Lilac Purple. Prunella vulgaris var. lilacina Nakai. Botanical Garden, National Museum of Korea, Seoul, South Korea
So here I was in pleasant Seoul rereading what I'd written on O'ahu about one of the first botanists of the University of Groningen, Abraham Munting (1626-1683). We'd visited some 'museum' sites earlier in the day - the Jeoldusan Martyrs Museum and the National Museum of Korea - both of which boast small but pretty and very well labeled botanical gardens.
One of the nice things about plants is that many of them are cosmopolitan, like this Prunella vulgaris, Heart-heal or Heart-of-the-Earth, a member of the Mint Family (Labiatae, Lamiaceae). Of course I had to see what my hero Munting has to say about this herb. He's always remarkable in his colorful language. First he tells us (1696) that to grow successfully its seed has 'to be planted during the waxing Moon of March and not too deeply'. Going on to describe 'Bruynelle''s medicinal properties he says that it can be used against the 'miserable affliction called 'the Brown', in which Tongue and Throat become thick, hot, dry and raw. An infusion of Bruynelle should be gargled with but not before a blood vessel under the tongue has been opened'...
This particular Prunella here in Seoul is also described as the subspecies 'asiatica'. It was called 'lilacina' - lilac purple - by the great Japanese botanist Takoshin Nakai (1882-1952), who worked on Korean plants between 1909 and 1942. He published an amazing flora for Korea, which includes our beauty.
The purple is so very deeply lilac purple - the photo hardly justifies it - that I immediately associated it with the purple with which martyrs of the Church are clothed. I thought of the 2000 or so who in 1866 were killed on 'Beheading Hill' - Jeoldusan - on the orders of Regent Heungseon Daewongun. Their bodies were then thrown into the nearby Han River: if I were an ancient writer of ecclesiastical history such as Tertullian, my pen might have come out with: '... and the waters of the Han were colored purple with their blood'.
Lilac Purple. Prunella vulgaris var. lilacina Nakai. Botanical Garden, National Museum of Korea, Seoul, South Korea
So here I was in pleasant Seoul rereading what I'd written on O'ahu about one of the first botanists of the University of Groningen, Abraham Munting (1626-1683). We'd visited some 'museum' sites earlier in the day - the Jeoldusan Martyrs Museum and the National Museum of Korea - both of which boast small but pretty and very well labeled botanical gardens.
One of the nice things about plants is that many of them are cosmopolitan, like this Prunella vulgaris, Heart-heal or Heart-of-the-Earth, a member of the Mint Family (Labiatae, Lamiaceae). Of course I had to see what my hero Munting has to say about this herb. He's always remarkable in his colorful language. First he tells us (1696) that to grow successfully its seed has 'to be planted during the waxing Moon of March and not too deeply'. Going on to describe 'Bruynelle''s medicinal properties he says that it can be used against the 'miserable affliction called 'the Brown', in which Tongue and Throat become thick, hot, dry and raw. An infusion of Bruynelle should be gargled with but not before a blood vessel under the tongue has been opened'...
This particular Prunella here in Seoul is also described as the subspecies 'asiatica'. It was called 'lilacina' - lilac purple - by the great Japanese botanist Takoshin Nakai (1882-1952), who worked on Korean plants between 1909 and 1942. He published an amazing flora for Korea, which includes our beauty.
The purple is so very deeply lilac purple - the photo hardly justifies it - that I immediately associated it with the purple with which martyrs of the Church are clothed. I thought of the 2000 or so who in 1866 were killed on 'Beheading Hill' - Jeoldusan - on the orders of Regent Heungseon Daewongun. Their bodies were then thrown into the nearby Han River: if I were an ancient writer of ecclesiastical history such as Tertullian, my pen might have come out with: '... and the waters of the Han were colored purple with their blood'.