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Buttercups are as we all know usually yellow. But they also come in other colors. Here's an Asian Butterfly in pretty scarlet. Still bright though wet with the drizzle which seems not to be letting up here this morning.
Joseph Franz Jacquin (1761-1839) in his fine catalogue (and illustrations), 1811-1816, of rare or little known plants gives a very good colored drawing of our plant. There's some discussion about who first scientifically described it. Some say it was intrepid explorer William Bartram (1739-1823) in his famous book on the natural history of the southeastern states of the US and also their native inhabitants (1773-1778). But if you turn to those pages the description doesn't quite fit the plant: its flowers are said to be rose. So naturalist Thomas Walter (1740-1789) would seem to be its author. Jacquin mentions someone else again, famous André Michaux (1746-1802); but he, too, was a Continental; and besides, in those days there was no internet to compare notes. In any case, the shrub hails from the Savannah River.
And it's quite at home as well in the Amsterdam Hortus Botanicus.
'A Great Little Ally' is the title of a recent, fascinating study authored by J.L. Orengo-Green et al. in The European Zoological Journal 89 (2022). In it a fine morphological analysis is given of the immature forms of our Hoverfly. The 'ally' refers to the insect's control of aphids in your garden: the larvae prey on them and thus reduce the risks of damage to your plants. The article has fine photographs, too, of the various pre-imago stages of Hoverfly.
The photo shows it on the flower of Woodland Strawberry, almost in full flower.
The Hortus is mostly in shadow now and the Sun barely rises above the roofs of the surrounding houses. Still there are attractions. One of them is this pretty Heath. It used to be called specifically 'herbacea' but most often went by the name 'carnea'. So often, in fact, that the IPNI in 1999 established that specific as the proper one. Old habits are hard to change, and the Hortus still uses 'herbacea'.
Our Heath is frost-resistant. The white ice crystals today make for a pretty picture on the mauve, yellow and purple flowers.
Still lots of rain here. But I went to walk in our wonderful yet wet botanical garden in the drizzle. Regardless, lots of color. Here's a part of the Hortus's fine collection of Rhododendrons. In the foreground a white gathering of Wild Garlic. All made for fine colors on an otherwise drab day.
As I walked in that idyllic garden, the Amsterdam Hortus, news beeped up on my phone: a hard lockdown against Covid-19 in The Netherlands until at least January 17. The Hortus locked and out of bounds...
Anyway...
Here's a Winter Heath, Erica herbacea, in full flower. I expect to see it again soon after the 17th next month.
Real Autumn is just about upon us, with its subdued floral colors. Here in the Hortus Botanicus is Autumn Crocus, Crocus sativus.
Japan and the Netherlands commemorated in the year 2000 that both countries "met" for the first time 400 years ago. With the stranding on the Japanese coast of the Dutch ship "De Liefde" (April 19, 1600) a wonderful, sometimes difficult exchange started between two cultures, East and West. In the botanical field, there was a lot of exchange of plants and plant knowledge.
There was regular exchange of people, objects and knowledge through the Deshima trading post near Nagasaki. The Hortus botanicus also had its role as a conduit for many, at that time unknown and now loved plant species. They found their way from Japan via the Leiden Hortus to Dutch ornamental plant cultivation.
The standard-bearer of this plant exchange was Philipp Franz von Siebold. In his honor, a Japanese garden has been laid out in the Hortus botanicus: the Von Siebold Memorial Garden. In this Japanese garden is the statue of Von Siebold, which is of particular interest to Japanese visitors. A bow to the image, and thus to the life and work of Von Siebold, is an important goal for them when visiting Leiden and the Leiden Hortus.
Monkshood is one of the deadliest plants - at least to human beings - you'll find in your garden. Indeed, ancient Romans used it as a plant for executions.
All parts of the plant are highly toxic even the pollen. And it has been claimed that people have been poisioned by Monkshood honey that contains the plant's pollen (as reported by H.S. Puri in 1974 citing Motoyoshi Satake 1969). And around 1900 in Germany the honey itself was thought to be toxic to humans.
But fear not this little scene. Our insect is not a Bee collecting nectar for our honey. It's a Marmalade Hoverfly, Episyrphus balteatus, eating pollen. The proteins will be extracted from it by nectar and enzymes in Hoverfly's stomach. That will provide energy for reproduction and also for further foraging which is sure to pollinate plants for multiplication and the further Purple Glory of a garden.
