Hydrangea Thoughts I
Water Jars, Water Music, Rain Flowers, Maritime Discovery, the Nature of Thought and Hydrangeas.
Note: this is a rather long essay (~15,000 words) and might be more easily read in another format, if interested: Download LCPOV-Hydrangea1.pdf (4916.2K).
暮れる紫陽花。
Flickr Photo Originally
Uploaded on 5 July 2007
By minorin
For months now I've been thinking about hydrangeas. Pam at the Microbial Lab, like Tantalus, has stolen ambrosia from Olympus and given us a glimpse of hydrangea flavor. At end of May, it was a simple hydrangea collage. In early June, a blue lacecap image stole a prime position in my imagination, and will not depart. By mid-June the hydrangea bloom day condemned me.
There have been other guilty tempters too.
Layanee at Ledge and Hollow (a wonderful garden blog if you do not already know it) reminds us periodically (nicely) that our gardens are not as fruitful as hers. Just a few weeks ago there were hydrangeas to tempt me.
At the end of June, the Black Swamp Girl opened my eyes to the Oak Leaf variety with "the importance of a supporting cast." Lisa, the "garden freak" at Miller Time, teases me with her panicled Little Lamb. The MuckNMire folks have contributed too, with a little Quick Fire. And Carol at May Dreams is also in the game with Rain and Rabbits. (Apparently, there are no hydrangeas in Ellis Hollow.)
Even though Kathy's Endless Summer isn't meeting her expectations, I have begun visiting nurseries and filling my truck with corymbs and panicles of so many varieties that I'll spend years staring, if years there are.
whachulookingat?
Flickr Photo Originally
Uploaded on 21 June 2005
By Jeff Epp
I have several hydrangea varieties now. I've put a list of my hydrangea cultivars up in a separate place... where I can easily update it. Some are marginal and might not stand the winters. Some are dwarves and are in pots. Some are just extraneous evidence of a nascent obsession. And I will be adding more.
I'm fascinated with these plants... and their stories.
In the late 17th century a work by a professor and gardener (about whom most us of have probably never heard) was published. Over 300 years later I think of his ideas in my hydrangea garden. Perhaps this missive might serve to pass those ideas along to you.
Professor Hermann's Boxes | Linnæus' Grecian Jars | Hinkley's Hydrangea Observations | Crazy Hydrangea Speciation | Interesting Arborescens | Panicles and Sun! | Macrophylla & Serrata: A Minefield of Confusion | A Lacecap Pipedream | Oak Leaf Delights | Aluminum Color-play | DIRT (Playing with Soil Chemistry) | Sources | Notes
Lunaria annua
Flickr Photo Originally Uploaded on 13 March 2006
By degeerelle
These are the seeds pods of Lunaria annua, common name 'Annual Honesty' - also called the "Money Plant."
In 1672, a twenty-five or twenty-six year-old German doctor stepped aboard a Verenigde Oost-indische Compagnie or V.O.C. (Dutch East India Company) merchantman[1] to begin a five-year journey which would take him to Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and ultimately to the Chair of Botany at the Universiteit Leiden (University of Leiden)... the oldest university in the Netherlands. The young man in question was a "Natural Philosopher" who had signed on as a ship's doctor so as to see the world... and catalogue it.
I've written about this kind of thing before. The Linnaean Swede, Carl Peter Thunberg[3], did the same thing and eventually penetrated "impenetrable" Japan. I wrote about his journeys in A Tale of Two Susans II. But I'm thinking today about a guy (and a time) a century before Thunberg. So... before Joseph Banks. And before Linnæus. The German doctor of whom I am thinking was not a foundational stone of knowledge like Pliny or Dioscorides, but perhaps the first hint of today's accepted botanical stonework.
I'm thinking of the "German born Dutch botanist"[4] Paul Hermann (1646—1695).[v] He was one of the early Natural Historians to begin classifying and naming plants and taxonomic categories using Neo-Latin... a language which came to bear only a slight resemblance[9] to it's Classical Latin antecedent... but which became remarkably beautiful on its own.[10]
I mention this because it was the good doctor Hermann's imagination that led to many of the "scientific" words we use today. He just made some of them up. This is, of course, standard. Scientists make up words all the time.[14] But only rarely do these made-up words capture enough beauty or poetry or imagery (or something "quintessent" ) so as to endure as "meaningful" in any common sense.
Doctor Herman created one such word.
In describing the encapsulated seeds of flowering plants, he thought of a small Greek box or vessel: Angeion[15]. From this idea, he created another: Angeion + Sperma (seed) = Angiosperm = "enclosed seed."[18]
Actually, the word he invented was Angiospermae, and the idea has become synonymous with "flowering plants."
Please allow me to put into perspective how original and enduring this name was.
Angiospermae was "coined" in 1690 by Paul Hermann... at the end of his life.[19] I am guessing, based on scant information, that Hermann was almost certainly a product of the late Baroque age - it is "Baroque Science."[24]
Conifer 'flower'
Flickr Photo Originally Uploaded on 30 May 2007
By shutter mania
The companion term for the other type of seed plant, Gymnosperm - naked seed (the conifers) - did not appear until 1830.[xvi] That 140-year gap is huge... not in time but in what was happening in the world.[27]
The very fact that the term "gymnosperm" came to be is due to the creativity and abstraction of Hermann. But Gymnosperm isn't the word I'm thinking of today...
As I mentioned in my essay about the American Goldfinch, I like to think about Linnæus sitting at his desk staring at samples of plants and animals from around the world. There is a quill in ink. There is paper. And the man stares at the specimen... waiting for it to inspire a name.
Most of the names are easy: macrophylla for Big Leaf, purpurea for purple, spicata for spiked or even vulgaris (or some variant) for "common." Every now and again Linnæus sees something more abstract. With the American Goldfinch, he saw sadness. With the Camellia, he saw the Island of Luzon.[28] With human beings, he saw the image of his God.[30] And so it was with the Swede of so many names.
Linnæan names can be a Rorschach test of sorts. They are windows into what Linnæus what thinking about at the time. There is poetry in his connections. This, more than anything else, is why he occupies space in my days.
