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Mid-February 1696 a plot was to have been executed to kill the King by Jacobites vehemently opposed to the Glorious Revolution (1688) which had brought the Dutch stadtholder and his wife to the English Throne as William III (1650-1702) and Mary II (1677-1694). The plans were discovered, Orange prevailed, and the would-be assassins were made to feel the force of the law.
Mary had sadly died in 1694, so she probably wouldn't have seen these pretty Orange Canary Bell-Flowers which are attested for the gardens of their palace, Hampton Court in 1696.
Today our Bell-Flower is much beloved by gardeners around the Globe. But as endemic wild plants on the Canary Islands they are endangered. Environmental measures are being taken to protect them. William of Orange survived that plot by six years; it is hoped these Bell-Flowers have a longer wild future.
After a relatively sunny stroll in the Botanical Garden of Amsterdam we returned home in the rain. And I consoled myself by reading the journals of the intrepid Lazarist missionary and naturalist Pierre Armand David (1826-1900). He's one of the premier western explorers of China and Tibet and parts of Mongolia (of course in his days politically delineated rather differently than today). Père David or Abbé Armand David - as he is called by Adrien René Franchet (1834-1900) who described many of his discoveries in the late nineteenth century - found these Fairy Wings in what he still called Moupine - eastern Tibet to the west of Chengu - but which is today Baoxing, Sichuan. Epimedium davidii, as it was named by Franchet, is found in hills of shady woods, 'in silvis umbrosis'. It caught Père David's eye in March of 1869.
Incidentally, Père David is also the western discoverer of the Giant Panda. Moreover, he is one of the first Catholic defenders of Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species (1859). He waxed eloquent upon that work during a congress of Catholic scientists on April 8, 1888, but was completely boo-ed down - ''copieusement huer" - by his colleagues.
The Hortus has a pleasant little plot with Barberrys from various provenances. Here in the main photo is Darwin's Barberry, discovered by great Charles Darwin in 1835 (see my description: www.flickr.com/photos/87453322@N00/17098687398/in/photoli...). It's a bit of an anomaly to see it in blossom in the present snowy weather.
The inset gives the fruit of Wintergreen Barberry. It wasn't scientifically described until the early 1900s. It hails from China. These colors certainly brighten a dark winter's day!
They're hard to distinguish, Syrphus ribesii and Syrpus vitripennis. But judging from the color of the third femur - dark or even black - this is Glasswing, Lesser Banded Hoverfly. He's basking in the bright Spring Sun in the Hortus Botancius which isn't only a labeled plant collection but also a veritable Insect Zoo, challengingly unlabeled, of course..
This year the Hortus Botanicus has also planted a very pleasant vegetable garden. One of the plants brightening it even when the weather is the gloom of Spring is the golden yellow flower of Cucurbita pepo, Zucchini or Courgette. The vegetable hails from the Americas but gained general European kitchen favor in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The Hortus Botanicus Leiden, nestled in the heart of the city, is a historical gem and a tranquil retreat. Established in 1590, it holds the distinction of being the oldest botanical garden in the Netherlands, with a rich collection that has grown over four centuries. Visitors can explore the Orangery from 1744, tropical greenhouses from 1938, and a winter garden from 2000, each offering a unique glimpse into the plant kingdom. The garden's commitment to education and conservation is evident through its diverse flora, including exotic species and historical plants like the old Tuliptree from 1716 and the Ginkgo from 1785. It's a place where nature's beauty is preserved and celebrated, providing a serene escape from the bustling city life.
I'm not sure whether this marvellous purple-red female Nomad Bee or Wasp Bee is Nomada alboguttata or baccata. I'd opt for Baccata but May is rather early for her; and Alboguttata seems a bit large for Olymp's catch.
Whatever... Here our Cuckoo Bee is sipping nectar. She's solitary and rather naked with too little hair to collect pollen. But as a Cuckoo Bee she could care less to feed the offspring she leaves in other's nests!
Her Nectar Provider is pretty little Mossy Saxifrage, Saxifraga hypnoides. And look at her tongue probing sweet depths.
The pretty vegetable garden of the Hortus is made sunny-colorful by beds of French Marigold, Tagetes patula. Olymp caught a Flower's Brightness just before the gloom set in. And Common Greenbottle Fly, Lucilia sericata, gleamed silkily in the Sun.
In that fabulous journal of botany and horticulture Curtis's Botanical Magazine, John Gilbert Baker (1834-1920) in 1880 writes: "T. biflora has been long known, but is very seldom seen in cultivation." A century and a third later, that can hardly be said of our pretty, non-assuming Dwarfs.
