Remembering Quinine. Myosotis ramosissima, Early Forget-me-not, Siegerpark, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
You've probably noticed that if you have a glass of real (that is if it has quinine in it) tonic water or a good gin-and-tonic there's a light blue glow to it. That bluish color is caused by quinine molecules which absorb invisible ultraviolet light and then transmit some of it in the form of blue light visible to the human eye. Quinine, of course, is an excellent anti-malarial drug. The Dutch acquired almost the entire world production of quinine around the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. That history is a veritable novel of passionate adventure... Suffice it here to say that the bark of Cinchona trees harvested in the Dutch colony of Java was shipped to The Netherlands; here quinine was extracted from that bark and purified into medicine. The foremost quinine factory was the NV Amsterdamsche Chininefabriek founded by Johann Sieger (1856-1942). Later that company became part of a larger medicinal conglomerate called Brocacef which in turn was subsumed under DSM. the present-day pharmaceutical giant.
Now, I learned only recently that on the outskirts of Amsterdam (New-West) there's a small but lovely nature reserve named for Sieger's son Johann Gerhard Wilhelm Sieger (1886-1958), who took over that company from his Dad. In the 1920s he - a nature enthusiast who was also an avid apiarian - bought about 15 acres of land for the protection of plants, trees, insects, in short: nature in general. In 1936 this area was opened as a park. Around 1950 Sieger ceded the park to the city and to the University, which used it as an experimental extension of the Hortus Botanicus that I like to visit. Later highway development and the construction of a new suburb reduced the park to about half its original size. After 1990 it came into the hands of the municipality! Let us for once praise a municipality: the park retained its function as a nature reserve! Today it also displays some sculptures under the auspices of the Stedelijk Museum. It's a quiet, very pleasant out-of-the-way place.
Lots of wild plants and flowers to salivate over. Here then is Myosotis ramosissima, Early Forget-me-not. The flowers are really very small: ca. 2-3 mm. Their bright Blue brought to my memory Quinine and the history of the Siegers.
Remembering Quinine. Myosotis ramosissima, Early Forget-me-not, Siegerpark, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
You've probably noticed that if you have a glass of real (that is if it has quinine in it) tonic water or a good gin-and-tonic there's a light blue glow to it. That bluish color is caused by quinine molecules which absorb invisible ultraviolet light and then transmit some of it in the form of blue light visible to the human eye. Quinine, of course, is an excellent anti-malarial drug. The Dutch acquired almost the entire world production of quinine around the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. That history is a veritable novel of passionate adventure... Suffice it here to say that the bark of Cinchona trees harvested in the Dutch colony of Java was shipped to The Netherlands; here quinine was extracted from that bark and purified into medicine. The foremost quinine factory was the NV Amsterdamsche Chininefabriek founded by Johann Sieger (1856-1942). Later that company became part of a larger medicinal conglomerate called Brocacef which in turn was subsumed under DSM. the present-day pharmaceutical giant.
Now, I learned only recently that on the outskirts of Amsterdam (New-West) there's a small but lovely nature reserve named for Sieger's son Johann Gerhard Wilhelm Sieger (1886-1958), who took over that company from his Dad. In the 1920s he - a nature enthusiast who was also an avid apiarian - bought about 15 acres of land for the protection of plants, trees, insects, in short: nature in general. In 1936 this area was opened as a park. Around 1950 Sieger ceded the park to the city and to the University, which used it as an experimental extension of the Hortus Botanicus that I like to visit. Later highway development and the construction of a new suburb reduced the park to about half its original size. After 1990 it came into the hands of the municipality! Let us for once praise a municipality: the park retained its function as a nature reserve! Today it also displays some sculptures under the auspices of the Stedelijk Museum. It's a quiet, very pleasant out-of-the-way place.
Lots of wild plants and flowers to salivate over. Here then is Myosotis ramosissima, Early Forget-me-not. The flowers are really very small: ca. 2-3 mm. Their bright Blue brought to my memory Quinine and the history of the Siegers.