With Hydrangeas, Linnæus saw Grecian water jars (I see them too). And upon seeing them in 1753[xix], Linnæus reached to Hermann, (and not to Greece) and made up another new word: Hydrangea.
hydr-, hydor "water" + angeion "vessel" = Hydrangea
Hydrangea 12 / 紫陽花
Flickr Photo Originally Uploaded on 22 June 2005
By poesie
Can you see the water jars? They haven't dehisced yet... but they will. Jars of water.
The Japanese call them Rain Flowers: (Ajisai).
I find some harmony in this, though I'm not certain why.
Hinkley's Hydrangea Observations
The University of British Columbia (Vancouver) maintains a Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research. By all accounts, it is a remarkable situation. I will visit there soon enough. However, even if it takes me some time, the UBC Center for Plant Research puts out a quarterly journal: Davidsonia. I have subscribed merely on the strength of one article: Daniel J. Hinkley's, (the founder of the legendary Heronswood Nursery), magnificent essay "A Plantsman’s Observations on the Genus Hydrangea." Vol 14 pp 31-58
This is exactly the kind of thing I love to read. It is described as a "botanico-horticultural perspective." Some science. Some gardening. Some history. Some travel.[31] Some photographs. And even a story of ill-fated love (von Siebold and Kusumoto Taki (楠本滝)). WOW.
I've uploaded the essay for you, if you care to have it. (Download 14_2_hydrangea.pdf (928.1K)) It is spectacular in my humble opinion. I've borrowed a little from it for this meandering rivulet of thought... though ultimately my assumption is that one can go to Hinkley for Hinkley... and enjoy it.
Una Luce All'interno delle Ombre
Flickr Photo Originally Uploaded on 7 April 2007
By james215
"An oak-leaf hydrangea in bloom at Sailors Snug Harbor, Staten Island, NYC, NY. (August 2006)."
As far as I remember, we didn't grow hydrangea in south Texas. Maybe there were some around - an oak-leaf species perhaps (H. quercifolia)[32] as they are Gulf State natives - but I don't remember. Hydrangea are not part of my native garden vernacular.
But I knew what they were... or I thought I did. They were always something for the northern gardeners.[33] Of course, most of my life, my hydrangea thoughts concerned the mopheads. You know the ones: big pink or blue corymbs.
Mophead Penny Mac
Flickr Photo Originally Uploaded on 6 January 2007
By K. Shreesh
"Other than the exceptions of Hydrangea paniculata and H. quercifolia, the prototypical hydrangea inflorescence is a corymb; a rounded disc of numerous small, fertile flowers that possess insignificant sepals and four or five small often white, pink or blue petals."[xx]
I remember going through a design magazine years ago. I was heading into a new house and making plans. There was a featured garden or something with hundreds of deep blue mopheads in a condensed space surrounding two deep blue chairs. I wanted to do that! I thought that such a place might be a magical space for two people to think about the world. Though it never happened, I think it is probably natural to be drawn to the mops... at first. I mean, what's not to love?
But if I'm honest with myself, I must recognize that I am an unsophisticated emerging gardener. Gardening takes decades to "learn!"
Often, when I read the writings of gardeners like Annie in Austin and some others - gardeners with a lifetime of experiences in the dirt - I think about the knowledge there. It probably isn't about "specimens" and "information." That kind of stuff can be gotten much more quickly. I suspect the knowledge is more like "knowing what is working" and what isn't... and why... with a glance. Not information. Knowledge. Just knowing.
And, I'm of European descent... of a European culture. I mention this because... well... European hybridization trends and desires are different from other trends.
"Unlike the European hybridization of hydrangeas, which focused primarily on increasing the flower size of H. macrophylla, the Japanese breeding programs instead selected for delicate subtlety, which translates to pure charm in the garden." [xxi]
There is no safe way around that statement. The implications are clear. First: Japanese are into subtlety. No big surprise there! Second: Europeans (and Americans)[34] are (quod erat demonstrandum) not.
Actually, no big surprise there either. Ha!
I do not judge. I'm merely explaining where my starting line is drawn: the mopheads. But I'm interested in a journey through the whole hydrangea genus - or at least as much of it as I can accomplish. See, the hydrangea genus is substantial.
"Hydrangea is a genus of about 70-75 species of flowering plants native to southern and eastern Asia [sic] and North and South America. The flowers are extremely common in the Azores Islands of Portugal, particularly on Faial Island, which is known as the "blue island" due to the vast number of hydrangeas present on the island. By far the greatest species diversity is in eastern Asia, notably China and Japan. Most are shrubs 1-3 m tall, but some are small trees, and others lianas reaching up to 30 m by climbing up trees. They can be either deciduous or evergreen, though the widely cultivated temperate species are all deciduous." [xxii]
Seventy to seventy-five species. WOW. Take a look at a hydrangea species list. These are not varieties. These are species! There must be hundreds (or thousands) of varieties.
And even though H. macrophylla is native to Japan, there are hydrangea species native to almost everywhere! This is truly a "a respectable conglomeration of shrubs, vines and herbaceous perennials..."[xxiii]
And I'm interested in all of it.
flowers for dali
Flickr Photo Originally Uploaded on 4 September 2006
By reya.
Hydrangea arborescens 'Annabelle'
Once I realized that there were other interesting species and varieties, I began to look around me with new eyes. And everywhere these new eyes looked, there were arborescens (Annabelle's)... native hardy hydrangeas. No pigment. Wild. Lovely.
I'm becoming increasingly drawn to shades of green and white. Imagine an all green garden! Either stark... like a Ellsworth Kelly's plant lithographs at the St. Ives Tate or subtle like the gradiations on the lawn of Georges-Pierre Seurat's Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.
Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, 1884-1886
This soul-expanding thing lives at the The Art Institute of Chicago. It is enormous, approximately 2 by 3 meters (approx. 6 feet 8 inches x 10 feet 10 inches). And the scale of it floods the senses. It is "widely considered to be one of the most remarkable paintings of the 19th century, belonging to the Post-Impressionism period."[xxiv] Really. This is something that must be seen. I'm not a big art museum guy (some blow me away but many leave me chuckling). THIS thing is worth an airline ticket to experience.
The first time I saw it, I wasn't expecting it... I was there for Monet's Haystacks (there's a ROOM FULL of them). You walk into an adjacent room and BANG! There's the Seurat. Huge! So you look. And then you start walking closer. And backing away. And shifting sightlines. Several hours are not enough time to stare at this painting. The damned thing is a marvel. And as you view it you begin to change forever for having seen it. You walk back outside to Michigan Avenue and the entire world looks different. And always will.
