Pelargonium x hortorum

Dear Readers, was there ever a plant as ubiquitous in municipal displays as the red pelargonium? As I strolled through leafy Muswell Hill today every ancient horse-trough and corner flower bed was stuffed to the gunnels with them. Most of us think of these plants as the ‘true’ geraniums, although this is not technically true: geraniums are those attractive hardy perennials that pop up in semi-shade and flower for ages. This year, pelargoniums have proved their worth during our extended period of hot, sunny weather: they are remarkably drought-proof, probably one reason why the pelargonium is such a stalwart of  shallow-soiled hanging baskets. I think that they look very attractive when  I see them in Austria, dangling from the window boxes, and I can forgive them there because the meadows are so full of plants for pollinators. What annoys me  is seeing them everywhere in city plantings in the UK, because these plants are totally and utterly hopeless for pollinators, like so many bedding plants. If I had my way we would have meadows of thyme and oregano, lavender and rosemary, followed by asters and Japanese anemones and cosmos and single dahlias, but in these days of austerity they are probably too expensive.

The pelargoniums that we see in the UK had their origins in South Africa. In their native land, the flowers of the plant are used as food by several butterfly species, including the Geranium Bronze, whose caterpillars also feed on the leaves and can be something of a pest in commercial nurseries.

Geranium Bronze butterfly (Cacyreus marshalli) (Photo One)

There are various groupings of pelargoniums, but the most common bedding ones are known as zonal pelargoniums, because of the patterns in the centre of their leaves, whichs  are derived from one of their ‘parents’, Pelargonium zonale. This wild plant is known as the horse-shoe pelargonium in South Africa because of the shape of its leaves. Its flowers are remarkably like those of ‘our’ pelargonium, except that they are pink, rather than red. The red colour comes from one of the other parents, Pelargonium inquinans. There are various other species in the mix as well, but the result has been a plant that is remarkably long-suffering in exposed, sunbaked sites, although it cannot bear damp conditions and is not tolerant of frost.

Zonal pelargonium – note the pattern on the leaves

Wild Pelargonium zonale (Photo Two)

Pelargonium inquinans (Photo Three)

Red pelargoniums have played a role in the story of colour blindness, and how it was first identified. The chemist John Dalton (after whom Daltonism, the technical name for colour blindness, is named) first realised that he didn’t see the world in the same way as other people when, in 1794, he heard people referring to the colour of a red pelargonium that looked either pink or blue to him. He went on to meticulously research the phenomenon, and described how the world looked to him:

‘That part of the image which others call red, appears to me little more than a shade, or defect of light; after that the orange, yellow and green seem one colour, which descends pretty uniformly from an intense to a rare yellow, making what I should call different shades of yellow.’

I have always been fascinated by colour blindness: for one thing, why would it persist in populations if it was a disadvantage? One theory is that colour blindness enables people to see through camouflage more easily, which might have helped both in catching prey and in avoiding being eaten by large striped furry creatures. It’s all very interesting, though I suspect these theories are usually not the whole story. After all, not being able to identify ripe berries would also have been a disadvantage. Colour blindness is also much more common in males, and is seen more frequently in Northern populations – I guess that knocking a walrus on the head with a stick doesn’t require colour vision, and so maybe not being able to distinguish red from green wasn’t a problem. Enough already! My head is gently spinning.

White zonal pelargonium

Pelargonium flowers are said to be edible, but most culinary uses refer to the scented-leaf pelargoniums.  I used to have a big pot of these plants in my front porch (when I had a front porch) and they were a pleasure to brush past with their scents of lemon, chocolate and rose. However, I didn’t know the half of it. You can get scented-leaf pelargoniums that smell of celery, hazelnut, camphor, pineapple and peach and two dozen other things besides. I am half-tempted to start a collection. I know that you can use the leaves for everything from jellies to ice-cream, cakes to tea, and asking visitors to fondle my plants and guess the scent would be an unusual way to get a party started.