Many years ago I hiked the same route on the Peloponesse of Greece as Constantine Goulimis (1886-1963) a decade or so earlier, although I went from west to east, from Areopolis to Gytheio. Quite probably I saw this beautiful crocus near Vachos... but with too little knowledge I had no idea it was 'special'.
Our crocus was named for Dr Goulimis by William Bertram Turrill (1890-1961) in 1955. Here it is in full Autumn flower in the Hortus Botanicus of Amsterdam.
In his The Herball (1597) John Gerard (1545-1612) is one of the first to give an elaborate description of our Cyclamen. After a longish piece on the merits and uses of its various parts he becomes personally solicitous about the way he has planted his garden:
'It is not good for women with childe to touch or take this herbe, or to come neere unto it, or stride over the same where it groweth, for the naturall attractive vertue therein contained is such, that without controversie they that attempt it in manner abovesaid, shall be delivered before their time: which danger and inconvenience to avoide, I have (about the place where it groweth in my garden) fastened sticks in the ground, and some other stickes I have fastned also crosswaies over them, least any woman should by lamentable experiment finde my words to be true, by their stepping over the same'.
Already at the beginning of the seventeenth century, Thomas Johnson, 'Citizen and Apothecarye' of London, in his 1633 edition begged to differ with Gerard, writing that the latter had no proof for his assertion that Cyclamen is an abortifacient when women 'stride' over it: 'I iudge our Author too womanish in this, led more by vain opinion than by any reason or experience'.
For this time of the year in Amsterdam it's very cold, and it feels like Spring is too slow in bringing Warm Sun. Even these flowers this morning were very blue! But they waved prettily in the brisk wind...
There are lots of different Bromeliads and within that group lots of Pitcairnias. And more kinds of these remarkable plants are still being discovered. The pictured Pitcairnia villetaensis was first described by the botanist expert on Bromeliads, German botanist Werner Rauh (1913-2000), in 1987. It hails from the high forests between Bogota and Villeta in Colombia. I suppose the long pistil and relatively shorter stamens prevent the flower from self-pollination.
This is not the golden brightness most people associate with Tulipa clusiana, which is more a combination of white and pink or red. In 1923 our plant was found by a flower collecting expedition in the very north of India, the union state of Jammu and Kashmir. It was first called only Mountain Tulip and then regarded a hybrid or even a cultivar of Tulipa clusiana. Cell analysis made clear, however, that Chrysantha is a special, natural variety of Clusiana.
And a Golden Beauty at that! In his great description of Tulips of 1803 Pierre-Joseph Redouté writes of Clusiana: 'Cette plante mérite ... d'être cultivée dans les jardins d'ornement.' I would hazard the same is even more true of Chysantha!
The umbels of Alexanders are composed of numerous pretty, small green flowers with nice white-tipped stamens. They draw lots of foraging insects, notably Hoverflies, and Ants like to collect their sweets.
Here's a Garden Ant, Lasius niger, eating its fill.
Compared to the glum summer's day in Amsterdam, the Greenhouse in our Hortus was bright and comforting.
Here's Achira, Canna indica. It hails from South America, and was attested by one of the conquistadores of Peru, Diego Palomino (ca.1506-?) in 1549. He'd seen it in the Cuquimayo Valley (Cusco) and describes it under the Quecha name Achira as one of four root crops of that area (the others are sweet potato, cassava, and racacha). Our plant was first scientifically described (1609) by the Jesuit father, Benabé Cobo (1582-1657). Soon botanists in Europe such as Bauhin, Parkinson, Clusius, and others were writing about it. Parkinson (1629) called it 'The Indian flowring Reede'. And given its colors, that's appropriate.
In the glum morning I was admiring Eucomis pole-evansii, the Great Pineapple Lily. The 'pole-evansii' is for Welshman Illtyd Buller Pole Evans (1879-1968), appointed to mycology and plant pathology at the Transvaal (South Africa) Department of Agriculture in 1918.
So there I was looking at those pallid fowers. A bit of sunlight and a few Bees were out collecting pollen.
As I watched I startled the Honeybee in the main photo. She lost her bearings and got caught up in a finely constructed spiderweb. In a blinking of my eyes she was already being tightly wrapped and readied for lunch by Spider. Amazingly quickly. About halfway on the right of her enwebbed body you can still make out some of that yellow pollen.