I mention this here because I think a garden that looks like the gradiated lawns (in bright and dim greens) might be interesting.
Closeup of Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte
And this brings me right back to the Annabelle hydrangeas... or rather, the H. arborescens species. I picked up another cultivar from this species about which I am also excited: Hydrangea arborescens 'Hayes Starburst' (it is also called a Double Annabelle). Beautiful. No pigment. All form.
In truth, I've always found the lesser painted ladies in the room to be the most attractive.
I am actively looking for another arborescens species, but it needs to be rooted as winter will be here soon. I'm looking for Hydrangea arborescens subspecies radiata. I learned of it from Hinkley. Apparently (according to the essay) the blooms are "lackluster" and unremarkable. But the leaves: the indumentum on the underside of the leaves is "brilliant white."
I've seen this called "silverleaf hydrangea" for just this reason (apparently). I can't find an image of the leaves... but I stumbled across something else: a particular cultivar:
Hydrangea arborescens radiata 'Samantha'
Flickr Photo Originally Uploaded on 24 July 2007
By KingsbraeGarden
SWEET BABY JAMES! THAT'S AN ARBORESCENS? Wow. (It looks like a Lacecap.) That's a garden in New Brunswick, Canada![35] This can't possibly be the corymb dismissed by Hinkley.
Imagine that... a native Lacecap!
There is something very "clean" and "fresh" about these arborescens.
Hortensia Hydrangea paniculata 'grandiflora'[36]
Flickr Photo Originally Uploaded on 2 August 2006
By Ollander
Not corymbs. Panicles. Panicled Hydrangea! Hydrangea paniculata! God love 'em. They are hardy for us northern dwellers and most can stand full sun! I have several varieties.
I have a particularly large number of hopes (and dollars) invested in an unusual creature of this species: the Quick Fire™. This seems to have an usual 'varietal' designator but I may be misunderstanding: Hydrangea paniculata 'bulk'
Bulk?
Newest hydrangea -Quick Fire™
Flickr Photo Originally Uploaded on 10 June 2007
By 1lucy2
It supposedly blooms very early and then the white fades to red (ergo the trademarked name I suppose). But that's not what draws me to it.
Hinkley, writing about Hydrangea heteromalla and the Eastern Himalaya, made an observation that struck me too... but for me it was with the Quick Fire™. He wrote:
"Interestingly, I have not observed any red pigment in the petioles of the Nepalese plants. From my observations, this trait enters the picture in the Sikkim populations and intensifies as one travels further east into western China, where I have collected numerous forms possessing dark green, nearly orbicular foliage and striking, lipstick-red leaf stems." [xxvi]
That's it! "Lipstick-red."[37]
What I see are the lipstick-red stems of Quick Fire™. Thin-skinned red stems. A fascination.
Blood Red Quick Fire™ Stems
I am delighted by the paniculata.
Macrophylla & Serrata: a Minefield of Confusion
It doesn't take much sniffing around to find that there is great confusion about two "types" of hydrangeas: to be overly simple, I'll write "mopheads" and "lacecaps." Another way of putting it would be "macrophyllas" and "serratas" - there is no clear way to put it. Throw the word "Hortensia" into the mix... just to create more obfuscation. That's the entire point: there is confusion.
Hinkley calls it a "minefield" - which suggests that people have highly charged opinions waiting to explode. I don't doubt it. But the idea of exploding over such a thing IS entertaining.
Take a look at one of my newest (they are all new) additions:
A Beautiful Japanese Lacecap variety: Izu No Hana
Blue, but happy
Flickr Photo Originally Uploaded on 30 June 2006
By stephen_pix
The photographer calls this plant "Hydrangea macrophylla forma normalis." The people at HydrangeasHydrangeas.com call it "Hydrangea macrophylla normalis." The Heronswood Nursery site calls it "Hydrangea macrophylla " while (on page 52) Daniel Hinkley, the founder of Heronswood (and the source I am most inclined to believe), calls it "Hydrangea serrata 'Izu No Hana.'"
The point is: probably everyone is correct!
"The confusion surrounding the naming of H. macrophylla and H. serrata is due mostly to the rules designed by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature to prevent such confusion. Through the untangling of a legion of sticky webs, a rather interesting story unfolds while possessing all of the parameters necessary for a perfect storm." [xxvii]
Hinkley spends several pages on the situation and is quite informative and insightful. There is no need for me to belabor those points here.
Moving forward, I will identify lacecaps as "serrata" and mopheads (with certain leaves) as "macrophylla."
Hydrangea serrata 'Jogasaki'
Image from Heronswood
"A single stem of [the beguiling pink Jogasaki] with miniature white tassels opening from chartreuse buds, could by itself be carried as a tastefully exquisite bridal bouquet." [31]
I could write a hundred pages on my lacecap aspirations. But I will not. I am one zone too far north. This is a fool's errand. I will play the fool.
Oddly, some of the "serratas" are quite hardy... they are "mountain hydrangeas" after all. But not the sublime Jogasaki or delicate Izu No Hana. I will do what I can to thwart mother nature. And like everyone to undertake such a course, I will fail with the sour taste of hubris on my tongue.
A Truck Full of Bushes
Flickr Photo Originally Uploaded on 18 July 2007
By The County Clerk
Hardy. Interesting. Panicles.
Yes, the flowers are interesting and lovely, but these creations are all about the leaves and stems. WOW. I just bought several. So enamored was I with the wood and foliage, that I could not resist large specimens. Usually I try to exercise some restraint and patience. I had neither when I saw these beauties. And when I touched them, all I could say was "gentlemen, put 'em in the truck!"
These species are all about autumn... or so I am told.
I have no experience with them. But I will be watching closely for interesting developments.
Hydrangeas changing
Flickr Photo Originally Uploaded on 22 August 2005
By Something To See
It is very common knowledge that some hydrangeas can change color. Hues of blue to hues of pink. What is perhaps not so common knowledge is that is has to do with aluminum (Al). "Hydrangeas are one of very few plants that accumulate aluminum." [xxix] It is all about aluminum. It is the aluminum that forms complexes within the hydrangea that gives them hues of blue... or not.