Attar of Roses, a scented-leaf pelargonium (Public Domain)

But back to the ‘ordinary’ zonal pelargonium. While many species of pelargonium have been used as a cold and bronchitis cure in their native South Africa, the garden variety seems to be strictly for decorative purposes. However, one interesting side effect of munching on those red petals has been noticed in the Japanese Beetle, a species imported accidentally to the US during the early part of the last century. This insect ( a type of scarab beetle, and rather handsome in my view) has had a lovely time gobbling up roses and crape myrtles, hops and lime trees and about a hundred other plant species with none of its Japanese predators to keep it in check. However, it comes to a sudden stop when it eats the flower of a pelargonium: apparently the chemicals in the plant are very similar to the beetle’s own neurotransmitters, and so it falls to the floor, paralysed. Poor thing. However, I can find no studies that suggest that this has actually been  used as a way of controlling the creature. Presumably, with such a wide range of preferences, it can easily avoid pelargoniums in favour of a potato or a blueberry. I do notice that it also eats Japanese knotweed and poison ivy, however, so perhaps it is not an absolute menace after all.

Japanese beetle (Popillia japonica) (Photo Four)

The potted pelargonium was a favourite of the artist Henri Matisse, who returned to it as a subject again and again. This is an excellent example of working with what you have in front of you, rather than lamenting that one is not in the South of France or New York or halfway up the Limpopo, and therefore can’t find anything to paint/write about. Our ordinary lives are more than rich enough to find inspiration everywhere.

Geraniums by Henri Matisse (1910) – Public Domain

And so, to finish, here is a poem which is sadly very close to my heart. Christian Milne was born in Scotland in 1773, and wrote one book of poetry, ‘Simple Poems on Simple Subjects’ in 1805. The poor lass was a ‘rhymer’ from when she was a child, but was sent into service in Aberdeen at age 14 and it must have felt as if that was that. However, her work was shown to a ‘man of influence’ who enabled her to have the book published, and with it she raised £100, which she promptly invested in a fishing boat for her husband. As she had eight children and was ‘afflicted with ill health’ I find it miraculous that she found the time to write anything at all. It just goes to show that the creative spirit will find a way with the slightest encouragement.

Sent With a Flower Pot Begging a Slip of Geranium

I’ve sent my empty pot again   

 To beg another slip;

 The last you gave, I’m grieved to tell

  December’s frost did nip.

   I love fair Flora and her train

    But nurse her children ill;

    I tend too little, or too much;

    They die from want of skill.

    I blush to trouble you again,

     Who’ve served me oft before;

     But, should this die, I’ll break the pot,

     And trouble you no more.

Christian Milne 1805

Photo Credits

Photo One by M.violante 12:38, 28 June 2006 (UTC) – Own work

Photo Two by By Koppchen – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8280120

Photo Three by By Magnus Manske – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10221697

Photo Four by By Bruce Marlin – Own work http://www.cirrusimage.com/beetles_japanese.htm, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6076675

Rose Campion (Silene coronaria)

Dear Readers, this plant and I go back a long way, to when I bought my first house back in 1998. I realise that this makes me sound like a property magnate, but if I tell you that it was actually the only house that I ever bought on my own I hope it puts things into perspective. It was in Chadwell Heath, way out in the north-eastern hinterlands of London, sandwiched between the Romford Road on one side and the A13 on the other. My street, however, was leafy and suburban, and I settled into it with a contented sigh. Being a middle-class white woman, I hadn’t paid much attention to the fact that the BNP, the extreme right-wing party of the time, had won councillors in the borough (Barking and Dagenham), but I soon realised that they were symptomatic of a deep-seated problem.

One example was that when a British- Indian doctor and his family moved into the house next door several people on the street cut them dead, turning their backs on them and refusing to respond to their greetings. Because I talked to them, I was cold-shouldered in my turn. Because Mum came to visit and got chatting with the family on the doorstep, she too was subjected to people staring at her and slamming their doors as she passed their houses.  I don’t know what additional harrassment the family suffered, as they kept themselves very much to themselves, but I do know that they had moved on within the year. They were replaced by a white family. When I sold the house, the woman opposite bustled over to check that I wasn’t selling it to anyone black. As it happened, I wasn’t, but to say I was gobsmacked would be an understatement – I still regret that I didn’t have the gumption to explore the subject further.   There were good people on the street who were welcoming to everyone, but the taste of bigotry and zenophobia poisoned everything. There were too many people who were afraid that things were going to change, and that they were going to be forced to be part of the diverse London that surrounded them. London, like so many cities, was built by immigrants – Irish, Chinese, Huguenot, Indian, Bangladeshi, Jewish, Pakistani, and a hundred other groups of people. Barking and Dagenham was, however, one of the few London boroughs to vote resoundingly for Brexit in the 2016 referendum.. Yes, the reasons for the Brexit vote were complicated, but  I strongly suspect that in this case, fear of immigration was the main reason why.

