Category: As Kind

Have a Pagan Christmas

On By Bill ChaissonIn As Event, As Kind, As SymbolLeave a comment

The association of mistletoe with Christmas seems, like the “Christmas tree,” to be one more pagan element that has been absorbed into the Christian holiday season. After having a vision that her son Balder will be killed, Norse goddess Frigg (Freya to the Anglo-Saxons) extracts an oath from all animals and plants that they will not harm him. She neglects to get this promise from the mistletoe for the usual obscure reasons, and (in most versions) Loki, the trickster god, kills Balder with an arrow made from mistletoe. After Balder is resurrected, Frigg (using logic that is just so Norse) made the mistletoe an emblem of love.

Victorian mistletoe

Hence: kissing under the mistletoe. But, why at Christmas? Mistletoe is an evergreen, and many evergreens were regarded as a rather hopeful sign at the winter solstice. The evergreen nature of mistletoe is made more dramatic by its habit of growing in the branches of deciduous trees. When the tree loses all its leaves in the winter the clumps of mistletoe (several in a tree or in a grove of trees is not unusual) stand out as bright green living things amid the bare branches.

Viscum album is found throughout Europe and east to Nepal. It finds a place in both northern European and Mediterranean mythologies. James Frazer argued in his masterwork The Golden Bough that the eponymous branch cut by Aeneas as a passport to the Underworld was in fact mistletoe. Again, its persistent green-ness through the year makes it a good candidate for maintaining life in a world of the dead.

More generally speaking mistletoe is associated fertility because of its evergreen nature and likely because of its ability to grow even without soil. Saturnalia, the Roman harvest feast, celebrated from the 17th to the 25th of December, was a knockdown drag-out party with lots of drinking and sex. Some sources off-handedly assure us that the tradition of kissing under mistletoe has its roots in the Saturnalia. Perhaps, but its northern European association with the solstice and its pan European association with fertility may simply have come together at Christmas.

In York Minster the pagan symbol is accepted within the church itself at Christmas, reportedly a singular dispensation. A sprig of mistletoe has been hung on the high altar at York since the Middle Ages. Into the 19th century the priests there performed a ceremony of forgiveness and pardon that referenced the plant as a symbol of peace.

Viscum album fruit

The Christmas tradition of hanging mistletoe in the house in a place where single women were likely to walk under it was certainly in place by the 19th century, as both Washington Irving and Charles Dickens refer to it. In those stuffy Victorian times a restraint was added to the tradition: with each kiss the man had to pluck a single white berry from the cluster. When they were gone, no more kissing.

As Irving’s reference shows, the mistletoe tradition was carried over to North America, but the mistletoe did not have to be. There is an eastern North American species called Phoradendron serotinum that grows from Long Island to Missouri and southward. It is a member of the same order (Santalales) as the European species and has the same hemi-parasitic habit. They are referred to as “hemi-parasites” because they do photosynthesize and therefore produce some of their own food, but they draw all their water and nutrients directly from the phloem and xylem of the host tree.

The fruit of both species is sticky and transported by birds. Either the birds eat the fruit and excrete the seed on another tree, or they move it after it sticks to them. The common name “mistletoe” (Old English misiltan) is derived from Germanic words mist and tan for “dung” and “twig,” respectively, evidently referring to its mode of dispersal.

P. flavescens, often harvested for Christmas use

There are many native species of mistletoe in the United States, including several members of the genus Phoradendron. Several of them are named for their parasitization of particular tree species (e.g. P. juniperum) and one southeastern U.S. species (P. leucarpum) is known to regularly parasitize oaks, which is interesting because it is thought that the sacred association between oaks and mistletoe in Europe is due to the rarity of finding Viscus album on a Quercus.

The story of the Druids harvesting mistletoe from an oak with a golden sickle is based a short passage written by Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder in the late first century A.D. Aside from other brief and generally prejudiced comments by Roman authors virtually nothing is known of actual Druidic practice. Most of the neo-Druidic rituals originated during the 19th century Romantic period.

It is Pliny who describes the mistletoe being cut by a priest from an oak in the presence of two bulls the sixth day after a new moon. Much of what Pliny wrote jibes with what is known from other Roman accounts and from archaeological evidence.

The Bee’s Knees

On By Bill ChaissonIn As KindLeave a comment

When I was a kid we had banks of yellow flowers growing in the area where my parents had hired a contractor to re-grade the property. The topsoil had been scraped away and they did not purchase new soil to cover the raw mineral subsoil that was now the top layer of the landscape. Consequently the area was invaded by hardy exotic species that were adapted to environmental disturbance.

Linaria vulgaris

As little kids will, we loved the little yellow flowers with elaborate geometry that looked like a dragon’s head that you could squeeze at the base to make its “mouth” open. We called them “snapdragons,” although I don’t know where we had heard that name. My mother corrected us, saying they were in fact called “butter and eggs.”

