Ornament in the Océ-weerd, Viburnum farreri, Farrer's Wayfaring Tree, St Urbanusweg, Venlo, The Netherlands
In Limburg the mists had lifted and the Sun was Spring-bright. It cast its rays over the still brown fields and grey-pebbled washlands of the Meuse River. Ambling home from the small chapel of Genooi, I caught a sweet waft on the calm breeze. In the Océ-weerd - recently reclaimed for Nature by the authorities of Limburgs Landschap - near the St Urbanusweg is a small pond. On its slope stand a few Viburnum trees, with a bit of poetic license: the Wayfaring Tree. 'How appropriate', I thought. 'How very appropriate that my thoughts should here turn to Tityrus, great Vergil's alter persona of the Eclogues.' There's Tityrus at the beginning of the first bucolic poem sitting in the shade of a Viburnum on his repossessed land, happily playing a flute.
But this photo is not of that Viburnum (usually taken to be the Viburnum lantana scientifically named by Carolus Linnaeus). Rather, I think it's Viburnum farreri. That tree's fragrance has to be the strongest of the Viburnums and certainly the earliest, giving strong aroma already in late-winter.
Indeed, our Viburnum was for a long time called Viburnum fragrans. But it had to be renamed for taxonomical reasons. William Thomas Stearn (1911-2001) - the great expert of Botanical Latin - called it Viburnum farreri in 1966. 'Farreri' is for Reginald John Farrer (1880-1920), the exuberant writer of many books on horticulture and an inveterate traveller and plant collector especially in China, Tibet and Burma.
Returning to 'Wayfaring Tree' as a common name for Viburnum lantana: That apparently goes back on the famous sixteenth-century herbalist John Gerard (1545-1611/12). He interpreted the French word for this shrub - 'viorne' - as an Ornament along the Traveller's Way. Yes, I stopped to admire on my way home. But it was still too chilly to stay long, and I hadn't a flute...
Ornament in the Océ-weerd, Viburnum farreri, Farrer's Wayfaring Tree, St Urbanusweg, Venlo, The Netherlands
In Limburg the mists had lifted and the Sun was Spring-bright. It cast its rays over the still brown fields and grey-pebbled washlands of the Meuse River. Ambling home from the small chapel of Genooi, I caught a sweet waft on the calm breeze. In the Océ-weerd - recently reclaimed for Nature by the authorities of Limburgs Landschap - near the St Urbanusweg is a small pond. On its slope stand a few Viburnum trees, with a bit of poetic license: the Wayfaring Tree. 'How appropriate', I thought. 'How very appropriate that my thoughts should here turn to Tityrus, great Vergil's alter persona of the Eclogues.' There's Tityrus at the beginning of the first bucolic poem sitting in the shade of a Viburnum on his repossessed land, happily playing a flute.
But this photo is not of that Viburnum (usually taken to be the Viburnum lantana scientifically named by Carolus Linnaeus). Rather, I think it's Viburnum farreri. That tree's fragrance has to be the strongest of the Viburnums and certainly the earliest, giving strong aroma already in late-winter.
Indeed, our Viburnum was for a long time called Viburnum fragrans. But it had to be renamed for taxonomical reasons. William Thomas Stearn (1911-2001) - the great expert of Botanical Latin - called it Viburnum farreri in 1966. 'Farreri' is for Reginald John Farrer (1880-1920), the exuberant writer of many books on horticulture and an inveterate traveller and plant collector especially in China, Tibet and Burma.
Returning to 'Wayfaring Tree' as a common name for Viburnum lantana: That apparently goes back on the famous sixteenth-century herbalist John Gerard (1545-1611/12). He interpreted the French word for this shrub - 'viorne' - as an Ornament along the Traveller's Way. Yes, I stopped to admire on my way home. But it was still too chilly to stay long, and I hadn't a flute...