Bright Gray. Fritillaria persica, Persian Lily, Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
'Persian Lily' is a bit of a drab vernacular name for what in other languages is called 'Persian Imperial Crown'. That name fits the description better as well of Carolus Clusius's (1526-1609) well-written Rariorum Plantarum Historia (1601) to which I regularly refer in these pages. Clusius had served as the Imperial Gardener in Vienna and had there received many plants from emissaries to the Sublime Porte of Istanbul. Among these was - as everyone knows - the Tulip which later made such inroads in the Dutch Republic and from there around the World.
In his highly engaging account of Our 'Ash-Colored' Plant, Clusius harps on its Turko-Persian name 'Tusai' or 'Thusai', which apparently translates as Imperial or Sublime (if we are to believe Joost van Ravelingen in his 1608 reworking of Dodonaeus's great work). But he calls it after the place from whence its bulbs - today's Shush, the capital of the province of Khuzestan, in the southwest of Iran: Lilium susianum. Great Carolus Linnaeus in 1753 establishes the name Fritillaria persica, and he notes that it was first introduced to Europe in 1573. I'm not sure why he queries the provenance Clusius gives: 'Habitat in Persia?' but that again demonstrates the precision I noted yesterday.
Whatever the case, Clusius is not the first European to have seen this plant, as he himself recognises. No matter, for he waxes eloquent on his own personal history with it. Imperial Crown sadly refused to flower in his own garden but Clusius is happy to report that it did in the garden of his friend Ulrich of Königsberg (Khunigsperg), Freiherr von Pernstein (1547-1604), in 1583 and later in his own as well.
It would seem this Fritillaria came to the Hortus Botanicus here in Amsterdam sometime after 1636. The first director of the garden, Johannes Snippendaal (1616-1670) on his appointment in 1646 immediately published a catalogue of its plants which included this one. Dr Nicholaas Tulp (1593-1636) - indeed, he of Rembrandt's 'Anatomy Lesson' - had earlier in 1636 published a pharmacopeia of medicinal plants in use in Amsterdam and he doesn't mention this Persian Lily. That may be because it has no known medical use. We do know that Snippendaal already in 1646 expanded the medical collection of his garden with several hundred other plants describing them in his catalogue, among them a number of Fritillarias.
Bright Gray. Fritillaria persica, Persian Lily, Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
'Persian Lily' is a bit of a drab vernacular name for what in other languages is called 'Persian Imperial Crown'. That name fits the description better as well of Carolus Clusius's (1526-1609) well-written Rariorum Plantarum Historia (1601) to which I regularly refer in these pages. Clusius had served as the Imperial Gardener in Vienna and had there received many plants from emissaries to the Sublime Porte of Istanbul. Among these was - as everyone knows - the Tulip which later made such inroads in the Dutch Republic and from there around the World.
In his highly engaging account of Our 'Ash-Colored' Plant, Clusius harps on its Turko-Persian name 'Tusai' or 'Thusai', which apparently translates as Imperial or Sublime (if we are to believe Joost van Ravelingen in his 1608 reworking of Dodonaeus's great work). But he calls it after the place from whence its bulbs - today's Shush, the capital of the province of Khuzestan, in the southwest of Iran: Lilium susianum. Great Carolus Linnaeus in 1753 establishes the name Fritillaria persica, and he notes that it was first introduced to Europe in 1573. I'm not sure why he queries the provenance Clusius gives: 'Habitat in Persia?' but that again demonstrates the precision I noted yesterday.
Whatever the case, Clusius is not the first European to have seen this plant, as he himself recognises. No matter, for he waxes eloquent on his own personal history with it. Imperial Crown sadly refused to flower in his own garden but Clusius is happy to report that it did in the garden of his friend Ulrich of Königsberg (Khunigsperg), Freiherr von Pernstein (1547-1604), in 1583 and later in his own as well.
It would seem this Fritillaria came to the Hortus Botanicus here in Amsterdam sometime after 1636. The first director of the garden, Johannes Snippendaal (1616-1670) on his appointment in 1646 immediately published a catalogue of its plants which included this one. Dr Nicholaas Tulp (1593-1636) - indeed, he of Rembrandt's 'Anatomy Lesson' - had earlier in 1636 published a pharmacopeia of medicinal plants in use in Amsterdam and he doesn't mention this Persian Lily. That may be because it has no known medical use. We do know that Snippendaal already in 1646 expanded the medical collection of his garden with several hundred other plants describing them in his catalogue, among them a number of Fritillarias.