Frilly Surprise in the Garden. Tellima grandiflora, Fringe Cups, Our Garden, Venlo, The Netherlands
My Naturalist Friend took all of Zero Seconds to reply to my query: "this is a Tellima; which one you'll have to decide for yourself!" Curiously I found it in our garden in the shade of a large Rhododendron which I was tending. I certainly never planted it so how it came to grow here, I haven't a clue. I'll have to read up on its seeding habits...
The name 'Tellima' is the way botanists at the beginning of the nineteenth century had some fun. It's an anagram of 'Mitella', a very similar plant in the same Saxifrage family. 'Grandiflora' hails from northwestern North America. According to the fine The Botanical Register of 1828 it was found first by Archibald Menzies (1754-1842), naturalist of the famous Vancouver Expedition with HMS Discovery. A few years later intrepid David Douglas (1799-1834) - he of the Douglas Fir and the first mountaineer of North America -, like Menzies also a Scotsman, (re)found it and he promptly sent it to The Horticulture Society in 1826. In the course of the nineteeenth century it became naturalised in Great Britain. I suppose it thus also came to Continental Europe. The wee flowers measure 5-8 mm across.
It's the kind of weed I gladly tolerate in my garden!
Frilly Surprise in the Garden. Tellima grandiflora, Fringe Cups, Our Garden, Venlo, The Netherlands
My Naturalist Friend took all of Zero Seconds to reply to my query: "this is a Tellima; which one you'll have to decide for yourself!" Curiously I found it in our garden in the shade of a large Rhododendron which I was tending. I certainly never planted it so how it came to grow here, I haven't a clue. I'll have to read up on its seeding habits...
The name 'Tellima' is the way botanists at the beginning of the nineteenth century had some fun. It's an anagram of 'Mitella', a very similar plant in the same Saxifrage family. 'Grandiflora' hails from northwestern North America. According to the fine The Botanical Register of 1828 it was found first by Archibald Menzies (1754-1842), naturalist of the famous Vancouver Expedition with HMS Discovery. A few years later intrepid David Douglas (1799-1834) - he of the Douglas Fir and the first mountaineer of North America -, like Menzies also a Scotsman, (re)found it and he promptly sent it to The Horticulture Society in 1826. In the course of the nineteeenth century it became naturalised in Great Britain. I suppose it thus also came to Continental Europe. The wee flowers measure 5-8 mm across.
It's the kind of weed I gladly tolerate in my garden!