What I'm about to write is going to seem technical, but (after digging into this awhile) it really is rather straightforward. Please pardon me in advance. I'm not a scientist. I may get this wrong. But I think that anyone with an open mind would agree that it is unique and fascinating.
1. There are pigments "that appear red to blue, according to pH. They are synthesized by organisms of the plant kingdom and bacteria, and have been observed to occur in all tissues of higher plants, providing color in leaves, stems, roots, flowers, and fruits."[xxx] These pigments are "found in most land plants, with the exception of the cacti and the group containing the beet."[xxxi] These pigments are called anthocyanins.
2. Don't let that word throw you (anthocyanin). It doesn't matter for this discussion. They are pigments. But here's the deal: instead of being "things" that are a certain color (like the stuff of powered dye), each "pigment" can actually be several distinct colors... depending. AND there are many, many kinds of them.
3. Some (or maybe all - I have no idea) of these pigments (anthocyanins) are influenced by the pH of the soil (more in moment). In certain pH conditions, these pigments look differently than in other conditions. In certain pH conditions they decay. So... pH is a factor. We KNOW that.
4. In MOST plants, the color is determined IN PART by the combination of pigments present. Which anthocyanins are there? For example: Anthocyanins "contribute colours to flowers and other plant parts ranging from shades of red through crimson and blue to purple, including yellow and colourless. (Every colour but green has been recorded). For example, there are 15 different anthocyanins in red cabbage."[xxxii]
5. In MOST plants, that is only PART of the story. The color is determined by several factors, including combinations of pigments present and the pH.
We regularly hear about changing the soil's "potential of hydrogen" (pH). The pH scale is from 0 to 14. A low pH number indicates "acidic" conditions. A high pH indicates "basic" conditions.[38] Pure water is 7. Neutral. If your water isn't 7, it isn't pure.
pH Scale from Richmond River County Council (Australia)
6. It isn't THAT simple. "The presence of other metabolites" ALSO influences color.[xxxiii] It is the existence and role of metabolites that NORMALLY makes the understanding of color in plants so complicated. The study of this complexity is called metabolomics. See... it normally IS complicated. But not so for some hydrangeas.
7. Hydrangeas (some of them - the ones that change color anyway) have only one kind of anthocyanin.[39] This is unusual.
And the hydrangea anthocyanin happens to be called "delphinidin 3-monoglucoside"[xxxiv] Don't worry about that. I mention it only because it is the EXACT same stuff (delphinidin anyway) that makes flowers like violas and delphiniums blue and the Cabernet Sauvignon grape (and therefore, the wine) blue-red.[xxxv] It can also be found in cranberries and Concord grapes but isn't necessarily the thing solely responsible for those colors.[xxxvi]
In other words, the same pigment that makes things blue can also make things red.
So... we know that the color in color-changing hydrangeas is largely dependent upon a single, particular "delphinidin."
8. "Delphinidin, like nearly all other anthocyanidins, is pH sensitive, and changes from blue in basic solution to red in acidic solution." [xxxvii]
THINK ABOUT THIS!
Hydrangeas do the opposite!
With hydrangeas, acidic conditions yield BLUE flowers! So how can this be?
The answer is ALUMINUM. Or, as our friends across the pond write: "AL-U-MIN-I-UM"
9. Remember that hydrangeas can accumulate aluminum! "When aluminium is present in the sepals (or what we usually call hydrangea petals) it binds with the pigment and a co-pigment. The sepal colour changes to blue when aluminium is present to bind with the pigment and co-pigment. The intensity of the colour depends upon how much pigment the particular cultivar contains as well as how much aluminium is available to the plant. More pigment and more aluminium mean a deeper blue flower." [xxxviii]
And to round it out to an even 10:
10. It turns out that aluminum can only be solubilized when the soil is acidic. "When soil pH is below 4.5,[40] aluminium is solubilised (mineralised) and may be taken up with other minerals present in the soil solution." [xxxix] In basic soil, there may be aluminum but the hydrangea can't "get" it.
If there is no delpinidin, the flower will be white. Period.
Aluminum.
Isn't THAT something?
Or Playing with Soil Chemistry
Henný
Flickr Photo Originally Uploaded on 19 January 2007
By LalliSig
There is a nice piece on hydrangeas at Vintage Gardens: Hydrangea Care, Culture & Historical Background. Rather than summarize what is already well-written, I shall redirect you to there. However, I found the following paragraphs to be particularly pithy and irresistible for my purposes... and perhaps the best way to conclude:
"It is more difficult to acidify soils than to make them more alkaline. The addition of lime to the soil will boost alkalinity, but increased acidity is achieved only by more laborious methods. The addition of acid organic matter like peat moss will gradually affect soil acidity, and the use of acid plant foods, those formulated for azaleas and rhododendrons will help. Some growers suggest using fertilizers in the form of nitrates rather than ammonium, and low in phosphorus, high in potassium. A soil test will save much trial and error, and achieving a pH of 7.0 to 7.5 will assure good pinks and reds, 5.5 to 6.5 being ideal for good blues, as long as a supply of aluminum exists as well."
"For reasons that are not altogether understood, Hydrangeas will normally lose their ability to produce good blues when in their first year of growth, and when newly transplanted. Be patient; if you know your soil is acid and have supplied some supplemental aluminum they will turn blue, but it may take the better part of a year. Be sure to supply aluminum on an annual basis; for the best blues a twice-yearly feeding with aluminum sulfate dissolved in water and applied evenly over the roots is best. Aluminum can be reused by the plants but only if the flower heads are left until the following spring, when the element will be reabsorbed into the stems. When flowers art removed as fresh cut or dried specimens the aluminum will be taken away."
Ah... hydrangeas: not just a beautiful flower, but a fascination requiring years to satisfy!