However uncomfortable I felt it was still home, and in one of the two tiny beds in the front garden I planted  three rose campion. In a couple of years they had taken over the entire bed, self-seeding themselves with vigour.  They were a blast of outrageous colour in a bland, small-minded, fear-filled landscape. I know of no other plant that has quite that hallucinatory cerise hue, set off by the furry grey leaves, and I have had a great affection for them ever since.

Rose campion is a member of the Caryophyllaceae or carnation family, and is native throughout Europe and Asia, although it was introduced to North America by the eighteenth century . It’s also known as ‘Crown Pink’ and ‘Lantern Flower’. Although it is a relatively short-lived perennial it does self-seed everywhere, as I know. It doesn’t mind poor soil (just as well, as my garden beds seemed to be largely composed of bits of brick). In their book ‘Alien Plants’, Stace and Crawley note that rose campion is often found growing ‘wild’ around villages, having either escaped from gardens by self-seeding or having been ‘liberated’ by people who fly-tip their garden rubbish.

If I may digress here briefly, I think that people often don’t realise the potential damage to habitats caused by casual dumping of garden waste. It happens regularly in the tiny remnant of ancient woodland closest to me, Coldfall Wood, where there are thriving communities of daffodils and hybrid bluebells, box honeysuckle and tellima, largely as a result of folk just throwing what they don’t want from their gardens into the wood. Ours is an urban wood, a mosaic of all kinds of plants, and hardly a pristine habitat, so the plants don’t wreak quite as much havoc as they might do in other places. Nonetheless, many well-established woodland species are having a hard enough time of it at the moment without having to compete with a bunch of narcissi.

Back to rose campion. The Latin species name ‘coronaria’ implies that this plant was used in garlands, and very fine they would have been too. In the Roman Catholic church, the plant is associated with John the Baptist, as it blooms around his feast day.

Those grey furry leaves help the plant to survive in drought-prone areas, the colour and the ‘hairs’ helping to reflect sunlight and reduce water loss. Certainly my rose campion were able to do well when other plants were wilting. The leaves give the plant yet another alternative name – ‘Dusty Miller’, and in the Middle Ages were woven together to form a wick for a lamp. According to the ancient Greek physician Dioscorides (40-90 AD) the seeds, if soaked in wine, can be used to treat scorpion stings.

The flowers are attractive to bees and hoverflies, and one US site suggests that hummingbirds will also visit the flowers, so do let me know if this is something you’ve ever witnessed. It also seems to be a favourite for several butterflies, including the brimstone in the UK and several species of swallowtail in North America.

Large skipper butterfly on rose campion (Public Domain)

For our poem this week, I’ve discovered the Detroit poet Philip Levine, who was described as ‘a large, ironic Whitman of the industrial heartland’ by Edward Hirsch. Have a look at this poem, and see if you can’t imagine yourself standing there, gazing at the rumpled seed-packets.

The Absent Gardener

Go back to early April of 1949. Get off the Woodward streetcar at Grand Circus Park, walk a few blocks west, and find behind the Greyhound bus terminal a tiny garden no larger than a Buick Roadmaster. Last week’s snow is gone. It’s just another morning in Michigan, the streets dark with last night’s rain, the air cool and fresh, the pale sky so distant you wonder if this is a different world & not last night’s when the silence, windless and heavy, smelled of rusted iron. Now the perfumes of wet black dirt, the tiny plots marked with sticks, twine, and pebbles to hold down the warped seed packets proclaiming their riches: radish, big boy tomato, ripe red wonder, little sweetie, rhubarb, rose campion.

California Lilac (Ceanothus sp.)

Dear Readers, there is nothing that sounds more like summer to me than the drowsy buzz of bees feeding from California lilac. It seems to attract everything from bumblebees to honeybees to hoverflies,  and although its rather dusty, resinous smell makes my nose tingle I still always stop to see who is visiting. Apparently there is a species of California lilac which smells so strongly that it resembles ‘boiling honey in an enclosed space’. I think I shall give that one a miss.

The masses of tiny flowers soon lose their petals, resulting in a puddle of blue at the base of the plant.The resultant seeds are said to be dependent on forest fires in order to germinate, so it sounds as if self-seeding won’t be a problem unless you’re prone to having bonfires close to the shrub.