Linaria vulgaris has dozens of vernacular names, only one of which – wild snapdragon – references its resemblance to Antirrhinum majus, the actual snapdragon. Until recently both of them were classified as members of the Scrophulariaceae family, but Antirrhinum, on the strength of molecular genetic evidence, has been reassigned to Plantaginaceae or the plantain family.

Many of the common names of Linaria refer to the animal-like appearance of the blossom: bunny haycocks, bunny mouths, calf’s snout, impudent lawyer (!), lion’s mouth, monkey flower, and rabbit flower. By comparison, snapdragons have far fewer names in the folk lexicon. This is likely because of the tendency of Linaria to rapidly colonize disturbed landscapes and so be much more often encountered by working lay people. Antirrhinum, in contrast, likes deep, well-drained, fertile soil, and so is less likely to spread across the landscape unchecked.

Antirrhinum cultivar

Unlike Linaria, Antirrhinum has been cultivated and many varieties produced through careful breeding. Snapdragons are common addition to many perennial gardens because their vertical growth habit adds interest to the texture of a bed and many of the colors in the cultivars tend toward strikingly saturated reds and magentas.

The zygomorphic (bilaterally symmetrical) flowers are arranged in spirals up a tall stalk that varies in height from 10 inches to two feet. The blossoms open successively from the bottom to the top of the spike. The flowers of the cultivars come in a wide variety of colors, most of which are hot and bright.

The form of the flower, which was apparently evolved independently in Linaria and Antirrhinum, is an adaptation to effective pollination by bees. When a bumblebee lands on the flower its weight opens the “mouth” and it crawls in. The corona closes around it and the bee is thoroughly coated with pollen before moving onto the next flower, where it transfers the pollen to stigma.

Wild snapdragons and earlier cultivars were not particularly valued as cut flowers because after they were fertilized the blossomed fell off (“shattered”). Careful cross breeding, however, has produced “shatter-proof” varieties.

Snapdragons are perennials, but they are often planted as annuals, especially in colder climates. The plants can be put in the ground after the threat of frost is past and they will begin blooming in early June in the northern United States. By the heat of mid-summer the flowers will have fallen off. At this point most gardeners recommend cutting them back to about 6 inches above the ground, fertilizing and watering them heavily. They will produce a second wave of flowers through the fall and continue to bloom even after a frost.

 

Antirrhinum majus is found in the wild in the Mediterranean region, ranging from Portugal and Morocco to Turkey and Syria. It tolerates colder climates, however, and has escaped from cultivation in both Europe and North America to establish wild populations locally.

Like Mendel’s peas, Antirrhinum demonstrates incomplete dominance. That is, a white variety crossed with a red variety will yield a pink-flowered crop. Charles Darwin was intrigued that the normally zygomorphic flowers of snapdragons were occasionally replaced with actinomorphic (radially symmetrical) flowers, a condition known as “peloria.” Subsequent molecular research revealed that a single gene called “CYCLOIDEA” controlled floral symmetry in some plants, including snapdragons. Breeders have exploited these and other characters to produce an astounding array of cultivars.

Last Blaze of Summer

On By Bill ChaissonIn As Kind, As Landscape1 Comment

In the spirit of “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” the goldenrods (Solidago) are widely dismissed as weeds or worse in the United States, but planted as highly prized perennials in the United Kingdom and Europe. There are at least 85 species in North America and only about three in Europe, which may contribute to the perception.

Solidago altissima

Goldenrod is widely blamed for causing hay fever, which a trip to a field full of Solidago will show you is not true; the goldenrod plants are humming with bees and all sorts of other pollinating insects. It is the wind-pollinated ragweed (Ambrosia) that causes hay fever. These plants flower at the same time as goldenrod (late summer and fall), but their flowers are an innocuous greenish color, and the plants are shorter than goldenrod. It therefore goes unnoticed and observers blame the more prominent plants for their wheezing, sneezing and general misery.

Solidago graminifolia

In our meadow garden in the middle of a rural village in upstate New York we have about four different species of Solidago. The easiest one to differentiate from the rest is the lance-leaved goldenrod (S. graminifolia), which as its name suggests has smooth, narrow leaves and flowers grouped in flat-topped clusters.

At the opposite end of the spectrum is the sharp-leaved goldenrod (S. arguta), which has broad, ovate, toothed leaves that have a rougher texture than the lance-leaved species. The flowers of S. arguta are borne in one-side arching clusters that form large terminal inflorescences.

Solidago odorata (sweet goldenrod)

Late goldenrod (S. gigantea) has leaves that are lance-shaped but broader and rougher than those of S. graminifolia. The plant is also much taller on occasion, as its trivial name suggests. It can reach seven feet tall, according to Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide, but the plants in my garden aren’t more than five and a half feet tall.