[i] Source: Wikipedia: Grand Union Flag - Back to Text
[ii] Source: Wikipedia: George Frideric Handel - Back to Text
[iii] Source: Wikipedia: George Frideric Handel - Back to Text
[iv] Source: Wikipedia: Water Music - Back to Text
[v] Source: Wikipedia: Paul Hermann - Back to Text
[vi] The piece appeared in The Modern Language Journal, (Vol. 54, No. 8 (Dec., 1970), pp. 580-585). - Back to Text
[vii] Source: Saussure, Course in General Linguistics, 1959, pp 111 & 112. Translated from the original French by Wade Baskin. - Back to Text
[viii] Source: Etymology Online: vessel - Back to Text
[ix] Source: Wikipedia: Amphora - Back to Text
[x] Source: Etymology Online: urn - Back to Text
[xi] Source: Etymology Online: jar - Back to Text
[xii] Source: Wikipedia: Angophora costata - Back to Text
[xiii] Source: Animalizing the Slave: The Truth of Fiction by Keith Bradley, The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 90, 2000, pp. 110-125 - Back to Text
[xiv] Source: Etymology Online: angio- - Back to Text
[xv] Hinkley: Page 31 - Back to Text
[xvi] Source: Etymology Online: Gymnosperm - Back to Text
[xvii] Source: Etymology Online: Camellia - Back to Text
[xviii] Source: Wikipedia: Sapience - Back to Text
[xix] Source: Etymology Online: Hydrangea - Back to Text
[xx] Source: Hinkley, p 31 - Back to Text
[xxi] Source: Hinkley, p 52 - Back to Text
[xxii] Source: Wikipedia: Hydrangea - Back to Text
[xxiii] Source: Hinkley, p 31 - Back to Text
[xxiv] Source: Wikipedia: A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte - Back to Text
[xxv] Source: Hinkley, p 49 - Back to Text
[xxvi] Source: Hinkley, p 49 & 50 - Back to Text
[xxvii] Source: Hinkley, p 50 - Back to Text
[xxviii] Source: Hinkley, p 53 - Back to Text
[xxix] Source: Wikipedia: Hydrangea - Back to Text
[xxx] Source: Wikipedia: Anthocyanin - Back to Text
[xxxi] Source: Singapore Science Center - Life Sciences - Botany - here - Back to Text
[xxxii] Source: Singapore Science Center - Life Sciences - Botany - here - Back to Text
[xxxiii] Source: Singapore Science Center - Life Sciences - Botany - here - Back to Text
[xxxiv] Source: Singapore Science Center - Life Sciences - Botany - here - Back to Text
[xxxv] Source: Wikipedia: Delphinidin - Back to Text
[xxxvi] Source: Wikipedia: Delphinidin - Back to Text
[xxxvii] Source: Wikipedia: Delphinidin - Back to Text
[xxxviii] Source: Singapore Science Center - Life Sciences - Botany - here - Back to Text
[xxxix] Source: Singapore Science Center - Life Sciences - Botany - here - Back to Text
[1] The connection between trade and discovery is at times oblique and other times direct. I believe the two pursuits serve two masters... or should. Commerce is a cruel magistrate. But the fact is that monarchs who emptied coffers of gold to establish Universities invariably became richer.
I often think of the time, not too long ago, when whole merchant "navies" scoured the planet searching for new things to buy and sell... and for "new" people with whom to trade. Discovery and trade. It is my inclination to think of merchant ships trading in the Indies (or "East Indies") as fleets of explorers searching for knowledge.
They were not. They were searching for people, resources and situations to exploit. They were tough and often cruel. The vast majority of them were uninterested in discovery. It was gold they wanted.
Not that I'm condemning them them. I am not. This is my cultural inheritance. This is the way of the world... and we are part of it. When a lioness surveys the savanna at dawn, she is thinking of blood and meat.
It is better to be the lion than the wildebeest.
That said, the British and Dutch had vision. They knew that science would help them prosper, and the merchant navies of both nations did a great deal in support of scientists and learning. This is UNDENIABLE. Substantial time, money and resources were siphoned off of trade for "discovery." It must have been an exciting time for a boy to go to sea.
It is also my inclination to refer to merchant ships trading in the Indies as "East Indiamen." But this is not correct (even though one does see it from time to time). East Indiamen were ships under charter or license to the Honourable East India Company (HEIC)... the British concern, not the VOC. The Dutch ships had their own nomenclature.
The distinction becomes interesting when one considers that the HEIC ('John Company') didn't actually own ships at all (generally), whereas the VOC very often did. But these companies were powerful and autonomous institutions.
Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie Flag
(There were several variations of VOC flags)
Honourable East India Company Flag
(Again, there were several variations of HEIC flags.)
Perhaps interestingly, the first national flag of the United States, the Grand Union Flag, is IDENTICAL to a common British 'John Company' flag of the same period. IDENTICAL. It is the same flag... except that the British version seemed to have some flexibility with the number of stripes (anything from nine to fifteen, but usually thirteen) and the arrangement of red & white. Whereas the Grand Union was fixed. Even these two (above and below) are incredibly similar.
The US Grand Union Flag
This boggles the imagination as it defeats the whole purpose of flags at sea. But flown at sea it was! John Paul Jones hoisted this flag over the USS Alfred at one point (but he flew a BUNCH of "American Flags" at various times.)[2]
The important thing about this flag is that it was a symbol that the infant American nation wanted to remain close to British commerce, yet independent of British rule.
"The Grand Union Flag was flown, with George Washington present, at the public reading of the Declaration of Independence on July, 6th, 1776, in New York (Preble 1880). In the same year it was also used on North Carolina currency (Nat. Geog. 1917)."[i]
[2] I'm thinking of the Serapis Flag fiasco:
At the time, Jones commanded the USS Bonhomme Richard - the "Good Man Richard" - which Jones named in homage to Benjamin Franklin's pseudonym "Richard Saunders " (the Poor Richard's Almanac). Jones and Franklin were friends.
John Paul Jones
Anyway, the USS Bonhomme Richard was not that great of a ship for war, but the American Navy had not yet sat up straight at the table, so to speak, and beggars can't be choosers. The young nation needed anything that floated to harass British merchant shipping (and not necessarily to fight naval battles).
So it came to pass that on September 23rd, 1779, Jones and his ship and crew were doing just that! They encountered a British maritime convey in the North Sea off Flamborough Head, England. But this convoy happened to be protected by Royal Navy warships. YIKES!
So... it was to be a naval battle after all!
The British warships were the HMS Serapis and the HMS Countess of Scarborough. The Serapis outclassed the Bonhomme Richard in firepower and maneuverability... and the British promptly began blowing the holy hell out of the American ship. Sweet Jesus!
(My father, a Navy man like all of the males of our line, likes to refer to this time in history as a time when "the ships were made of wood and the men were made of steel." Indeed. What a tradition is it: that of fighting on the sea!)