My mother of dear memory once told me that she was seasick for a week on the North Atlantic and that she - who had a great penchant for colors in her flower beds - saw various dark shades of lilac and purple most of the time in her delirium. She'd have been amused by the story of Elias Erici Tillandz for whom this wonderful excentric plant was named. Tillandz (1640-1693) from Finland, as a student traveled from Turku to Stockholm to further his studies. On the way there he is said to have been so dreadfully seasick that he never ventured aboard a ship again. To return home he walked the 1000 kms around the Bothnian Gulf.
Great Carolus Linnaeus, always in for a good story, decided to name a Bromeliad family for Tillandz because the roots of these plants are so shallow that they never need to experience deep water. Of course they live mostly in the jungle and collect water in a variety of other ways.
Olymp decided to be bright in the dimness of the Hortus glasshouse in the autumnal gales. So the photo is a bit more colorful than I'd have wanted. But Olymp doesn't easily take 'no' for an answer...
Together with Johan Huydecoper (1625-1704), a famous mayor of Amsterdam, Jan Commelin (1629-1692) founded the Hortus Botanicus at its present location in 1682. Commelin, the botanist of the two, wrote a catalogue of its plants, the first volume of which was printed in 1697.
In it he describes our African Milkwort as a year-round plant. He says it came to the garden from the Cape of Good Hope through the good offices of Huydecoper. Just as a drawing was being made of it, the plant met with accident. Commelin writes that it could still be drawn but that it died before he could examine its seeds. So the plant in the photo is not descended from Commelin's plant...
In other words I do not know the name of this flower I photographed at the Open Garden, "The Wright Place" in Kambah, Canberra, ACT. An overcast and very windy day so I was pleased to get this image without using a tripod. An amazing garden with a series of garden rooms avoiding straight lines where possible.
I now believe this flower is an Osteospermum.
This morning the beautifully blue Chicory flowers in the Hortus Botanicus were full of small Resin Bees, Heriades truncorum (I think). The word 'resin' refers to their use of resin for the cell walls of their nests. According to Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz (1897-1873) in his great Nomenclator 'Heriades' is derived from the ancient Greek for wool. Why 'wool' would be descriptive of our Bee, I don't know.
This pretty creature is particularly devoted to yellow aster-like flowers. And you can tell she's been on a visit there. Heriades doesn't gather pollen in corbiculae on her tibias; instead pollen clings to hairs on her abdomen. Here you can clearly see her bright yellow collection.
Chicory has white pollen and the Resin Bees I saw were not collecting it. Rather they were diving deep down into the heart of the flower, presumably for nectar. An after work drink?...
Europe, Netherlands, Zuid Holland, Lieden, Rapenburg, Hortus Botanicus. Hothouse, Tropical plants
'De Hortus' is the oldest botanical garden of the Neherlands-- foudend in 1590 by Carolus Clusius. Website: here.
It's been a while since i posted Hortus pics, the last time was some 13 years ago: here, here and here.
German plant collector Johann Frantz Drège (1794-1881) (see my www.flickr.com/photos/87453322@N00/34721393640/in/photoli...) found the forebears of this pretty Nemesia versicolor during the Summer of 1830 in three places in South Africa: notably in the west between Lange Vlei and Heerenlogement and in the east near Silver Fontein not far from the uMzinyathi River (Buffalo River) running down from the Drakensberg, part of South Africa's Great Escarpment relatively near Lesotho. In the scientific literature there's confusion about the exact coordinates of these places. Drège's extant herbarium exemplars (Missouri; both from Lange Vlei [see internet photos]) were identified by Adèle Lewis Grant (1881-1969) as Nemesia versicolor Benth. in 1930 but the coordinates ([28°34'22"S][023°49'34"E] are for a place west of Kimberley and neither for Lange Vlei nor for Silver Fontein.
Drège was an intrepid and exacting collector, and he noted down carefully where he found his plants. His notes were later edited by his friend Meyer in 1843 and our Nemesia was scientifically described in 1836 by George Bentham.
Drège returning to Germany in 1834 married and, remarkably, renounced his adventurous life. He became the director of a nursery business. These pretty flowers in the Hortus Botanicus of Amsterdam derive, I am pretty sure (the inset 'red' is, I think, not a 'naturally' occurring form), not from those South African climes but they're the cultivar products of a Dutch nursery. I'll have to ask my friends at the Hortus from which one.
