bears fruits which are described as ‘insipid to delectably sweet’ depending on the species. The berries (or technically ‘pomes’)  are useful for wildlife, but have also been harvested for human use: the fruit of Amelanchier alnifolia, the Saskatoon, was an important ingredient in pemmican, a preserved meat taken on the trail by the fur trappers of Hudson’s Bay, and also by the Canadian native peoples. Saskatoon berries gave their name to the city of Saskatoon in Saskatchewan, Canada, and are made into everything from jams and jellies to rather delicious-looking pies.

Saskatoon berry pie and icecream (Photo Two)

The wood has also been used by First Peoples in Canada to make arrows and a kind of body armour.

The plant is the food of choice for many species of butterflies and moths, with the caterpillars of the red-spotted admiral (Limenitis arthemis) and the brimstone moth (Opisthographtis luteolata) being amongst the most colourful. As the brimstone moth is European and doesn’t normally have access to the shadbush, I assume that it has found those planted in streets and gardens to its liking.

Red-spotted purple admiral (Limenitis arthemis) (Photo Three)

Brimstone (Opisthographtis luteolata) (Photo Four)

Another name for the shadbush is ‘serviceberry’. The story was that, once the shadbush was in bloom, the ground was sufficiently thawed to hold the funerals of those who had died during the winter.

Medicinally, the plant was used by the native peoples of North America to treat dysentery, childbirth problems and worms.

And now, a poem. Why have I never heard of Stanley Plumly? I love his depiction of a city scene, and the way that it opens up from the particular to the universal. The last line is a killer.

Woman on Twenty-Second Eating Berries

She’s not angry exactly but all business,
eating them right off the tree, with confidence,
the kind that lets her spit out the bad ones
clear of the sidewalk into the street. It’s
sunny, though who can tell what she’s tasting,
rowan or one of the serviceberries—
the animal at work, so everybody,
save the traffic, keeps a distance. She’s picking
clean what the birds have left, and even,
in her hurry, a few dark leaves. In the air
the dusting of exhaust that still turns pennies
green, the way the cloudy surfaces
of things obscure their differences,
like the mock orange or the apple rose that
cracks the paving stone, rooted in the plaza.
No one will say your name, and when you come to
the door no one will know you, a parable
of the afterlife on earth. Poor grapes, poor crabs,
wild black cherry trees, on which some forty-six
or so species of birds have fed, some boy’s dead
weight or the tragic summer lightning killing
the seed, how boyish now that hunger
to bring those branches down to scale,
to eat of that which otherwise was waste,
how natural this woman eating berries, how alone.

Photo Credits

Photo One by By © Hans Hillewaert, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5678810

Photo Two by By Original: Elsie HuiCropping: User:Mr. Granger – Cropped from File:Saskatoon Pie and Saskatoon Butter Tart (9060879381).jpg., CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37036046

Photo Three by By Saxophlute at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=32748228

Photo Four by By ©entomartIn case of publication or commercial use, Entomart wishes then to be warned (http://www.entomart.be/contact.html), but this without obligation. Thank you., Attribution, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=294708