This is the battle from which we get Jones' famous quote: "I have not yet begun to fight!"
But that statement isn't really a bold oratorical battle cry (as one might suspect). It is really just a damned witty statement. Here's how it went down:
The Serapis and the Richard were trading broadsides at very close quarters. This is NOT what one wants to happen when commanding the ship with inferior firepower. In no time at all, the Richard was a burning wreck. At one point the masts and spars on Jones' ship, (from which his flag flew) were blown away. So went the flag. The Captain of the Serapis (who must have been very close) hollered over to Jones asking if the American Captain has struck his colors.
Jones is reported to have replied: "Struck, Sir? I have not yet begun to fight!"
Long story short, the Bonhomme Richard was trashed and sinking so John Paul Jones rammed the Serapis and boarded her, taking her just as his own ship sank. It was a victory.
Serapis versus Bonhomme Richard
Engraver: J. Rogers.
But... he didn't have a flag to fly. And his "new" ship was a bit of a wreck too. And he was in the North Sea in September. Near Britain. And more British warships. He needed to get to a neutral port and he needed a flag to legally get into one. And, based upon letters he'd received from Franklin, he thought that the American Flag had probably changed to one of Franklin's design. So he had one of these "new" flags stitched together and made for a close Dutch Harbor (Texel).
But the flag hadn't changed. At least, it hadn't changed to the Franklin design. And the British were smarting over the defeat. So... the British ambassadors went to the Dutch powers and claimed that Jones was a pirate (sailing under unrecognized colors and attacking British ships) and should be hanged.
This was a problem. Pirates were hanged in ANY port and Jones' flag was totally unrecognized and unofficial. (It was basically just an idea his friend Ben had.) The legality is that John Paul Jones sort of... well... made up his own flag. More clearly, Jones had sailed into Texel on a captured ship flying unknown (rogue?) colors.
THAT is pretty much textbook piracy stuff... and neutral nations are bound to certain codes. The British applied some real pressure. Blood was wanted.
Fortunately, John Paul Jones was well liked in port (or the British weren't (or both)). A page was quickly added to the port's books indicating that the "Serapis Flag" was, in fact, legitimate. Obscure, but legit as a matter of law. And so THE SERAPIS FLAG became yet another "American" flag... ever so briefly. And Capatin Jones' neck was safe.
God Bless the United States Navy and every sailor in it!
The "Serapis" Flag
Flickr photo originally uploaded by Vanepa
I have one of these flags and hope to find a way to put up a flagpole soon in my Digitalistan.
Read more about the Serapis battle in Gardener W Allen's online "A Naval History of the American Revolution." The relevant chapter is "Chapter XIII, A Cruise Around the British Isles, 1779." - Back to Text
[3] Thunberg was a very interesting gentleman for whom many plants and animals are named.
My Thunbergia alata
Grown from seed
Photo taken today
In my garden alone I have several "Thunberg" plants, for example, the Black-Eyed Susan vine (Thunbergia alata ) and Japanese Barberry (Thunberg's Barberry) (Berberis thunbergii). - Back to Text
[4] Phrases like "German born Dutch botanist" always throw me for a loop... for many reasons... many of which I can't quite fix upon. I suppose the phrase hits upon some unanswerable core "tribal" question as to what makes us who we are.
At some point during the education for which I was present (but from which I cannot recall much) I remember being "in the room" for an impromptu and highly spirited debate as to whether Henry James was an American or British writer... or something. Maybe the question was if his body of work was "American" or "British" Literature.
Henry James was American born, but spent much of his life in Europe. Many of his stories take place in Europe. He even became a British subject before he died.
I wrote a paper on him once (though I've never read anything written by him[5]) and got an A-minus. You know... I just took a position and stuck to it. I must have gotten credit for stick-to-it-tive-ness... I can't imagine the actual position I took (whatever the hell it was) was worth a nickel.
I crack myself up.
Anyway... Henry James is listed in various places as both a British writer and an American writer. Sometimes as an "American born British author" or some variant thereof. I seem to recall something from this heated discussion about James' "American" point of view or something. But as I've confessed, I know NOTHING about Henry James.
I have no clue how THAT discussion turned out... but I distinctly remember that the woman sitting next to me was wearing some short cottony thing I liked. And she smelled good.
(Who and where was that? And if you are reading this... )
Anyway, it was a long time ago.
So... maybe Henry James is an "American born British author." Maybe he isn't.
But I don't really care one way or another about Henry James. I just remember the discussion.
Georg Friederich Händel
attributed to Balthasar Denner[6] (1685-1749)
ca. 1726-28 portrait
And this brings me to Georg Friederich Händel, the "German-born British Baroque composer."[ii] Händel was born in Germany the same year as "German born German composer" Johann Sebastian Bach. (1685 O.S.)
Of course, there was no country called Germany at that time.
Regardless, Händel, the 'German born British composer', was about as German as any German could be.
So...
We need to introduce another German into the story: George Louis, the Elector of Hanover and Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg. "In 1710 Handel became Kapellmeister to George, Elector of Hanover..."[iii] Upon this appointment, he immediately visited London and soon moved there.
So... Why would the Kapellmeister to the Elector of Hanover move to London? Simple: London was where the Elector was planning to move. St. James's Palace, actually. In 1714, George Louis did just that. He became King George I, the first Hanoverian King of Great Britain and King of Ireland and a Prince Elector of the Holy Roman Empire.
Händel was his Kapellmeister.
It turned out that old King George either couldn't or wouldn't speak English and so he brought his German Court to London and everyone spoke German... or French.[7]
So... this is one case where I can understand the "German born British composer" thing. I mean, the British King was German. THAT'S a little unusual, no?
Many years ago I spent several weeks in the extreme Western Amazon Basin of Columbia and Ecuador, hiking through the jungle, drinking naturally fermented firewater from long abandoned overgrown sugar-cane plantations, hanging out with shamen and generally being mellow. Long story. I had a guide. We pretty much followed the rivers and chit-chatted all day.
Maybe I've written about this before, but this guy was extraordinarily conscious of his "Mestizo-ness." It seemed that every thought was peppered with "us" and "them" talk about the colonial Spaniards and the native peoples ("Indians'). He was both, but wasn't sure who "us" was. Rather, he thought he knew who "them" was, but he was "them" too. I told him once that he was all of us. European. Native. He was everything. But he didn't want to be one of "me" either.
