100 Flowers and How They Got Their Names (21 page)

In spite of being in gardens so long, lupines were not really popular until they were hybridized by George Russell. His long life was spent as a jobbing gardener, and he did all his work in a small council allotment, relying entirely on insect pollination and simply pulling out less desirable flowering plants. In spite of his fame in the horticultural world he retained his pragmatic approach to life, refusing always to donate his flowers to funerals. He maintained they were for the living, not the dead. His own funeral was simple and his grave unmarked, but his memorial lives on in gardens everywhere each summer.

BOTANICAL NAME
:
Magnolia
.
FAMILY
:
Magnoliaceae
.

When we look into a magnolia flower we are looking back into prehistory. Magnolias were among the first plants on earth to reproduce using flowers pollinated by insects. Some prehistoric plants, such as water lilies, survived worldwide. Others, such as the ginkgo, survived in a very limited area. The magnolias were found in Asia and America but not in Europe.

The earliest magnolias to reach Europe came from America. Francisco Hernandez, physician to Philip II of Spain, described a Mexican magnolia in the 1570s but, as far as we know, the first live magnolia—a Virginia or swamp magnolia—was sent to Europe by John Banister (see “Bluebell”) in 1688. The Virginia magnolia is interesting because of the swiftness with which it indicates it has been pollinated. Within half an hour the flowers wither and go brown.

The
Magnolia grandiflora
was growing in Britain by 1737, when the famous botanical artist Georg Ehret, a German who lived in England from 1736 until his death in 1770, walked three miles every day, from Chelsea to Fulham, to study its opening buds in Sir Charles Wager's garden. He drew it for Mark Catesby's
Natural History of Carolina
, although most of the illustrations were by Catesby himself (see “Silver Bell”).

Far outshining the American magnolias, however, were the magnolias introduced from China, the first of which was sent to Sir Joseph Banks at Kew in about 1780. They were much hardier than the magnolias from America (which were grown outdoors in England but needed a sheltered position), although they were at first thought to be greenhouse plants. By this time the genus had been named, some say by Charles Plumier, some say by Linnaeus, after Pierre Magnol, Louis XIV's doctor and a professor of botany at the University of Montpellier.

Monsieur Soulange had been tutor to the Empress Josephine's children, a witness to her civil marriage to Napoleon, and superintendent of her garden at Malmaison.

One of the most popular magnolias found in gardens today, both in Britain and America, is the pink
Magnolia
×
soulangiana
, which appeared in 1826 in the garden of Monsieur Etienne Soulange-Bodin, who founded the National Horticultural Society of France. In the garden, which was near Paris, there were two magnolias,
M. denudata
(or
heptapeta
) and
M. liliiflora
(or
quinquepeta
), and the chance seedling was a cross between them. Monsieur Soulange had been tutor to the Empress Josephine's children, a witness to her civil marriage to Napoleon, and superintendent of her garden at Malmaison. He was also a patron of the artist Redouté. It is said that Napoleon disliked him.

Magnolias were among the first plants on earth to reproduce using flowers pollinated by insects.

It is not known if Pierre Magnol was acquainted with magnolias, but they were well named for him: he was the first to divide plants into “families,” and they are certainly a distinctive family. William Bartram recognized magnolias in 1791 as an extraordinary and “celebrated family of flowering trees,” and we are still celebrating their ancient and particular beauty.

COMMON NAMES
: Pot marigold, French marigold, African marigold.
BOTANICAL NAMES
:
Calendula officinalis, Tagetes
.
FAMILY
:
Asteraceae
.

Marigolds are associated with the sun. They bloom under blazing skies when everything else is wilting and you don't care if it does. The pot marigolds even open and close with the sun. “Such is the love of it known to be toward that royall Star,” said Thomas Hyll in
The Gardener's Labyrinth
, that “they . . . at the noon time of the day fully spread abroad, as if they with spread armes longed . . . to embrace their Bridegroom.”

The name comes from “Mary's gold,” for marigolds were flowers of the Virgin Mary and were used to decorate church altars. The original European marigold was called “calendula,” from the Latin
calendae
, “the first day of the month,” because it bloomed every month of the year in ecclesiastical and monastery gardens, constantly supplying flowers for the Church.

The calendula is also called “pot marigold” because it was put in cook pots and was often used as a cheap substitute for saffron to color cakes, butter, and puddings. John Gerard says it was used for “broths, physical potions and for divers other purposes.” These included hair dye, as the sixteenth-century herbalist William Turner sternly explained: “Some use to make their heyre yelow wyth the floure of this herbe, not beying contēt with the naturall colour which God hath geven them.”

The popular marigolds we plant in American gardens are
Tagetes
, named by Linnaeus and otherwise called “French” or “African” marigolds, although both originated in South America, probably brought back from the New World by the Spaniards and then taken to France. Charles V brought marigolds back from a crusade, calling them
flos Africanus
.

The name comes from “Mary's gold,” for marigolds were flowers of the Virgin Mary and were used to decorate church altars.

The
Tagetes
are called after Tages, the grandson of Jupiter. He taught the Etruscans haruspicy, which is the useful art of foretelling the future by examining entrails. He was a god of the underworld who rose out of a ploughed field with this bright idea, which was a standby in ancient forecasting. The Romans were always stopping to examine entrails before deciding on a new move, much as we listen to weather forecasts or stockbroker predictions (perhaps with comparable results). Anyway, the introduction of so brilliant a skill earned for him the name of
a brilliant flower—at least Linnaeus must have thought so when he chose that name for the marigolds.

The roots of
Tagetes
marigolds exude thiophenes, which kill nematodes, and they are often planted in vegetable gardens to repel pests. Early gardeners said they repelled vermin.

The calendula is also called “pot marigold” because it was put in cook pots and was often used as a cheap substitute for saffron.

We associate marigolds with the heat of summer and dazzling sunshine. If they are the Virgin Mary's flower, they would certainly turn toward the light. But even gods of the Underworld must be enticed by it too—or they would stay in the entrails of the earth where they belong. Whomever's flower they are, marigolds add a blaze of brightness to our gardens and to our lives too, as they search for, and digest for us, the fiery brilliance of the sun.

COMMON NAMES
: Montbretia, crocosmia.
BOTANICAL NAMES
:
Crocosmia × crocosmiiflora, Tritonia × crocosmiiflora
.
FAMILY
:
Iridaceae
.