100 Flowers and How They Got Their Names (12 page)

All evening primroses originate from the American continent. They came to Europe in the seventeenth century and were called “primroses” because their flower resembled the yellow spring primrose (or “first rose”) of Britain. John Parkinson called it the “Tree Primrose of Virginia” and said, “Unto what tribe or kindred I might referre this plant, I have stood long in suspense.” Now we know that there are about 124 species of evening primrose, which form a “tribe” of their own.

As early as 1729, the Quaker gardener John Bartram had twelve different kinds of evening primrose growing in his botanical garden near Philadelphia. His garden formed the first collection of American native plants, and he traveled all over the East Coast to find them. He sent hundreds to the Quaker gardener and botanist Peter Collinson in London, and their correspondence is a delight to read.

Bartram was king's botanist and responsible for most of the American plant introductions of his time to England, but his contemporary Linnaeus called no flower after him. Later a sandpiper,
Bartramia
, was named for him, and a moss,
Bartramia
, was named for his
son William, who loved birds and was not a gardener. John said, “I took no perticular notice of mosses but looked upon them as A cow looks at a pair of new barn doors yet now I have made A good progress in that branch of botany which realy is A very curious part of vegitation.” The honors of nomenclature, as we have seen, are not necessarily appropriate to their namesakes.

Evening primroses do not all open in the evening. Most are recognizable by a cross-like stigma across the top of the style, which John Goodyer called “the nailes of the inner parts.” The same formation is shared by the passion flower and was used by missionaries as an allegory to illustrate the Crucifixion. The evening primrose could have been used for the same purpose but seems to have come quietly to Europe with no religious, allegorical, or even medical associations. Since oil of evening primrose is sold nowadays by almost all health food stores, with quite extensive curative claims, it is surprising that in an era of plant medicine, Parkinson dismissed it, saying he “never knew any amongst us to use [it] in Physicke.”

Its botanical name is from the Greek
oinos
(wine) and
theran
(to hunt). Etymologists seem to think that this name came from another, now unknown, Greek plant that was used to stimulate the appetite for wine. Why there should be a need to stimulate the desire for wine they do not explain. In any case, both the roots and leaves of the evening primrose are said to be edible and somewhat resemble parsnips in taste. Maybe they need a good wine to accompany them.

COMMON NAMES
: Everlasting, strawflower.
BOTANICAL NAME
:
Helichrysum
.
FAMILY
:
Asteraceae
.

Apreoccupation of medieval scholars was discovering the “Riddles of the Queen of Sheba” not specified in the Bible. One popular riddle seen in medieval tapestries was of the queen showing King Solomon two flowers and asking him to guess which was the real one and which the artificial one. The king in his wisdom gets hold of some bees, which fly immediately to the real flower. The real flower, it is assumed, is softpetaled and fragrant. Everlasting flower would have complicated the riddle beautifully if the queen or the scholars had thought of it. It doesn't look “real” at all, but has straw-like petals and no perfume except, after it dries, a smell that is supposed to repel moths.

The Egyptians knew the helichrysum, as did Pliny and Dioscorides, who say that the flowers, which last indefinitely, were used to decorate statues of gods. The Greeks made wreaths of the flowers and used them mixed with honey to treat burns. They named the plant for
helios
(the sun) and
chrysos
(gold).

The Oriental helichrysum came to Britain from Crete in 1619 via
the Padua botanic garden. John Parkinson grew it in his garden, calling it, charmingly, “Golden Flower gentle.” He said it was “called by our English Gentlewomen, Live long and Life everlasting, because of the durabilitie of the flowers in their beautie.”

It is used nowadays in winter bouquets of dried flowers which rival silk flowers in popularity.

The
Helichrysum bracteatum
from Australia is the one most often grown in our gardens now, and it is particularly well suited to dry conditions. It was brought back by Sir Joseph Banks, who was on Captain Cook's expedition to observe the transit of Venus and to seek out the
Terra Australis Incognita
, or “Unknown Southern Land” thought to “balance” the land mass of the Northern Hemisphere. Banks was one of the few who survived the voyage. When they were shipwrecked in Australia, Banks noted that the “almost certainty of being eat” on shore added to the unpleasantness. But he returned home and was director of the Royal Botanic Gardens for forty-two years. He was the instigator and patron of a great era of botanical exploration and sent Francis Masson, Archibald Menzies, Joseph Hooker, Clarke Abel, and David Nelson on their trips.

The everlasting flower was popular with the Victorians to make fireplace screens and otherwise decorate their hot, stuffy parlors where houseplants often couldn't survive. It is used nowadays in winter bouquets of dried flowers, which rival silk flowers in popularity. By the middle of winter both get rather dusty, and it is doubtful if even Solomon could get a bee to choose between them.