California lilac comes in many shades of blue, from what my grandmother used to call ‘Royal Blue’  to the most delicate powdery robin’s egg shade. It is extremely popular in the County  Roads here in East Finchley, where it has grown to about eight feet tall. Most varieties are evergreen, and there is even a more recumbent plant that could be used for ground cover.

There are 50-60 species in the Ceanothus genus, which is part of the buckthorn family. The genus is an endemic to North America, with its epicentre in, as the name suggests, California. The name ‘Ceanothus’ means ‘spiny plant’, which is surprising as, as far as I know, this is a most inoffensive plant. Do let me know if it’s attacked you at any point. I suspect that the small trees in my area are examples of the ‘domesticated’ form of Ceanothus arboreus, but there are many hybrids around. I am wondering whether to pop one into my tiny front garden, to fill the gap between the bulbs and the lavender. I shall be engaged in pondering as I write.

Incidentally, Ceanothus has nitrogen-fixing nodules on its roots, which makes it good for the soil.

One species of Ceanothus, Ceanothus americanus, is known as ‘New Jersey tea’ because its leaves were used as a tea substitute during the American Revolution. As the plant is very high in tannin this is not as surprising as we might think.

Ceanothus americanus (Public Domain)

In their native North America, Ceanothus leaves are eaten by mule deer, and the stems and seeds are eaten by quail and porcupine. And so here, for your delectation, is a North American porcupine. You’re welcome.

North American porcupine (Erethizon dorsatum) (Photo One)

In its native North America, Ceanothus has had a variety of uses. Those fluffy blue flowers are saponins, which means that they can be used as a soap substitute if crushed and mixed with water.This ‘soap’ was used by the women of some Native American tribes to perfume their skin before their marriage ceremony.

The roots produce a red dye (one alternative name for some varieties of Ceanothus is ‘red-root’). The flowers produce a green dye. Unsurprisingly, using the whole plant gives you a brown dye.

Medicinally, the roots were dried and used as a decoction to treat sore throats and all manner of bronchial ailments, from asthma to bronchitis. The plant was also used as a wash to treat sores and skin complaints.

One theme that crops up repeatedly when I read about Ceanothus is that it is short-lived. I wonder if the climate in the UK stresses these Californians, what with our heavy downpours, brief periods of hot sunshine and unexpected cold snaps.  At any rate, it certainly stresses me. I also wonder if any plant that blossoms so prolifically, year after year, can keep going for a long time. After all, trees such as beech and oak flower and set fruit intermittently rather than constantly generous.

Just as the Ceanothus in bloom reminds me that it’s summer, so do the banners outside the Royal Academy announcing that it’s time for the Summer Exhibition (which opens to the public on 12th June). For those of you who are unfamiliar with this event, it’s an opportunity for artists to have their work hung in the halls of the Royal Academy. The vast majority of the works are also for sale, with prices varying from under a hundred pounds to many thousands. Among the eager newcomers will be the new works of the Academicians, artists who have made it to become Fellows of the Royal Academy. One of the most interesting is Anthony Green, who presents scenes from the most unlikely angles. Conveniently, he has created one of a vase of Ceanothus, and if you have £16,500 hanging about I’d advise you to buy it sharpish. For more of his paintings, which manage to be both familiar and otherworldly, have a look here. I find them most intriguing.

‘A Vase of Ceanothus’ by Anthony Green (2009) (Photo Two)

I am also rather partial to this painting, ‘Ceanothus tree in a London street’ by Melissa Scott-MIller, who says ‘Who am I to edit nature? It looks beautiful enough as it is’. This image just sums up the unexpected pleasures to be had in walking London’s residential streets. The painting was at the Affordable Art Fair, and you can read more about it here. If you’d like to look at some of the artist’s other paintings (and I admit to having fallen in love) her website is here.

‘Ceanothus tree in a London street’ by Melissa Scott-Miller (2016) (Photo Three)

And to finish this post with something unexpected, here is a Ceanothus silk moth (Hyalophora euryalus), whose larvae feed on the leaves of our Wednesday Weed. This huge moth can be found all the way from British Columbia to Baja California, and has a maximum wingspan of 127mm. The adults do not feed, but spend all their short lives looking for a mate and laying eggs. The caterpillar goes through a variety of colour changes, but is never anything short of spectacular. I love the way that the eyespots make it look as if the moth has a couple of snakes for protection.

