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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.
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 Dutch, Pachysandra terminalis is called Dikkemanskruid (Fat Man's Weed) - a litteral translation of 'Pachysandra'. The name refers to the 'fat' stamens of these flowers.
Japanese Spurge was introduced to The Netherlands in 1860 by Philipp Franz von Siebold (1796-1866) who had worked in Japan as a collecting botanist and a doctor and sometime Dutch spy. He introduced western medicine to that country and was the father of the first Japanese woman to receive a medical training along European lines.
Today Japanese Spurge is a much-used ground cover. It flowers in March and April but I've not often observed anyone examining its blossoms carefully. Take my word for it: they're fascinating... but hardly photogenic. Except, of course, when they're visited by ubiquitous Honeybee. Just look at the way she's gathering pollen and perhaps some Sweet Nectar as well.
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.
Well yes! I sank to my knees for a while but it wasn't to adore Flora, the Goddess of Gardens and Flowering Plants. Rather, I wanted to try to get a photo of our Mining Bee - I think: Andrena flavipes - as she emerged from her nest in the warm soil.
Here's a Rock-cress, labeled in this wonderful garden as Arabis caucasica Wild. which again is a synonym for Arabis alpina subsp. caucasica (Willd) Briq. The name acronyms stand for two famous botanists, Carl Ludwig von Willdenow (1765-1812) and John Isaac Briquet (1870-1931). I'm a little sceptical as to that label, I think Arabis is usually white; this is rather more like an Aubrieta sp. But they're very close and difficult to distinguish.
Before I forget: yep, after a while on my knees I did capture Andrena as she was leaving her burrow (see upper left inset), where she'd deposited her heavy load of Aubrietal or Arabisan pollen... Just look at her Yellow Pollen Baskets! She flew off a few yards for more gathering.
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).
On April 2, 1595 the First Dutch Expedition to Indonesia set out from Texel funded by the the Compagnie van Verre (Company for Faraway), a forerunner of the Dutch East Indies Trading Company (VOC). The small fleet of four ships - the Amsterdam, Hollandia, Mauritius and Duyfken - sailed by way of the Canary islands, Cape Verde Islands and Brazil, arriving at the Cape of Good Hope in early August. Then up north to the east coast of Madagascar where storms delayed their departure to the Indonesian islands until February 1596. After many adventures and especially misfortunes - e.g. mutiny and a devastating fire - the much diminished expedition via St. Helena made it back to Holland in the late Summer of 1597. The profits in spices were very meagre... and the loss in lives great.
But the the benefit to the sciences was large. With regard to botany a careful examination of the collected specimens was made especially by Carolus Clusius (1526-1609), and he published his findings in his Ten Books on Exotics (1605). It's here that the first full European description of our Protea is found. But Clusius mistakenly writes that this 'most elegant Thistle' was found at the Baya d'Anton-Gil on the northeast coast of Madagascar; that would have been in January 1596, when the fleet had finally been able to make landfall there. But the provenance of the specimens must have gotten mixed up because Our Protea is endemic to South Africa; such a mixup is hardly surprising given the adventurous voyage.
Clusius in his marvellous book also provides a detailed sketch of a dried flower of Our Protea. That flower is probably the very first botanical specimen from South Africa to have arrived in Europe.
In the title above I've used the Afrikaans: Bearded Sugar Bush because it sounds more interesting and descriptive of the flower than Oleanderleaf Protea.