On a trellis of the wind-free wall of the Palm House of the Hortus in the early spring Sun this Blood Pear is about to burst into its pretty blossom. It hails from the mid-Apennines in Italy; the 'cocomerina' is for watermelon. Though the pear has greenish skin, its flesh is pink; hence its English name: 'Blood Pear'.
Even on a dull day, the yellow of our Horned Poppy stands out. And especially delightful was this foraging Hoverfly, Episyrphus balteatus. Our Hoverfly is a very boon to gardeners: its larvae are voracious hunters of aphids, that eternal flower pest! But adults like this one thrive on pollen and nectar. They really lick the stuff up!
in 2019 Anthony Hitchcock (1960-2020) published a wonderfully exciting overview of the 're-establishment' of this Erica, discovered in the Cape, South Africa, in 1767 but extinct in the wild from 1908 (Science and Actions for Species Protection: Noah’s Arks for the 21st Century. Proceedings of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences’ Proceedings of the Workshop of 13-14 May 2019, Chapter 46, eds. Jurgen von Braun, Thomas Kauffels, Peter Raven, Johannes Vogel and Marchello Sánchez Sorondo, Libreria Editrice Vaticana). There's now a shrub of it in the entirely renovated Glass House of the Hortus Botanicus of Amsterdam.
The photo shows a Garden Bumblebee 'stealing' nectar from one of Heath's pretty tubular flowers. Its tongue isn't long enough to access that sweetness through the tube. So it gnaws a tiny hole at the base of the flower that allows it to suck up nectar. I've earlier posted a similar phenomenon but on Aquilegia: www.flickr.com/photos/87453322@N00/47944011838/in/photoli.... Take a look at our Bee's proboscis.
seen at Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam;
verbreitet von Südafrika bis nach Ostafrika, Lebensraum: stille, langsam fließende Gewässer
Often photos of Cape Myrtle show the pretty, crepe flowers (e.g. my www.flickr.com/photos/87453322@N00/32033583714/in/photoli...). But today's fine view of its Autumn Foliage in the Hortus Botanicus is worth a view! Enjoy.
Here's another one of those wonderful Pelargoniums of southern Africa. It was first described at the end of the eighteenth century, and soon became loved by all gardeners. One of these was Stephen West Williams (1790-1855). In his Botanical Description (1817) he waxes eloquent on this Oak-leaved Geranium, and manages in his description to refer to the unpleasantness of the vivisection of animals:
'in [this Geranium] the student of chemistry … will see how imperfect is his art in comparison with natural chemistry, which distills from the earth and conveys by distinct channels, in its small stems, all that is necessary to produce foliage, flowers, and fruit, together with color, smell, and taste, the most opposite fluids and liquids being separated only by divisions so small as scarcely to be deemed a substance. And the research into the wonders of this, as well as every other species of vegetation, may be entered into without hurting the sensibility of the most tender feeling, as plants and roots may be dissected without those disagreeable sensations, which follow the dissection of animals.'
In 1837 The Botanical Magazine writes that their pretty colored drawing of our Plant was made by William Henry Harvey (1811-1866). Harvey was an Irish botanist who worked in South Africa 1835-1837 and revisited there 1853-1858. He's the co-author of the first volumes of the important Flora Capensis (1859-1933). The drawing was made from a Tulbaghia flowering in 'the Ludwigsburg garden, at the Cape of Good Hope'. What that garden is called today and where it is, I don't know.
The same entry also says that the 'roots' derived from the Government Gardens (=Company Gardens, I think), where the plant had been presented from an unknown venue a few years previously to Lady Frances Cole (1784-1847). She was the wife of the rather unfortunate governor (1828-1833) of the Cape, Galbraith Lowry Cole (1772-1842). Presumably she'd received this Tulbaghia when he was still in office, so before 1833.
This photo was taken in the Hortus Botanicus of Amsterdam, a repository for plants from South Africa. The violet color is not as common in Tulbaghia as the usual yellow, and I didn't smell garlic... I've written elsewhere on great Linnaeus's derivation of the name
(www.flickr.com/photos/87453322@N00/35164401114/in/photoli...).