Two-Flowered Tulip, very low-growing, was first found and described scientifically by Peter Simon von Pallas (1741-1811). After studies in medicine and botany in Germany and The Netherlands, and travels throughout Europe he became a botanist and naturalist in the service of the Russian Empire. During one of his voyages of exploration in vast Czarist Russia he found Tulipa biflora in western Siberia in 1773. He writes about it precisely and eloquently in one of the fascinating accounts of his explorations: Reise aus Sibirien zurück an die Wolga in 1773sten Jahre (1776). Pallas's words have been called "the first scientific description of a tulip from Kazakhstan".
In the Hortus Botanicus here in Amsterdam this Tulip is part of an exhibition of the plants in Empress Joséphiné's famous garden at Malmaison. But search as I might, I couldn't place that reference...
Charming fortysomething redhead Hanneke on the verge of entering the next section of the greenhouse at the Hortus Botanicus in Leiden, The Netherlands, taking a short break from her Instagram duties.
The ghastly wet weather and gusty winds drove me into the Glass Houses of the Hortus Botanicus. There's a good collection of plants from South Africa there.
Here's Bright Yellow Poker, Kniphofia linearifolia Baker (for another bright orange Kniphovia in the garden outdoors see my earlier www.flickr.com/photos/87453322@N00/36150773033/in/photoli...). It's a foraging place for tiny black Ants, I think from the Tropics, perhaps hitchhiked here on traveling plants.
This wonderful grassy Wood-rush indeed gleams and sparkles purplish in the Sunlight. And there's probably some truth to the derivation of Luzula from a form of the Latin Lux, light. But nobody can narrow down the reason for its name more precisely. David Gledhill in his great The Names of Plants is quite right to say: Luzula is 'an ancient name of obscure meaning'.
There are at least four theories. The first is that this Wood-rush gleams in the moonlight like a glow worm, a Lucciola in Italian; another idea is that the flowers and their sheaths (ca. a mere 4-5 mm) dew-wet sparkle in the morning sunlight; third advocates claim the anthers and pistil look like lamp wicks, and hence the connection to light; and finally some have said that the pith of Wood-rush has been used to fashion exactly those candle or lamp wicks. I haven't been able to find any confirmation that Wood-rush pith was indeed used that way except for people claiming it. I'm also sceptical about the 'look-like-candle-wick' assertion. That leaves two explanations. It seems to me a bit far-fetched - having often seen glow worms myself - to put them into the equation; their light is far brighter than the gleam of Wood-rush in the moonlight. Which leaves as most likely the idea that our Plant in flower sparkles in the sunlight, as I myself could see this morning.
It wouldn't surprise me if Great Carolus Linnaeus had difficulty in pronouncing the English 'th'. His tongue like that of many non-native speakers was not subtle enough - hairy, as it were - for that sound. There is of course a story to why I think this...
It has everything to do with how Linnaeus first describes this pretty Common Fleabane, Pulicaria dysenterica. In the Flora suecica (1745) his description includes the interesting observation that our Fleabane saved the lives of many Russian soldiers in the Russo-Persian War (1722-1723). They used it as a medicine against dysentery. How exactly it's not said: it might have been through oral ingestion or else by way of its smoke; whatever the case, either the fleas (Pulex) or their effects - bacillary dysentery caused by transmitted Vibrio cholerae - were stymied in their run.
Whence Linnaeus's knowledge? Well, from one James Francis Edward Keith (1696-1758), a Scottish mercenary who fought for Prussians and Russians and anyone who'd have him. You get the picture: 'Keith' must've been a problem for Linnaeus to pronounce; perhaps he never met the man and only corresponded with him. In any case, his Flora suecica prints the General's name as 'Keit.
As far as I know, Keith did not take part in that Russo-Persian War; but he did play a heroic role in the Russo-Turkish War of 1741-1743. I wouldn't be surprised if his experience with our Pulicaria derives from that exercise and not from the earlier one. Possibly Linnaeus got that wrong as well, or otherwise Keith told him what he'd himself heard about the Persian expedition.
Here in the peaceful Hortus Botanicus this afternoon I saw this pretty Lasioglossum - Hairy- or Rough-Tongued Bee - calceatum on Bright Yellow Fleabane. Look at it's pretty reddish abdomen (and let's not be reminded of the less than savory sanguinary effects of dysentery).
One of the specialisations of the Hortus in Amsterdam is, as I've written before, plants from southern Africa. And it's always a joy to walk in the Glass House after Autumn has done away with those plants outdoors.
Here then is a Dwarf Nerine, Nerine humilis. It comes in a variety of reddish colors but this one's a white sort. Before William Herbert (1778-1847) named and described it as Nerine humilis (1821), learned and intrepid Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin (1727-1817) [see my earlier www.flickr.com/photos/87453322@N00/11885046573/in/photoli...] in 1797 not only describes our plant as Amaryllis humilis but includes a wonderful colored drawing of the pink kind. At that time it was being grown in the gardens of Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, Austria, where Jacquin was gardener-in-chief.