BOTANICAL NAME
:
Myosotis
.
FAMILY
:
Boraginaceae
.

Its botanical name comes from the Greek
mus
(mouse) and
otis
, from
ous
(ear). This is from the rather touching perception that the leaves are shaped like a mouse's ears. John Gerard called it “scorpion grass” and believed that it cured scorpion bites, though there are no scorpions in England—but maybe it was best to be prepared.

The name “forget-me-not” comes from the Old French
ne m'oubliez mye
, which in turn was a translation of the German
vergiss mein nicht
. The best known legend about the flower is of a German knight picking a posy of forget-me-nots for his beloved as they strolled together on a riverbank. He slipped and fell in, but before drowning he threw her the flowers, crying, “
Vergiss mein nicht
.” This excruciating story could really only have merit were it to be sung onstage with a suitably distraught and bosomy soprano and some excellent trap-door mechanisms. Botanically it doesn't hold much water.

Blue is a celestial color and it almost always clothes the Virgin
Mary in medieval paintings. Flies reputedly will avoid blue rooms, which is why dairies were often painted blue. Gardeners treasure blue flowers, which are rarer than any other color in our borders. Blue and yellow are also the colors that most attract insect pollinators, which is what interested Christian Sprengel in forget-me-nots. Sprengel, rector of Spandau in Germany, was investigating the role that colors of flowers play in the process of insect pollination. He so neglected his pastoral duties to pursue botany that he was dismissed from his post. In 1793 he published
The Newly Revealed Mystery of Nature in the Structure and Fertilization of Flowers
, which demonstrated his belief that all nature had a connected purpose. It was, however, unenthusiastically received by his contemporaries, leaving him too depressed to publish anything more. It was not until 1841 that Charles Darwin read the book and recognized the truths in it, which he incorporated into his own research.

“Forget-me-not” is one of the few flower names that almost everyone knows and remembers.

“Forget-me-not” is one of the few flower names that almost everyone knows and remembers, and the flowers commonly decorate Valentine cards and the like. They grow in damp places and are, indeed, bluer than the Virgin's robe. The most memorable place they grew, however, was in Lady Chatterley's pubic hair, where her gamekeeper lover planted them, saying, “There's forget-me-nots in the right place.” When she looked down at the “odd little flowers among the brown maiden-hair,” she said, “Doesn't it look pretty!” The gamekeeper's reply is unforgettable: “Pretty as life,” he said.

COMMON NAMES
: Forsythia, golden-bell.
BOTANICAL NAME
:
Forsythia
.
FAMILY
:
Oleaceae
.

The Scottish gardener William Forsyth was a showy character, like the shrub that bears his name. After Robert Fortune (see “Bleeding Heart”) had brought forsythia back from China and it had become popular, its ease of propagation and hardiness caused it to be planted in gardens everywhere. Then, like a lot of wildly popular plants, it fell into disrepute, and so-called discriminating gardeners talked of it as “vulgar.”

Forsyth too fell into disrepute. In 1770 he became the director of the Chelsea Physic Garden. He was able and enthusiastic, reorganizing and replanting the Chelsea garden, exchanging seeds and plants with gardens abroad, making the first British rock garden with forty tons
of old stone from the Tower of London and lava brought back from Iceland by Sir Joseph Banks, and helping to found the Royal Horticultural Society. However, in spite of all this laudable horticultural activity, he seems to have been a bit of a rascally entrepreneur. He invented, or claimed to invent, “Forsyth's Plaister.” By 1799 overuse of forests had left few great trees suitable for wartime shipbuilding, and those that remained were often diseased. In his gardens, Forsyth had used his plaster to seal wounds in fruit trees after he had removed diseased limbs, and he offered to sell the recipe to the British navy. The navy fell for it and the treasury paid him fifteen hundred pounds—an immense sum in those days. The secret recipe turned out to consist of cow dung, lime, wood ashes, and sand mixed to a malleable paste with soapsuds and urine. Its efficacy was challenged by Thomas Knight, an expert on the cultivation of fruit trees, who refused to concede that “man, with the aid of a little lime, cowdung and wood ashes, is capable of rendering that immortal, which the great God of nature evidently intended to die.” A Quaker doctor, John Lettsom, supported Forsyth, but when challenged by Knight with a wager of a hundred guineas that he could not “produce a single foot of timber restored after being once injured to the state asserted by Mr. Forsyth,” replied
primly that his religion did not allow him to make wagers. Forsyth, however, died in 1804 before the controversy could be resolved.