S. gigantea flowers are one-side sprays like S. arguta’s, but are fewer, less arched and less showy. There may be other species out there, but I haven’t had the patience to key them out. They can be told apart largely based on leaf shape and texture, the pattern of veination, and whether or not the shape of the leaves changes from the basal to the higher parts of the plant.

Goldenrod has many advantages as an addition to perennial beds. The different species provide varying textures because of their leaf shape and the architecture of their inflorescences. These are native plants and therefore adapted to the climate and the herbivorous insects of North America. They tolerate drought and spread both vegetatively (via their root mat) and by seeding themselves. In addition to the wild types there are cultivars with even more impressive and showy flowers.

One of the principles of the “English country garden” design is to add height and exuberance to your garden. Goldenrod meets both of these criteria in that it is often several feet tall and grows in profusion, flowering for weeks every year.

William Robinson

William Robinson, one of the main proponents of the English country garden, was reacting to the strictures and geometry of Victorian garden design. His design theory paralleled the Arts & Crafts movement begun by William Morris and carried on by the Pre-Raphaelites and the Bloomsbury group. His The Wild Garden (1870) encouraged people to create transitions from the pastoral vernacular landscape into the designed space of a garden. Every edge or transition became an opportunity to plant perennials and shrubs. Robinson was not a nativist; he did not insist on the use of native plants. On the contrary, he was one of the prominent proponents of the use of North American goldenrods and asters in British gardens. There is one native British goldenrod (S. virgaurea or woundwort) but it is not often used in perennial beds. Although the English country garden is exuberant looking, it is not wild. Robinson urged his disciples to keep their plantings under control, but to make sure that this restraint was as invisible as possible. The goldenrods spread rapidly in most settings and unwanted plants have to be dug out.

In the preface to The English Flower Garden and Home Grounds (1906) Robinson wrote:

“The aim [of design is] to make the garden a reflex of the beauty of the great garden of the world itself, and to prove that the true way to happiest design is not to have any stereotyped style for all flower gardens, but that the best kind of garden should arise out of its site and conditions as happily as a primrose out of a cool bank.”

Plants That Don’t Cause Strife

On By Bill ChaissonIn As Kind, As ObjectLeave a comment

Most people know “loosestrife” because of the veritable pestilence upon the landscape that is purple loosestrife and its relatively benign (albeit not harmless) distant relative yellow loosestrife, a deer-resistant (and therefore popular) denizen of perennial beds.

Lysimachos of Thrace

But what about that name? It has a potentially calamitous etymology if it has anything to do with the idea of “loosing strife upon the land.” But the real story is less exciting and a bit more pointy-headed.

The common name is given to members of two genera Lythrum and Lysimachia. Until the advent of molecular genetics both were thought to be members of the family Primulaceae (primroses), but recent evidence shows that Lysimachia should be put in the family Myrsinaceae and Lythrum in the family Lythraceae.

The common is name is a literal translation from the Greek lysimachia, which was the name for the flower in the Classical world. Lysis means ‘loose’ or ‘break apart,’ and mache means ‘to fight.’ What does this have to do with the properties of the plant? As it turns out: nothing.

In fact, according to Dioscorides and Pliny, the plant was named for King Lysimachos, who was apparently something of an herbalist and was the first to describe the curative properties of the herb. Lysimachos was one of the bodyguards of Alexander the Great, and after the young emperor’s death in 323 B.C.E. he became the ruler of Thrace, Asia Minor (Turkey) and Macedon.

Lysimachia vulgaris

The plant most consistently referred to as yellow loosestrife is Lysimachia vulgaris. The leaves are whorled on this species, and the flowers are arranged in loose spikes at the top of the stem. This species is regarded as being invasive in the United States, where it is found along wetter roadsides.

Lysimachia punctata is called either yellow or spotted loosestrife and is the most commonly seen member of the genus in perennial beds. Its shorter stemmed leaves are arranged in whorls like those of L. vulgaris, but unlike L. vulgaris, the flowers are arranged in whorls just above the leaf whorls. The overall effect is one of alternately circles of green and bright yellow climbing up the stem. This plant is not regarded as being nearly as invasive as L. vulgaris.

While most Lysimachia species are native to Europea and Asia, a few are native to North America, including the whorled loosestrife (Lysimachia quadrifolia), which is found in woodlands from Georgia to Hudson Bay east of the Mississippi River. Lysimachia fraseri (Fraser’s yellow loosestrife) is a rare denizen of the southeastern United States. Its numbers have been reduced by suppression of natural wildfires; it is usually sterile when it grows in excessive shade.

Lythrum salicaria

But the most notorious loosestrife is Lythrum salicaria or purple loosestrife, which spreads in clonal mats, crowding out native species, especially cattails in wetland settings. For several years volunteer groups were physically removing these plants from wildlife preserves and refuges because it was dominating the ecosystems to the extent that the food web was affected. Native insects adapted to eating and breeding on cattails and other species lost their habitat, sending a cascading wave of disruption through the community.