Ceanothus silk moth (Hyalophora euryalus) (Photo Four)

Photo One by Fyn Kind at https://www.flickr.com/photos/79452129@N02/26920045526/

Photo Two at http://www.anthonygreen.org.uk/paintings.html

Photo Three at https://affordableartfair.com/melissa-scott-miller-ceanothus-tree-in-a-london-street

Photo Four by Linda Tanner (originally posted to Flickr as Ceanothus Moth) [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Love-in-a-mist or nigella (Nigella damascena)

Dear Readers, when I was growing up in East London we had an allotment. I was allowed a little corner of it to plant a packet of ‘seeds for children’ – from memory, you could buy these in Woolworths, and they contained a mixture of marigolds, a strange plant that looked a bit like (and indeed might actually have been) knotgrass, and love-in-a-mist. How I loved the blue and white flowers and the dill-like leaves against the bright orange marigolds! And how my poor father loved picking out the love-in-a-mist from between the peas and the beans and the cabbages the following year after the plant had self-seeded.

This set me to wondering. Do they still have ‘seeds for children’? And do they still include love-in-a-mist? Well, Suttons certainly do. Indeed you can buy nigella seeds and they’re marketed as ‘Alien eggs’. Well, I can kind of see what they mean.

A love-in-a-mist seedpod. Very strange….

But what is this plant? Turns out that it’s a member of the Ranunculaceae or buttercup family, and normally lives in southern Europe, north Africa and southwestern Asia. It is pretty much a weed of damp places in all these countries. But what a weed! Those china-blue flowers (which can also be coloured white or pink), the frond-like leaves and that strange bloated seedhead all give it an exotic charm. The seedhead is a behemoth compared to those of other members of the buttercup family – those of other species more closely resemble a tiny mace. Plus, as mentioned, it is ridiculously easy to grow – I found the specimen in my photos in a most inauspicious narrow bed at the side of a house in East Finchley, where it was popping up amongst the docks.

The species name ‘damascena’ refers to the city of Damascus, which is where it is said to have been found during the Crusades by the French knight Robert de Brie in 1570. On his return home to his castle in Champagne, de Brie is said to have planted the first ever nigella in France. No doubt from here the plant quickly hopped over the castle wall, swam across the moat and headed for the hills.

A selection of nigella cultivars (Persian Jewels mix I suspect) (Photo One)

Those of you who experiment with Indian cookery may have used nigella seeds, but sadly these are not from this plant, but from Nigella sativa, a close relative. Indeed, the seeds of ‘our’ plant contain a poison called damascenine, so however much seed you harvest I would resist throwing it onto your naan bread. The plant may well have been used as a medicinal herb, however: there is evidence that it was brought to Austria in the Bronze Age by an immigrant population of miners. One possibility is that it was used as a vermifuge, to treat cases of intestinal worms – many poisonous plants were used in low doses in order to kill the parasites without killing the host. The plant is also said to be good for treating flatulence, though as Nigella sativa is said to be used to help with digestion I do wonder if there’s some confusion here. The seeds are also said to be used to keep insects out of clothing, so perhaps they would be handy against the clothes moths which seem to be everywhere in North London at the moment. Rubbing the seeds between the hands releases the essential oil, which is said to smell like strawberry jam.

The gardener Gertrude Jekyll was very taken with nigella, and included it in many of her cottage garden schemes. Indeed, the most popular of all the love-in-a-mist varieties is probably ‘Miss Jekyll’, a pale blue variety. Jekyll was a proponent of colour theory in her gardens, with blues and greys offset by vivid oranges and reds, so maybe my child’s seed selection wasn’t so far off the mark.

Nigella damascena ‘Miss Jekyll from the RHS website (Photo Two)

Of course, if you type ‘Nigella’ into Google you will not get this attractive little blue plant, but the rather attractive Nigella Lawson, cookery writer and TV presenter extraordinaire. I rather like Nigella. Her cookery shows on TV normally feature an episode in which she gets up in the middle of the night and spoons homemade icecream into her mouth illuminated only by the light from the refrigerator. Normally, she is wearing silk pyjamas and full make-up, and seems oblivious to the camera crew who have staked out her kitchen for just such an eventuality, much as wildlife photographers sit in a bush for weeks to catch sight of some nocturnal lemur.  However, she is not named for this pretty little plant, but for her odious father Nigel Lawson, professional climate change denier and a man with no redeeming features whatsoever as far as I’m concerned. So sadly, we shall have to move swiftly on.