Ha!
My white face is apparently a "them" face.
But my heart is an "us" heart.
When do we stop being that which we are?
At the time of this trek across Amazonia (searching for Petroglyphs) I kept a running journal. I remember writing to my father as to how clear it was to me that "peoples" are not often eradicated, they just get diluted in the gene pool.
That maniac who screamed bravely, half-naked, into the tusks of Mammuthus 60,000 years ago in Anglia... he's still here. Take another look at the person next to you. He's in there. Look in the mirror. He's in there too!
We are all still here.
But I suppose I'm mostly concerned about myself. Could it be that I might someday no longer be a Texan? Could such a thing come to pass? Could the practicalities of life be but a slow abdication of birthright, replaced by what I make (or don't)?
Could it be that I was never a Texan at all, but maybe just a Sumerian passing through? Very Slowly?
I believe that where I live now is quite lovely in it's own way but I will always consider that big open Hill Country sky to be mine. Even though I know it is not. - Back to Text
[5] As a general rule, I don't read novels featuring women in evening gowns on the cover... and here's a little smattering of Henry James for you:
Portrait of a Lady (Penguin Classic) |
The Wings of the Dove (Penguin Classics) |
-
(OK... on that last one, I don't know if that's a gown or not. But I don't read novels with pictures of chics in those kinds of hats on the cover either. I'm sorry. But it's true. That's just the way it is, baby.)
Actually, I'm not sorry.
Do I recognize that this is arbitrary and shallow? Certainly.
Do I realize that I'm cheating myself out of something good? Of course.
Am I making any kind of judgment call against those dresses or hats? Absolutely not! In fact, I think that black one with the poofy shoulders and narrow waist is kind of hot. And the hat thing is sort of cool. I mean... I'd buy the lady dinner.
But I'm just not gonna put on face cream, slip on a nighty and curlers and spend an evening in bed with one of these books. Period.
(Do women still wear curlers? I don't think I've seen a woman in curlers in decades.)
Now here's a good book for bedtime:
The Great Book of Guns by Chris McNab
OK... I'm kidding.
Maybe.
The wheels have definitely come off of this particular wagon. - Back to Text
[6] Note that this link is to the German Wikipedia. The guy isn't listed in the English Wikipedia. Now... in light of what comes next, I find this amusing. The "German-born British Composer" sits for a portrait by the "German-born German painter." - Back to Text
[7] Needless to say, the King's German and French didn't go over too well with the British public.
Also, human nature being what it is, the anti-king sentiment sort of crept beyond the regal shadow and became an anti-German thing... a little. This was not a particularly good time for old George Frideric, living - as he did - among the people.
As for the King? He was King! He didn't care. Mostly he spent his days (nights) floating on the River Thames on his Royal Barge: Whitehall to St. James Palace, with perhaps a stop at Chelsea for a bite to eat.
One day (night) the King had the idea that there should be another barge. On this additional barge there should be musicians... musicians to float along with him. In other words, he wanted to hear a concert as he floated across the water. He may have invented the first iPod... except with a full orchestra of 50 musicians... and instruments... even a harpsichord!
My reaction is that this sounds cool. It was, apparently one hell of a party.
The King turned to Händel to compose some appropriate music.
But this was no small challenge. The barge trip was a long one... hours and hours. The audience was captive. The King's moods changed. He often interrupted performances and had the performers start again from the beginning. Everyone was partying (drunken). AND the performance was outside in the moist air... for hours... which isn't so great for woodwinds.
So... Händel had to come up something long enough, interesting enough, varied enough, loud enough and actually possible.
The result is what we know today as Wassermusik (Water Music). When you next listen to it, think of the context and it will make more sense. Horns. Flutes. Trumpets. Short pieces. Some up. Some down. And many of 'em.
"King George I was said to have loved it so much that he ordered Handel to play the suites three times on the trip."[iv]
Listen to this movement and tell me if you can't imagine yourself getting hammered on the Royal Barge at 3am:
HWV 426, Wassermusik Suite 2 in D major, XII. Alla Hornpipe, Academy of St Martin in the Fields.
We've all heard this a thousand times. But a little context goes a long way doesn't it? This just carries me away.[8]
Take a moment (if you are so inclined) and check out a great (brief) overview of the Water Music composition. There is also a nice description of the events of that day written by Anthony Hicks: Handel's Water Music. And by the way, I think the Wikipedia entry is deeply flawed. I suppose I should fix it but I lack the energy.
Anyway, everyone loves a winner, 'German born British' or otherwise. Händel was success! His reputation was made. - Back to Text
[8] This evening I laid on my couch, stared out the window at a garden needing tending, let a hand rest on the rising and falling barrel of a dog belly on the floor beside me, and I listened to Wassermusik all the way through. I don't do that enough. But I was carried away. I tried to put myself (mentally) on a barge on the Thames in the wee hours of the morning.
And off I went.
So far in fact that at one point, when a particular piece began, I almost rolled off the couch in "shock and awe!" How might that sound on the river???? I listened and listened. I was utterly blown away at how this might sound on the water. In fact... if I were a Henry-James-reading-guy, I might even have gotten a little emotional... imagining such music on the water.
But then...
Then...
Well... to a private and funny embarrassment, I realized that Wassermusik had concluded and the stereo had rolled over to the next Händel piece in the library... which was:
HWV 426, Suites for Keyboard No. 1 in A Major
It was Keith Jarrett playing the I. Prélude
Man alive.
Isn't THAT something to restore one's faith in humanity?
Listening to Keith Jarrett playing the piano on a barge in the Thames would be something, wouldn't it? Hell, listening to him play anything anywhere would be something rare and special. I bet Bruce (Belltown Bent and Bruce C. Moore Photographic) has heard him! Hell, they are probably friends. (What about it Bruce?)
I have to get "seeing Keith Jarrett live" done, somehow... this is a priority. This comes before Lascaux (I have an update on that but now is not the time).