Integrated pest management (IPM) programs are the most ecologically sophisticated way to control invasive species. They will not eliminate the invader, but will (if successful) bring the numbers under control. In 1992 the U.S. Department of Agriculture approved the release of Galerucella spp. beetles to make an inroad into the infestation of purple loosestrife populations in North America. After the beetles are introduced, they begin to feed on the loosestrife, which becomes stunted and defoliated, allowing other plants to grow around it. However, it takes five to 10 years for sufficient numbers of beetles to build up and make a serious dent in the loosestrife populations.

For obvious reasons it is unwise to use either purple or yellow (L. vulgaris) in flower arrangements, however attractive both spiked inflorescences may be. On the other hand, the gooseneck loosestrife (Lysimachia clethroides) is frequently used in add interesting geometry to an arrangement. The white spike blooms from the base of the spike toward the tip, giving it a crooked appearance. This plant can also be somewhat invasive.

Candy Plant (In Name Only)

On By Bill ChaissonIn As Business, As Food, As Kind, As MedicineLeave a comment

Sometimes plant or flower names disappear into other words. How many people are aware that a marshmallow is showy pink flower on a plant with a long herbalist history in southern Europe and the Middle East? Most people seem to pronounce the name of the candy “marsh mellow,” which further distances the spongy white thing from the velvety green plant.

Althaea officianalis “marsh mallow”

The mallows (Malvaceae) have a nearly worldwide distribution and include about 2,300 species in several genera. The boundaries of the mallow family are evidently a subject of debate among plant systematists; both narrow and broad definitions exist. The marsh mallow (Althaea officinalis) is a native of Europe and has a long history of being noticed and put to work. The genus name is derived from the Greek altho “to cure” and the entire plant, but particularly the root, is infused with a mucilage that is thought to have medicinal properties.

Many members of the mallow family sensu stricto or sensu lato have been identified as either edible or medicinal or both. The cacao (Theobroma cacao) is included in the broader definition of Malvaceae and is well known as the essential ingredient in chocolate. The kola nut (Cola spp.) is what gives cola it caffeine, its flavor, and – as originally marketed – its medicinal properties. Okra (Abelmoschus esculentus) seed pods are probably best known as the strangest looking ingredient in gumbo, and the mucilage in them is what makes that Southern seafood stew so gooey. The young leaves of many mallows are tender and sweet and can be used as a substitute for lettuce.

Marsh mallow’s first use was an herbal remedy for everything from a sore throat to a bad belly. The Romans, Greeks, Chinese, Egyptians and Syrians have evidently used the plant medicinally for at least 4,000 years. Many other members of the mallow family have been used medicinally in many cultures for millennia.

One website put the invention of pâte de guimauve at 1643. Supposedly a French pharmacist altered the ancient Egyptian recipe, substituting sugar for honey. In this form it was used medicinally, but also to coat other medicines with disagreeable tastes.

Making mucilaginous confections

It was also the French who decided to include marsh mallow mucilage in a candy-making process. Most sources put the date at around 1850 that confectioners began whipping the mallow sap together with egg whites and sugar. The mixture was poured into molds lined with cornstarch to prevent sticking. The process was labor-intensive and pâte de guimauve was regarded as a delicacy for the well-to-do.

At the turn of the 20th century it was realized that gelatin could be used instead of the plant mucilage with the same effect. Collection and preparation of the plant material was apparently more time-consuming that buying gelatin, which is made from boiling the hide and bones of animals, and marshmallows became somewhat more downscale. By the early 20th century they were being sold as penny candy in the United States. The by now familiar short cylindrical shape of the modern marshmallow is a function of an extrusion process invented by Alexander Doumak in 1948.

Marshmallow Fluff is a slightly different animal … or plant. Two enterprising men from Swampscott, Mass. purchased the recipe from its Somerville inventor Archibald Query in 1920. Query had been making it in his kitchen and selling it on the street as early as 1917, but the sugar shortage associated with the entrance of the U.S. into the First World War ended his business. H. Allen Durkee and Fred L. Mower returned from the war, bought the recipe for $500. Fluff is made from corn syrup, sugar syrup, dried egg whites and vanillin. No gelatin, gum Arabic or mucilage.

Pâté de guimauve

The French still make pâte de guimauve and purists still use marsh mallow roots to make the dessert, although most recipes (even the ones in French) use gelatin (gelatine) instead.

In some Mediterranean cultures – Arab, Greek, Turkish, Balkan – marsh mallow extract is still used to make another kind of confection called halva. The primary ingredients in this confection are sesame seeds or paste (tahini), and sugar or honey, egg white, or marsh mallow root are added in some recipes, to stabilize the oils in the mixture or create a distinctive texture for the resulting confection.

