So Purple! Grewia occidentalis, Crossberry, Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
The European Botanists who first described this Crossberry in the late seventeenth century wax eloquent over the remarkable purple of its flower. Indeed, even in still rainy and dark Amsterdam, it is highly visible.
Before great Carolus Linnaeus gave it the scientific name Grewia occidentalis, after one of his heroes, Nehemiah Grew (1641-1712), the Father of Plant Anatomy, it was known as a kind of Ulmus, Elm (yes, with notable purple flowers!). It appears to have been first collected on the Cape of South Africa around 1688 by Patrick Adair (fl.1674-1697) who worked e.g. for Leonard Plukenet (1641-1706), great British expert on exotic plants. The latter describes it in 1691/6 as Ulmifolia Arbor Africana baccifera floribus purpureis, and he adds that a similar plant also hails from Mexico. Allow me to boggle your eyes till they see purple with the marvelous words in his Almagestum about the American kind: '... arbor foliis Ulmi, Mexicanis Ayaquicuramo Tlacuilolquahuitl s. Arbor picta'. How's that for an eyeful!
Anyway, by this time our Grewia was already growing in the fine exotic garden in The Hague of Simon van Beaumont (1641-1726), a wealthy Dutch politician and statesman. His plants were catalogued by his gardener Frans Kiggelaar (1641-1726) in 1690, but each in only a few sparse words. The plants of Beaumont's garden were soon acquired by the Medical Garden of Amsterdam and again catalogued there with full, eloquent descriptions. And then of course Linnaeus in the middle of the eighteenth century named this Ulmifolia Arbor, Grewia occidentalis.
Whether this morning I gazed upon a descendant of the original shrub I don't know. Getting wet again, I contemplated no further but hurried indoors.
So Purple! Grewia occidentalis, Crossberry, Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
The European Botanists who first described this Crossberry in the late seventeenth century wax eloquent over the remarkable purple of its flower. Indeed, even in still rainy and dark Amsterdam, it is highly visible.
Before great Carolus Linnaeus gave it the scientific name Grewia occidentalis, after one of his heroes, Nehemiah Grew (1641-1712), the Father of Plant Anatomy, it was known as a kind of Ulmus, Elm (yes, with notable purple flowers!). It appears to have been first collected on the Cape of South Africa around 1688 by Patrick Adair (fl.1674-1697) who worked e.g. for Leonard Plukenet (1641-1706), great British expert on exotic plants. The latter describes it in 1691/6 as Ulmifolia Arbor Africana baccifera floribus purpureis, and he adds that a similar plant also hails from Mexico. Allow me to boggle your eyes till they see purple with the marvelous words in his Almagestum about the American kind: '... arbor foliis Ulmi, Mexicanis Ayaquicuramo Tlacuilolquahuitl s. Arbor picta'. How's that for an eyeful!
Anyway, by this time our Grewia was already growing in the fine exotic garden in The Hague of Simon van Beaumont (1641-1726), a wealthy Dutch politician and statesman. His plants were catalogued by his gardener Frans Kiggelaar (1641-1726) in 1690, but each in only a few sparse words. The plants of Beaumont's garden were soon acquired by the Medical Garden of Amsterdam and again catalogued there with full, eloquent descriptions. And then of course Linnaeus in the middle of the eighteenth century named this Ulmifolia Arbor, Grewia occidentalis.
Whether this morning I gazed upon a descendant of the original shrub I don't know. Getting wet again, I contemplated no further but hurried indoors.