As you enter the Tropical Glass House of the Hortus Botanicus in Amsterdam, you will see a staircase on the right and in the cramped space next to it and the main entrance there's a marvellous little terrarium. It holds small tropical plants, orchids and the like, and some Beautiful Poison Dart Frogs, Epipedobates antonyi. I've always wanted to take a closer look, but the glass doors are wisely locked. But today I was in luck because I met the very knowledgable caretaker, Walter den Hollander, who was replanting and generally reworking it. So I got to photograph this beautiful tiny Orchid, only a few centimetres big. Pretty as it is, I'm a bit sceptical as to the label "Pleurothallis prolifera". I've posted Pleurothallis before (www.flickr.com/photos/87453322@N00/16166600306/in/photoli...). In any case, I doubt the 'prolifera'. Anyone out there to enlighten me?
The Handsome Little Frog is Epipedobates anthonyi, Anthony's Poison Dart Frog. It lives just under the pretty Orchid, and the caretaker has buried a small glass container in which he rears fruitflies for Anthony's diet. The name of our Froglet is still in a bit of a flux. Until recently - a decade or so ago - it was called Epipedobates tricolor, but now it's been subsumed under 'anthonyi'. Not long ago, I posted a photo of its cousin in the Artis Zoo: www.flickr.com/photos/87453322@N00/16842747509/in/photoli...
The designation 'anthonyi' is for the American mammalogist Harold Elmer Anthony (1990-1970). There's a lot to tell about this wide-ranging and remarkable, but especially gullible man. Maybe some other time!
PS The Hortus authorities might do well to expand that little terrarium...
I watched Honeybee alighting on Winged Everlasting. Flying to and fro between the pretty, papery winged flowers she'd soon gathered lots of orange-yellow pollen. Though our Ammobium loves the sands of south-eastern Australia, it's thriving in the loam of a flower bed in the Hortus. It was first collected in 1804 by the famous Scottish botanist and naturalist traveler Robert Brown (1773-1858), who'd sailed to Australia on HMS Investigator.
The other day was pleasantly sunny and as I ambled in the early-Spring Hortus Botanicus I came upon this Foxy-Red Tawny Mining Bee just basking in the Sun. Basking done, she'd no doubt go after the honey and nectar of the tiny aromatic flowers (see the inset) of her very own Sweet Box, Sarcococca hookeriana. Other Bees and Bumblebees seemed to be more attracted to Corydalis, so Sarcococca's delights were Fulva's very own to enjoy!
I looked for her burrow in the sandy ground nearbij but couldn't find anything. Next time I'll look more carefully.
What happened between 1665 and 1682 with the plants of the original botanical garden of Amsterdam - a medicinal herb garden especially - I don't know. Fact is that the first prefect of that garden was Johannes Snippendaal (1616-1670). On his appointment he lost no time in making a catalogue of his plants which was published in 1646. In his listing he includes an Apocynum americanum which is today Linnaeus's Asclepias incarnata, a Rose Milkwood which grows in North America. Snippendaal was relieved of his duties in 1656 and the garden was dismantled in 1665; a new one was founded in today's location in the Plantage (1682).
Whether the Milkwood that I photographed this morning in that Garden derives somehow from Snippendaal's original collection... who's to say? The signage suggests as much, but I don't know on what grounds.
Just opposite the Hortus Botanicus of Amsterdam is delightful and at the same time sombre Wertheim Park. It's the oldest public park in this city.
In the seventeenth century this larger part of Amsterdam was designated a 'green area', the so-called Plantage. Down through the centuries the architecture of mansions and the Artis zoo whittled away at the greenery. But the day for the Hortus and the Wertheim Park was saved by Napoleon. He stayed in Amsterdam in 1812, and 'presented' the town with both parks on its own purse. Regardless, Amsterdam made the best of the Emperor's 'gift'. The Park became the grounds of a concert hall and other worthy enterprises. These were later torn down and today it's a pretty green, tree-filled sanctuary. In 1897 it was named for a wealthy Jewish merchant and philanthropist, Abraham Carel Wertheim (1832-1897). By then, though, these two marvellous Sphinxes in Empire (= Napoleontic) style had already been erected as part of the Entrance Gate.
During the German Occupation (World War II), Wertheim was of course divested from the park's name; and the originally zinc or bronze Sphinxes also disappeared. Wertheim's name was restored after the war; and in 1982 copies of the Sphinxes - now in marble - were placed. The Wertheim Park today also has a notable, sombre memorial to the slaughter of Auschwitz.