Non-native Sons Welcome

On By Bill ChaissonIn As Kind, As LandscapeLeave a comment

When we stopped mowing our lawn three years ago, we were hoping that the grass would be gradually replaced by flowering meadow plants. To some extent this has happened. Boneset and joe-pye weed appeared in one spot during the first year. At least five different species of goldenrod became well established immediately. More surprising was the sprouting of two small clusters of sensitive fern. But the grass continued to dominate the area and some pesky invasive species like lesser celandine also began to spread.

Forget-me-nots and mustard in the meadow.

So we decided to urge old-field succession along by introducing plants and planting seeds. The former has been more successful than the latter. My wife decided that she would rather see Echinacea (coneflower) out in the meadow than in beds near the house, so we dug them up and replanted them out there. They are very hardy and have seemed quite happy.

This year we made the same decision about the black-eyed susans. They had begun to take over one of our beds, so I dug them up in large clumps, taking the soil and roots together, and stuck them in holes in the meadow where I had removed clumps of grass. I made sure to water them immediately and also planted them just before rain was forecast. Their natural hardiness and the timely moisture have caused all of the transplanted clumps to barely miss a beat.

Very happy black-eyed susans

We have also begun to move shrubs into the meadow from elsewhere on the property. We’ve decided to fix our meadow at a stage equivalent to between five and ten years following the abandonment of an agricultural field.

Because we didn’t begin with the relatively blank slate of tilled earth, it has been necessary to do all the planting. The grass is tenacious. A butterfly bush that we transplanted seems to be struggling, perhaps a bit more exposed to the weather than is optimal for it. In its former location it had always died back somewhat in previous winters, but now it seems to die back right to the roots before re-sprouting in the spring.

Very unhappy caryopteris.

Two Caryopteris shrubs that we moved last fall have had different fates. I put the smaller one, which had been shaded by a sugar maple that we recently had taken down, in the lee of the house in an area marked by seeps. It transplanted well, leafing out quite completely this spring.

We put the other, larger Caryopteris near the butterfly bush. Like its neighbor the Caryopteris experienced a lot of die-back this winter, either because of the shock of being transplanted—it is about twice the size of the other one—or because of the wind that moves over the hill and through that part of the meadow.

This spring I moved a Potentilla bush that has been bugging me since we moved in. Someone stuck it right at the corner of two walkways at the foot of the front steps. It was the paragon of “in the way.” I moved it about four feet to a place between two paths in the meadow and it seems to anchor the space well and moreover seems to have suffered not one whit.

Seeds that we have sown in the meadow have not germinated well. This is partly because we have left them lying around too long before planting them. We carried around some lupine seeds from friends in Maine for years before scattering them here. Only one plant came up. But all packets of wildflower mix state clearly in the planting instructions that they should be sown on a tilled field. The germination rate is probably much reduced by competition with existing plantings with well-established root systems. Seedlings may even be getting shaded out. So in the near future I’ll be renting a rototiller.

Non-native euphorbia

It is perhaps noticeable in the list of plant names above that we are not attempting to create a meadow of native plants. All the herbaceous plants I mentioned are natives to North America (although not necessarily this region), but we have also dug up ragged robin, a European import, from a local roadside and added it to the mix. In addition, we planted non-native Euphorbia and forget-me-nots, daylilies and ornamental poppies, and all of the shrubs are aliens.

This approach admits a certain amount of resignation to our position in a village surrounded by an agricultural landscape. The numbers of non-native species that populate a disturbed landscape like this—it has been farmed continuously since the early 19th century—are large and not likely to be excluded no matter what measures we take.

Restoration ecology of the type invented by Aldo Leopold at the University of Wisconsin in the 1930s and 1940s is a noble and necessary undertaking. For one thing it preserves natural ecosystems that are in danger of being eliminated by invasive non-native species. But such work is best undertaken on a larger scale (than our 3/4 acre village lot) in order to have buffers between the non-native ocean and the native embayment established with great effort.

We are primarily looking for a panoply of color that unfolds through the season, exclusion of the most invasive non-natives, and to shave a hour a week off my time behind the mower.

Services and Fishes

On By Bill ChaissonIn As Kind, As Symbol1 Comment
Amelanchier blossom

As you drive through the northeast in April before the leaves have burst, you will notice white-flowered trees dotting the understory of forested hills. Some of these are cherries—black and choke; pin cherries are later—but many are Amelanchier canadensis and A. arborea.

The Amelanchier have a habit that differs from the cherries, distinguished by the geometric arrangement of the cloud of flowers. While the Prunus (cherry) species produce billowing patterns of white against the gray and light green of the spring canopy, the Amelanchier have a more stratocumulus array, hung in subparallel ranks around the central trunk or trunks.

Amelanchier canadensis

All of these are members of the Rosaceae, which also includes the later flowering fruit trees—apples, plums and pears—that flower after their leaves are out of the bud. The Amelanchier genus is diverse and widespread in North America. The species commonly interbreed, and so are difficult to tell apart. In the east we have A. arborea, which is generally an upland species, and A. canadenisis, which likes wetter feet and is more common in New England and maritime Canada.

