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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.
Just when I'd arrived in Groningen many years ago, the Theodorus Niemeyer Manufacturing Company was granted the predicate 'Royal'. It had been founded in 1819, and was principally a company which developed raw products from the wide-ranging Dutch colonial holdings. One of these was tobacco, especially from Sumatra in what is now Indonesia. When the wind came from the right direction, my little attic room was enveloped by the strong aroma of these products, especially of processing tobacco. In fact, I came to associate the smell of Groningen - the way cities often have their own smells - with that in the Autumn of beet sugar refining and throughout the year of tobacco. It must have been around 1990 or a bit later that environmental rules forced companies to cut down on their aromatic emissions...
It's hard to imagine today, that The Netherlands itself was also once a strong tobacco growing country. It is already reported in 1610 by Caspar Pelletier (?-1659 (?)), that tobacco is being grown in the province of Zeeland. No small wonder that, because much of Dutch trade with the Indies was based in the sea-faring towns of that province. Later, in the middle of the nineteenth century that tobacco industry had moved to the central Netherlands (around Amersfoort). But by 1959 tobacco growing was over due to the influx of Blue Mold, a devastating mildew on the plants. Niemeyer thereafter processed 'foreign' tobacco; so I never smelled 'Dutch processing tobacco'.
Here's a flower of Nicotiana tabacum, Cultivated Tobacco, in the Hortus Botanicus of Amsterdam.
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 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.
Captured during a visit to the Hortus Botanicus in Leiden: the sun catches the curls of pretty brunette Laura as she soaks up the heat at the top of the greenhouse.
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).
In 1986 bezocht een Groningse handelsmissie verschillende steden in China. Tijdens een bezoek aan een restaurant bij de Long Hua tempel in Shanghai zei een van de leden van de missie dat ze ’zoiets ook in Groningen moesten hebben’. Meester Le Wei Zong, de beroemde stadstuinarchitect van Shanghai, maakte tijdens een bezoek aan de Hortus de eerste ontwerpen. Shanghai stelde bouwmaterialen beschikbaar en Nederland de benodigde fondsen.
Vrijwel al het materiaal waarmee de Chinese tuin is opgebouwd werd vanuit China naar Nederland verscheept, Zeven maanden lang legden tientallen Chinese werklieden het park grotendeels met de hand aan, want ‘Wat je met de hand maakt, daar kun je je ziel inleggen’. Het resultaat van deze samenwerking tussen Nederland en Shanghai is de prachtige Chinese tuin Het Verborgen Rijk van Ming die op 12 april 1995 officieel werd geopend door H.M. koningin Beatrix.
De twee uit graniet gehouwen leeuwen houden de wacht bij de toegangspoort. De linkerleeuw is vrouwelijk wat vruchtbaarheid symboliseert. De rechterleeuw is mannelijk en heeft een bul onder zijn poot dat verwijst naar de eenheid van het keizerrijk. De hoge poort is een uiting van de hoge status van de eigenaar. Op de pilaren links en rechts staan de namen Shanghai en Nederland en op de toegangspoort zelf staat in Chinese karakters het woord vriendschapstuin.
In 1986 a Groningen(city in the Netherlands) trade mission visited various cities in China. During a visit to a restaurant near the Long Hua temple in Shanghai, one of the members of the mission said that they 'should have something like that in Groningen'. Master Le Wei Zong, the famous city landscaper of Shanghai, made the first designs during a visit to the Hortus. Shanghai made building materials available and the Netherlands provided the necessary funds.
Almost all the materials used to build the Chinese garden were shipped from China to the Netherlands. For seven months, dozens of Chinese workers constructed the park largely by hand, because 'You can put your soul into what you make by hand'. The result of this collaboration between the Netherlands and Shanghai is the beautiful Chinese garden The Hidden Kingdom of Ming, which was officially opened by H.M. Queen Beatrix on April 12, 1995.
The two lions carved from granite stand guard at the entrance gate. The left lion is feminine which symbolizes fertility. The right lion is male and has a bull under his paw that refers to the unity of the empire. The high gate is an expression of the high status of the owner. The pillars on the left and right bear the names Shanghai and the Netherlands and the entrance gate itself bears the word friendship garden in Chinese characters.