Before Vegetables. Schlumbergera truncata, Thanksgiving or Christmas Cactus, Lincoln Park Conservatory, Lincoln Park, Chicago, Illinois, USA
Such brightness in marvelous Lincoln Park Conservatory as the Chicago sky was dark with drizzle! Here's Schlumbergera truncata, Thanksgiving or Christmas Cactus. But wait... not really, because those Holiday Plants are in fact hybrids; close enough, though.
Bit of a sad biographical story: in 1814 two young botanists set out on behalf of the London Kew Gardens to collect plants in Tropical Climes. They were James Bowie (c.1789-1869), later to become a formidable authority on South-African plants, and Allan Cunningham (1791-1839), to be famed as an explorer and botanist of Australia. Their first trip - 1814-1816 - was one together to Brazil. There Cunningham in the mountains on the south-eastern coasts found plants later named to the genus Schlumbergera. To general enthusiasm they were soon introduced to England and first described by Adrian Hardy Haworth (1768-1833), well-known cactus expert.
But back to Cunningham for just a moment. He went on to Australia and received many accolades for his brilliant botanical work there. Soon after his return to England (1831) he was again sent to Australia to work as a botanist. But to his great disappointment the local authorities saw little in his botanical expertise and relegated him to the colony's vegetable garden (1837). He couldn't take it and resigned. Soon in 1839 he was dead of consumption. There's an ugly monument to his memory in Sydney. I put some flowers down to his memory when I visited there not long ago.
Cunningham never knew the modern scientific name of this plant. Charles Lemaire (1800-1871), distinguished French botanist, named it for Frédéric Schlumberger (1823-1893). At his chateau "La Haye des Anthieux" not far from Rouen in Normandy he collected succulents famously enough to catch Lemaire's attention.
This one certainly caught mine on this Bleak Day.
Before Vegetables. Schlumbergera truncata, Thanksgiving or Christmas Cactus, Lincoln Park Conservatory, Lincoln Park, Chicago, Illinois, USA
Such brightness in marvelous Lincoln Park Conservatory as the Chicago sky was dark with drizzle! Here's Schlumbergera truncata, Thanksgiving or Christmas Cactus. But wait... not really, because those Holiday Plants are in fact hybrids; close enough, though.
Bit of a sad biographical story: in 1814 two young botanists set out on behalf of the London Kew Gardens to collect plants in Tropical Climes. They were James Bowie (c.1789-1869), later to become a formidable authority on South-African plants, and Allan Cunningham (1791-1839), to be famed as an explorer and botanist of Australia. Their first trip - 1814-1816 - was one together to Brazil. There Cunningham in the mountains on the south-eastern coasts found plants later named to the genus Schlumbergera. To general enthusiasm they were soon introduced to England and first described by Adrian Hardy Haworth (1768-1833), well-known cactus expert.
But back to Cunningham for just a moment. He went on to Australia and received many accolades for his brilliant botanical work there. Soon after his return to England (1831) he was again sent to Australia to work as a botanist. But to his great disappointment the local authorities saw little in his botanical expertise and relegated him to the colony's vegetable garden (1837). He couldn't take it and resigned. Soon in 1839 he was dead of consumption. There's an ugly monument to his memory in Sydney. I put some flowers down to his memory when I visited there not long ago.
Cunningham never knew the modern scientific name of this plant. Charles Lemaire (1800-1871), distinguished French botanist, named it for Frédéric Schlumberger (1823-1893). At his chateau "La Haye des Anthieux" not far from Rouen in Normandy he collected succulents famously enough to catch Lemaire's attention.
This one certainly caught mine on this Bleak Day.