Amelanchier has at least three common names, which vary by region. Two of these names refer to its time of flowering. “Serviceberry” (spelled “sarvisberry” in the Appalachians, based on the local accent) is related to religious services, according to many sources. Some folk etymologies insist this has to do with the thawing of the ground in April, which allows for burial services to take place. Historically, bodies could not be buried in the winter and were stored until the thaw in a vault at the cemetery. This origin is suspect if serviceberry is a common name in the southern part of this genus’s range where the ground does not freeze in the winter.

More tenuous sources suggest that the traveling ministers resumed their services in rural parishes in April after taking the winter off from their rounds. This has credence only because the colonial history of the United States—roughly the 17th and 18th centuries—coincided with the tail end of the Little Ice Age, a cold snap that began in the Renaissance. This gives the impression that winters used to be colder that they are now.  However, in the Middle Ages it was warmer than it is now (the “medieval warm period”), making it possible to grow grapes in England and for the Vikings to settle Greenland.

Amelanchier arborea

Another service-related origin story connects the popular name for Amelanchier with the significance of Easter services, which always occur between late March and mid-April. This explanation doesn’t have anything to do with the severity of winter climate, but depends on whether you believe that someone passing a flowering tree on the way to church would name it based on the immediate destination.

The final story that attempts to explain “serviceberry” stems from a corruption of Sorbus. This genus is also a member of the Rosaceae, and is well known in Europe as the rowan, mountain ash or service tree. The last name is a slurred variation of the Latin genus name, which is derived from the Old English syrfe. It is purely an aural association, since neither the Latin nor the Old English names are related to the verb “to serve” in either language.

A species of mountain ash is also found in the New World and the leaves of Sorbus are pinnate and rounded. That is, it doesn’t look much like an Amelanchier, which has larger, single leaves with pointed tips. However, both are small understory trees that tend to be multi-trunked. and have white flowers. Given that the American robin received the same name as the European robin in spite of having little in common other than a red breast, it seems believable that Amelanchier could have been dubbed “serviceberry” for its resemblance to Sorbus.

American shad

The even more poetic name for Amelanchier along the east coast of the United States is “shadbush” or, more esoterically, “shadblow” (apparently another slurring corruption). A. canadenesis is often found along waterways, so the association with the anadromous herring isn’t far-fetched. The American shad (Alosa sapadissima) runs up rivers along eastern North America from maritime Canada to the St. John’s River in Florida. (Other species run up rivers in the Gulf of Mexico.) The shad most definitely begin to run in April, and they run in large numbers. In many rivers this was (and to some extent still is) a commercially harvested fish. It is excessively bony, but the flesh is sweet and light.

“Anadromous” fish live most of their lives in salt water and run up rivers into fresh water to breed. They are plankton feeders in the ocean, but they do not feed once they enter fresh water, which probably lightens and sweetens the taste of their flesh.  “Catadromous” fish live in fresh water and migrate to salt water to breed. Eels are the best-known example of this life cycle.

During one summer in graduate school I worked on the fish ladders on the Connecticut River. Atlantic salmon (another anadromous fish) was being reintroduced to the drainage. We were charged with catching every tenth salmon that went by and counting all the shad and blueback herring (another shad species; Alosa aestivalis) that swam by the observation window. Now, whenever I drive through the countryside and I see the shadbushes blooming, I see in my mind’s eye the rushing crush of thousands of shad bodies drawn upriver to the shadows of the Amelanchier to spawn in the shallows of clear, stony streams.

Daffadowndilly

On By Bill ChaissonIn As Kind, As SymbolLeave a comment

I wandered lonely as a Cloud
That floats on high o’er Vales and Hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd
A host of dancing Daffodils;
Along the Lake, beneath the trees,
Ten thousand dancing in the breeze.

From “The American Garden”

Wordsworth’s poem refers to naturalized daffodils growing in drifts on a pastoral landscape. Once planted these bulbs have the tendency to divide rapidly from year to year, spreading from small clumps to rambling sprawls. Some sources claim that the Romans introduced daffodils to Great Britain. Concerted settlement by the Romans began in the first century AD, followed by a long “sub-Roman” period after their withdrawal in the fifth century.

The daffodil was evidently cultivated and admired in classical cultures of the Mediterranean, but not rediscovered as an ornamental by modern Europeans until the 17th century. The genus Narcissus is native to the Mediterranean, especially concentrated in the Iberian Peninsula (Spain, Portugal), North Africa and the Middle East.

The botanical name is said to derive from the story of Narcissus, who by all accounts was vain enough to fall in love with his own reflection. Many wild forms of Narcissus, do have downward cast flowers and all daffodil care texts urge you to keep them moist, so finding wild daffodils bending over small bodies of water must have been a common occurrence in classical Greece. The folk tales that aged into mythology are often in the form of the “just-so stories” (as later so-called by Rudyard Kipling).