Incidentally, in Germany, nigella is known as ‘Gretel-in-the -bush’ – in the Germanic version of the fairy story, Gretel is turned into nigella, and Hansel into chicory (which is known as ‘Hansel-on-the-road’ – two little blue flowers separated forever by habitat.

Nigella Lawson (Photo Three)

Now, Ms Lawson has somewhat hampered my search for a nigella poem – my results have included many works celebrating her comely form and delicious recipes, largely penned by somewhat overheated male poets of a certain age. So, instead, here is a painting.

Love in a mist by Sophie Gengembre Anderson (1823 – 1903) (Public Domain)

The artist, Sophie Gengembre Anderson, was the first woman to sell a painting for over £1m in the UK, and her painting ‘Elaine’ was the first public collection purchase of work by a woman artist, so there is lots here to celebrate. ‘Elaine’ was based on a poem by Tennyson, and was purchased by the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool.

‘Elaine’ by Sophie Gengembre Anderson (1870)

Anderson was born in France, moved to the USA in 1848 to escape the Revolution of that year, and later lived in Falmouth in Cornwall. During her lifetime she painted everything from a series of portraits of bishops to still lives, but soon settled on the genre paintings that would make her name in the art world. She painted ‘Foundling Girls at Prayer in the Chapel’ for the Foundling Museum in London, where it still hangs. At a time when men were getting rich by painting decorative and sentimental images of children and women, Anderson managed to chip out a niche for herself. I suppose it’s not surprising that she isn’t as well-known as Sir Joshua Reynolds or the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, but to my eye she is every bit as accomplished.

And so, my nigella journey has taken me to some most unexpected places. In my minds-eye I am a little girl, leaning on my half-sized garden fork and looking over my tiny blue and orange flower-bed, while dad digs up the potatoes and wipes the sweat from his eyes with the back of his hand. I think I might even plant some nigella seed, just to have it in the garden to remind me.

Photo Credits

Photo One by By Daniel Ullrich, Threedots – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=375714

Photo Two from https://www.rhs.org.uk/Plants/106194/i-Nigella-damascena-i-Miss-Jekyll/Details

Photo Three by By Cecile van Straten from Manila, Philippines – https://www.flickr.com/photos/chuvaness/29946044613/, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=61695788

Amaryllis (Hippeastrum sp)

Dear Readers, whenever I see an amaryllis I always think of my Dad. His Christmas presents always contain at least one rectangular box containing an enormous amaryllis bulb and a pot, and sometimes I get one too. Then our phone conversations for the next month or so are mildly competitive.

‘Mine is about three feet high!’

‘Mine is so big that it keeps falling over!’

‘Mine has flowers the size of a baby’s head!’

‘MIne’s got flowers the size of a cabbage’.

Dad and I love to cross swords. If we are watching ‘Pointless’, the room echoes to a chorus of answers to Alexander Armstrong’s questions. For a while I was winning, but then, after Dad got his cataracts done, we realised that it was only because he couldn’t actually see what the questions were. Hah! These days we are neck and neck. Or maybe Dad’s slightly in front.

Anyhow, the amaryllis is a most bold and ostentatious plant. In my opinion there is no more spectacular indoor bulb. You can practically watch it growing. For a while it’s rather embarrassing to anyone with Victorian sensibilities, as it looks like a giant Martian willy. I almost feel that i should be covering it up with a lace curtain. And then the blooms form and start to open, and it seems impossible that there should be so much volume of petal in that little crumpled bud, but there it is. This year, my amaryllis is dark red, with petals that are simultaneously as sleek as satin and as plush as velvet. It is utterly glorious.

It’s important to clear up exactly what this plant is, however. The bulbs that we grow at home are not actually amaryllis (this name refers to some South African plants) but are from a separate genus known as Hippeastrum, which hales from Central and South America and the Caribbean. The name was given to the plant by William Herbert, a 19th century botanist and illustrator, and means ‘horse star lily’, for reasons which have faded into obscurity. There are 90 separate species of Hippeastrum and over 600 hybrids and cultivars, with new varieties being offered every Christmas – over the past few years Dad and I have competed with pale-green, stripey red and scarlet varieties. The original Hippeastrum species are normally red, pink or purple in colour.