“Narcissus” (1597) by Caravaggio

In the Roman version invented by Ovid in his Metamorphoses Narcissus is paired with Echo, a nymph who can only repeat what others say. She loves Narcissus, but is cruelly rejected by him. His vanity is explained as a lack of self-awareness; he has never seen himself and does not know how attractive he is. Then he accidentally sees his own reflection and is transfixed by its beauty. In all versions of the story he dies there in various ways. The heartbroken Echo fades away until only her voice remains. According to Ovid, it is in memory of her grief that the flower springs up in the spot where Narcissus died.

The flower obviously existed before the story was made up to explain its habit and appearance, so an existing word that was used to name the flower: narke is the Greek verb for “to make numb,” which may refer to the symptoms that arise from over-frequent handling of daffodils. The calcium oxalate crystals in their leaves causes roughening of the skin and itching. The symptoms of lycorine, an alkaloid also found in the plant, are much more dramatic.

Some sources note that the etymology of the genus name is “confused” or that there are “two possibilities” for its origin, the myth or the word. In fact, the flower name is likely from the Greek verb. In the origin story it is pretended that the flower is named for the boy, but in fact the boy was invented to “explain” the flower.

Narcissus poeticus

It seems that the more popular the flower, the more complex and manifold are the explanations for its names. The vernacular English name for some of the larger Narcissus is daffodil. The origins of this name are more tangled than those of the botanical name. Many sources begin with a alteration of Asphodelus, which is a different flower in the order Aspargales (while Narcissus is in the Liliales), but also native to the Mediterranean region, hence its association with the Asphodel Fields of the underworld, where souls with indifferent karmic records reside for eternity. Both Narcissus and Asphodelus are associated with death—Narcissus is supposed to be still gazing at his reflection in the River Styx—in classical cultures, and apparently in William Wordsworth’s mind.

Asphodel became corrupted in the Germanic languages to “affodell,” but there are at least three different explanations available to explain the “d” now affixed to the front of the word. The Wikipedia entry author (without attribution) links it to the Dutch article “de, while others ascribe to the French “d’,” although the French themselves refer to daffodils as jonquilles. (In the American South daffodils may generally be referred to as jonquils, as readers of Tennessee Williams know.)

The most colorful origin story for this flower name, however, comes from Suite101.com: “The old name for daffodil was ‘Affodyle’. The name Affodyle was believed to originate with the Old English ‘Affo dyle’, meaning “that which cometh early.” The ‘D’ in daffodil is believed to be derived from dropping the word ‘bastard’, leaving only the D in polite company, therefore, when spoken it was D Affodyle, which became daffodil.”

While this sounds like something that was made up in a Victorian drawing room after one too many glasses of sherry, it is pretty funny. Although Wordsworth would not have been amused.

A Plant That Takes the Summer Off

On By Bill ChaissonIn As Kind, Etiquette1 Comment

The genus Cyclamen first entered my consciousness during a visit to Copenhagen. They were for sale on the street outside of florists and neighborhood food stores. I seemed never to be quite out of sight of a constellation of plunging pink or white flowers suspended above a tumble of sturdy variegated leaves. I’m pretty sure it was November 1993.

Cyclamen persicum

The so-called “florist’s cyclamen” is descended from Cyclamen persicum. There are about 20 species in the genus. C. persicum is found in Turkey south through Syria and Lebanon into Israel and Jordan. It also occurs on the islands of Crete, Rhodes and Karpathos and in Tunisia and Algeria. Given this range it is not surprising that it is not particularly frost tolerant.

According to the Cyclamen Society Web site, C. persicum generally flowers between December and May, but a single population found near Jericho (in the occupied West Bank) flowers in the fall. Genetic material from this population has been used to produce many of the cultivated varieties sold by florists. These were apparently the plants that I saw for sale in early November in Copenhagen.

The most frost tolerant species of cyclamen is C. hederifolium, which can be grown outdoors to Zone 5a. Species other than persicum are not usually found at your average nursery and might have to be ordered. Cyclamen grow from a tuber and prefer to be planted under large trees; their native habitat is usually forested or scrubby. The tuber should be planted just below the surface.

Many of the cyclamens can be kept inside in a pot year after year. The leaves generally appear in the fall and the plant flowers in the spring, but as summer approaches the foliage and blossoms wither and die back. Cyclamens aestivate, which is a period dormancy in response to heat and dryness, a characteristic Mediterranean summers.

If you are keeping the plant in a pot, when the vegetation dies back put the pot in a poorly lit, cool, dry place (outdoors) and place it on its side so that no water gets into the soil. If the soil remains damp, then the tuber will rot. The leaves will begin to appear around September, at which point resume watering and feeding the plant, and move it indoors to a location with bright indirect light. (Start watering it in October if no leaves have appeared.)

Green and gray foliage

Through the winter the foliage will grow best if the plant is not exposed to temperatures above 70 degrees F. Even if cyclamens never flowered their foliage might supply adequate beauty. The leaves are dark green with striking patterns of gray, varying according to the species.

True to their Mediterranean origins, cyclamens like to be watered heavily and then allowed to nearly dry out before being watered again. C. persicum and several other species flower in the spring, but many other species (generally the ones adapted to cooler weather) flower in the fall. C. africanum flowers before the leaves appear after aestivation. Cyclamen fanciers like to say that a member of the genus flowers during every month of the year.

C. purpurascens showing "circle form"

The flower colors range through shades of pink to snow white, but they are often dappled with darker patterns. They are five-petaled and reflexive, which means that although the stamens and pistil point toward the ground on an arched stem, the petals curve backwards 180 degrees to point skyward. The part of the corolla where this reversal of direction takes place forms a circle around the sexual organs of the flower, which may be the source of the genus name: kyklamenos means “circle form” in Greek.

While I was in Copenhagen that autumn, I was staying with my friend and his wife in a studio apartment. After a few days it was getting a bit crowded in there and, sensing that the married couple needed some privacy, I went out for a walk around the city. On my way home in the evening, I stopped at a florist and bought a cyclamen (with white flowers, if I remember correctly) and brought back to the apartment. It was the right thing to do.

Subtle Sign of Spring

On By Bill ChaissonIn As Kind, As Obliquity, As SymbolLeave a comment

In the south of England the snowdrops normally bloom in January. Not this year. “Everything has been buried under snow but the biggest problem is the fact everything there have been such heavy frosts,” said Richard Todd, the head gardener, at Anglesey Abbey, a National Trust property in Lode, Cambridgeshire. “It was like having four inches on concrete around all the bulbs. The ground was frozen rock solid and nothing could move in that.”

Galanthus in snow

This winter (2009-10) northwestern Europe and northeastern United States are experiencing what a clear negative index of the North Atlantic Oscillation, an atmospheric pressure gradient between the Azores and Iceland. In a negative index pattern, both cells—the Azores is a high-pressure cell and the Iceland is a low—are weak, making the gradient between them small. In this case few storms track northeastward across the gradient, leaving northwestern Europe (and the Atlantic coast of the U.S.) relatively dry and exposed to Arctic outbreaks. The colder temperatures, however, usually result in greater amounts of snow to these two regions. And the later the snowdrops blossom.

Snowdrops are among the first plants to flower in the spring. Perhaps only winter aconite precedes them. In both northern Europe and the northeastern U.S., where they are widely planted as ornamentals, they often flower amid patches of leftover snow. They tend to naturalize readily and spread into adjacent wooded areas, presenting little islands of green against the matted brown leaves of the forest floor.

At the Winsbere estate, England

The genus Galanthus has 19 natural species and over 500 varietals. Theplantexpert.com testily claims that they are all white and isn’t that boring, which is not quite true. Several of the varieties are patterned with green or yellow, some rather heavily. Some of the varieties are “doubled,” having multiple whorls of petals, which gives them the appearance of tiny carnations.

Galanthus nivalis or the “garden snowdrop” is the most widely planted wild type. It is native to continental Europe and Turkey and was introduced to England in (perhaps) the 16th century. The Linnean genus name, gala = milk and anthus = flower, is descriptive enough, and the trivial name means “of the snows.”

The plants are 3 to 4 inches high (some varietals are taller) with three narrow basal leaves and an unbranched stem that holds the drooping flower. The flower itself consists of six tepals (not petals), three of which are larger and flare outward, while three are shorter, more tightly held, and often bear a green chevron or other mark.

Snowdrops inspire affection for at least two reasons. One is the relatively narrow range of color and flower form demonstrated by the varietals; this is a flower for people who prefer tasteful restraint in a blossom. The other reason is its early blooming time; after a long winter colored primarily in grays, the snowdrops offer a respite that does not shock: the leaves are a grayish-green in the wild species and many varieties and the flowers are subtly more white than the remaining crusty patches of snow faded with sidewalk ashes and tree duff. Snowdrops announce that spring is nigh with a murmur not a shout.

Handful of Snowdrops – back in the day

A Handful of Snowdrops was a shoegazer band that formed in Quebec City in 1984, released three albums and called it quits in 1993. The shoegazer bands were so-called because they played with banks of effects pedals on the floor in front of them, and consequently they spent most of their shows staring at the floor, rather than engaging with their audience. The songs were lyrically precursors to those of the “emo” bands of the last 15 years, dwelling on the miserable aftermath of relationships or, at best, the doubts that haunt one about the purpose of life. In other words, in their quiet inward perspective and undemonstrative, muted affect, the band chose their name well.