Hippeastrum pardinum, one of the plants used to develop cultivated Hippeastrum (Photo One)

Hippeastrum variety ‘Gilmar’ (Photo Two)

Hippeastrum variety ‘Candy Floss’ (Photo Three)

The leaves on a Hippeastrum appear after the flowers, which is one reason why the developing buds look so extraordinary. The sexual organs of the plant, the stamens and pistil, are long and elegant. The pollen is plentiful but is poisonous to cats, so be careful if you have any moggie companions. As with lilies, the danger is that the pollen comes into contact with the fur and is licked off by the cat during grooming. The bulbs of some Caribbean species of Hippeastrum are used to produce arrow poison, so this is obviously not a plant to be messed with.

I have never yet managed to persuade my Hippeastrum to bloom for more than one year, but then I have been doing it All Wrong. The leaves should be allowed to develop, and the plant given some food on a weekly basis during this time, but then it will need two months ‘rest’ in the cold and dark, without food or water (and preferably with no nibbling by any rodents that may be living in the shed). Then the plant can be brought out into the light and watering re-commenced. The plant should be in a small pot, not much bigger than the circumference of the bulb,  with a good third of the bulb above the surface of the compost. This can make the plant very top heavy, of course, hence the occasional catastrophe when the whole lot falls over and the main stem breaks under its own weight. I can only imagine that the Hippeastrum that grow wild are rather less exaggerated in form, much as a fox stands more chance of survival in the wild than a pug would.

Incidentally, a properly cared-for Hippeastrum can live for 75 years so I really have no excuse.

One thing that  I don’t associate with Hippeastrum is perfume, but apparently there are some scented varieties. The gene for scent is recessive, and is associated only with white or pastel coloured plants – I’ve never grown a perfumed one, but do let me know if you have, I am curious as to what it smells like. Sadly, the English language is very short on words to describe scent, probably reflecting our rather inadequate noses. If dogs could speak I imagine they’d have a very varied perfume vocabulary.

Medicinally, Hippeastrums contain over 64 alkaloid compounds, which as we have already noted are poisonous, but which are also anti-parasitic and have psychopharmaceutical properties. Some species of Hippeastrum seem to have interesting anti-depressant and anti-convulsant possibilities, and experimentation has indicated that the bulb may have possible uses as an antibiotic.

Just to return to the name ‘Amaryllis’ for a moment – Amaryllis was a Greek nymph who suffered with unrequited love for the cold-hearted Alteo. In a paroxysm of passion she pierced her heart with a golden arrow and trekked to his door every day for a month, leaving a path of blood splatters en route. These days we would probably call this behaviour stalking, but on the thirtieth day the blood spots transmogrified into red flowers of stupendous size and hue. Alteo finally fell in love with Amaryllis, her heart was healed, and the Dutch bulb trade lurched into action. The rest, my friends, is history.

You might expect that such a showy plant would inspire visual artists and, before he turned to abstraction, Piet Mondrian produced a number of startling ‘portraits’ of Hippeastrum.

Amaryllis by Piet Mondrian (1910) (Public Domain)

And you might also expect that the amaryllis/Hippeastrum would invite the attention of poets, and so it does. I adore this poem by American poet Deborah Digges, who died in 2009 and who sounds like a most generous teacher of other poets. She explores both the beauty and the absurdity of the amaryllis, a plant which, in its super-abundance, teeters on the very edge of ‘too much’.

My Amaryllis

by Deborah Digges

So this is the day the fat boy learns to take the jokes

by donning funny hats, my Amaryllis,

my buffoon of a flower,

your four white bullhorn blossoms like the sirens

in a stadium through which the dictator announces he’s in love.

Then he sends out across the land a proclamation—

there must be music, there must be stays of execution

for the already dying.

That’s how your pulpy sex undoes me and your seven

leaves, unsheathed. How you diminish

my winter windows, and beyond them, the Atlantic.

How you turn my greed ridiculous.

Now it’s as if I could believe in having children after forty,

or, walking these icy streets, greet sullen strangers

like a host of former selves, so ask them in, of course,

and listen like one forgiven to their crimes.

Dance with us and all our secrets,

dance with us until our lies,

like death squads sent to an empty house, put down,

finally, their weapons, peruse the family

portraits, admire genuinely the bride.

Stay with me in this my exile

or my returning, as if to love the tyrant one more time.

O my lily, my executioner, a little stooped, here,

listing, you are the future bending

to kiss the present like a sleeping child.

Photo Credits

Photo One by By Averater – Own work, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47076787

Photo Two by By Daniel Macher – AmaryllisUploaded by Epibase, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8933832

Photo Three by Pictures taken by Raul654 around Washington DC on May 7, 2005.

Ivy-leaved speedwell (Veronica hederifolia)

Dear Readers, last week I was in Dorset with my parents, and Dad had a horrible chest infection (or maybe a continuation of the one that he’s had for the past six months). In the space of 24 hours he went from being ok to being too weak to stand up unaided. Fortunately the doctor was able to visit, and prescribed him some antibiotics and some steroids, with the proviso that if he wasn’t any better he would be admitted to hospital the next day.

Steroids are miracle drugs, but they are also dangerous for long-term use. For a while Dad was taking them regularly, and by the end of a few months he could barely walk (muscle weakness and pain is a known side-effect). But a short course can have miraculous results. The next day dad was walking about, he had some colour back in his cheeks, and by the day after he was out ‘advising’ the men who had come to fit some new tyres to his car. And so I could at last breathe out (well, it felt as if I’d been holding my breath for 48 hours) and go for a little walk. As I headed towards the shop, I spotted this sprawling, inconspicuous plant. It could easily be mistaken for chickweed, if it wasn’t for its tiny, pale blue flowers and its lobed leaves. It was leaning into the sunshine on every verge and under every hedge. One lone plant had even stationed itself on one of the lovely shale walls in the village. For a moment I mistook it for its close relative, ivy-leaved toadflax.

The flowers of this species are very pale, almost lilac, rather than the deep blue of other speedwells. The stems and leaves are hairy, but the leaves are the distinguishing feature, being wider than long, and with obvious veins. There are about 15 species of speedwell in the UK, but this one is an arcaeophyte, introduced probably with grain from mainland Europe before 1500 BCE. It grows in the nutrient-rich, trampled soils that exist around human habitation and, like all the speedwells, was thought to be lucky for travellers, with the more showy species such as germander speedwell being worn as a buttonhole by those about to set out on a journey.

The genus name ‘Veronica’ comes from St Veronica. She is said to have wiped the blood from the face of Christ, and the handkerchief that she used bore the ‘vera iconica’, the ‘true image’, of his features. There seem to be many folk tales concerning the picking of the plant, which will bring dire consequences: either your mother’s eyes will fall out, your eyes will fall out or birds will come and pluck your eyes out for you. I suspect that the white centre of speedwell species is seen as an ‘eye’ by those of an imaginative disposition, and speedwells often have vernacular names such as ‘blue eyes’.

The plant was at one point so popular as a cure for gout that it was picked almost to extinction in London, where boozing was presumably as much a problem in medieval times as it is these days. Speedwell was prescribed ‘to be taken in the spring for some time, especially by Persons who drink much ale and are in gross habit of body’. A tea made from speedwell is said to be beneficial for pretty much everything, and the plant itself is sometimes added to salads, though the leaves and flowers of this species are so small that I wonder if it would be worth the bother. Probably better to let it alone, to be food for the extremely rare Heath Fritillary’s caterpillar (though in truth it prefers germander speedwell if there’s any available).

Heath fritillary (Melitaea athalia) (Photo One)

One reason for the name ‘speedwell’ is thought to be that the petals fall quickly once the plant is picked. The painting below is by  John Everett Millais and is called ‘The Little Speedwell’s Darling Blue (1891-2)’ This is an example of the ‘Fancy Picture’, which was a style that was very popular and lucrative. Millais tried to make the genre more painterly and serious by depicting the compulsory small, attractive child with emblems of mortality, such as flowers or dead birds or bubbles. Here, the infant is musing on a speedwell (admittedly not an ivy-leaved speedwell, but still) and is no doubt waiting for the flower to disintegrate. The whole notion of ephemeral also played nicely into the Victorian love-affair with the death of the young and the beautiful.

w ‘The Little Speedwell’s Darling Blue’ (John Everett Millais 1891-2) (Public Domain)

And to round off this week, we have none other than Oscar Wilde, grieving for the man who betrayed him ( the title means, roughly ‘Because I have loved too much’. I didn’t know this poem at all, but I rather like it as a description of passion, and I love the last line , although I am not quite sure that I understand it. Is Wilde saying that his love is one of many that has been showered on his lover? Someone enlighten me, please.

Photo Credits

Photo One by By Harald Süpfle – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4197344