The fact that my library queued from Wassermusik (HWV 348 - 350) to the Keyboard Suites (HWV 426) has made me aware of a monumental hole in my Händel collection: I don't have any of his Chamber Sonatas or Music for the Royal Fireworks. In fact, I don't know that I've ever heard the Fireworks. I'm not sure. I need to rectify this. Looking at the whole HWV list can be jarring. ("Vessel-ing?) - Back to Text
[9] When I was in Sweden a month or so ago, I had the good fortune of attending a lecture by Professor Yasmin Haskell of the University of Western Australia. I mention this because she was introduced as one of the premier "Neo-Latinist" in the world today. I had never before heard the term "Neo-Latinist." And I'd certainly not expected such a term to be bestowed with such... respect and honor. In truth, I've long known about Neo-Latin but I suppose I always thought that the same scholars who thought about Classical Latin all day carved out a little time to deal with the new stuff (which is not the same thing at all). Silly of me.
Anyway, Professor Haskell's lecture was a bit of a diversion at the symposium, a welcome diversion. Her lecture was about a Dutch doctor's 'Grand Tour' of intellectual Europe based upon his merits composing Neo-Latin didactic poetry: poetry that teaches.
Really.
The bon vivant was Gerard Nicolaas Heerkins (1726-1801). I can find no target at which to link. Heerkins is a discovery of Haskell's.
The lecture was fascinating. Basically, this particular doctor and Natural Historian (who is otherwise invisible in the historical fabric) traveled "the continent" in high style - from "grand home" to "avant-garde café" to "artist's enclave"[22] - all based upon his ability to compose and recite poems in Neo-Latin on topics like "On the duty of a Doctor." He was a celebrity of sorts. He fell in and out (and in and out again) with people like François-Marie Arouet (whose pen name was Voltaire).
A fascinating life. (Among other things, Heerkins reportedly traveled with a young female lover who dressed as his male page).
Heerkins criticized Linnæus a good bit too, but he didn't do it in Latin. He did it in rhyming Neo-Latin. Funny stuff actually.
Neo-Latin is a distinct language. - Back to Text
[10] I've flown off of this particular handle before. I'll try to hang on more tightly this time around. I'll try.
Language is the great joy of my life. Language is culture, history and the organization of our ideas... it is a window into the way we think... and it is also related to our ability to think at a "human level" at all.[11]
Because it just so happens that I have no facility for learning additional languages (though I have tried), the language I most adore is therefore my mother tongue, my arterial language: American English. But this is NOT THE SAME THING as writing that I have no regard for other languages.
In my second post ever, The Language of the Dirt (as I began this overly-personal mission of quietly depositing my random thoughts into the world before I go), I wrote about why the "scientific names" for the plants in my garden make my gardening experience more meaningful... and make my life better.
It is true. It is the truest true thing I know.
I also spent some time dashing the notion that Neo-Latin had anything whatsoever to do with Latin. And the notion that "predecessor languages" are irrelevant in any way simply exasperates me. It drives me crazy to hear or read people encouraging others that they "don't need to be bothered by the "Latin names"" of plants.[13] To me, this is the same as encouraging a cook not to taste his or her food. Worse in fact. It is EASY to take a taste. But sneaking a taste of the Language of the Dirt takes a little effort... and encouragement. But the flavor... - Back to Text
[11] I am not particularly interested in language for language sake. I am interested in the relationship between language and thought. But please allow me a paragraph or two on the fundamental nature of language itself.
In his 1994 book The Language Instinct, Harvard linguist Steven Pinker suggests that language is perhaps best explained in biological terms:
"Our facility for language, says Pinker, should be thought of as an organ, along with the heart, the pancreas, the liver, and so forth. Some organs process blood, others process food. The language organ processes language. Think of language use as an instinctive, organic process, not a learned, computational one, says Pinker." [12]
Ralph Waldo Emerson is often quoted as having written:
"Thought is the blossom; language the bud; action the fruit behind it."
Language is the bud of the flower of thought. Indeed! This is what I believe.
As I've never come across this statement in anything I've read of Emerson (and I can't find a source attribution), I'm not certain that Emerson actually wrote or said this. But I agree with the language and the thought. Thought and language are closely related.
Robert Lado (of Georgetown University) published an interesting piece almost forty years ago. The piece, entitled "Language, Thought, and Memory in Language Teaching: A Thought View,"[vi] is an interesting "exploration" of the psychological and physiological processes of language. It is worth reading, though (for me) it spawned more questions than it satisfied. So, basically, reading it was like turning on a lamp but blocking out the sun. It is darker now. (But that's not his fault... at least I realize that I'm "inside" now.)
The physical and mental processes associated with "language and thought" are extremely closely related (I believe interrelated). A bicep. A vocabulary. Same kind of thing. (Except a "vocabulary" can't help put up a retaining wall.)
Most of Lado's article is well over my head and beyond my realm of comfort (like so much of what I read (sigh)). But some of it got through and stuck with me. I've been thinking about this kind of thing FOR YEARS. I keep a file cabinet full of this crazy stuff.
For me, a non-linguist, the most important thing about the article is that it set up (and introduced me to) the two opposing views of "language and thought" (at that time I suppose): the view of Noam Chomsky and that of Ferdinand de Saussure (the "father" of 20th Century Linguistics).
"Without language, thought is a vague uncharted nebula. There are no pre-existing ideas and nothing is distinct before the appearance of language." [vii]
When I read something like this the earth quakes.
Saussure's book, Course in General Linguistics, is still in print (and relatively cheap as books go). But, I MUST suggest Harris' Landmarks In Linguistic Thought: The Western Tradition from Socrates to Saussure and Joseph's Landmarks in Linguistic Thought II: The Western Tradition in the Twentieth Century.
I'm getting off topic. It happens. Apologies.
The point is this: language shapes us. More specifically, our language shapes US differently than other languages shape (the metaphorical) THEM. I do a good bit of business with Germans. I'm a South Texan- American from a laid- back mañana land. I have long laughed that for Germans everything is either "required" or "forbidden." This is not true or fair. But it IS indicative of how language influences culture.
© g. Paul Bishop 1960
An interesting Aldous Huxley Page
Aldous Huxley said it so well in Doors of Perception:
"Every individual is at once the beneficiary and the victim of the linguistic tradition into which he has been born - the beneficiary inasmuch as language gives access to the accumulated records of other people's experience, the victim in so far as it confirms him in the belief that reduced awareness is the only awareness and as it bedevils his sense of reality, so that he is all too apt to take his concepts for data, his words for actual things."
Yes. But the most victimized of all are those with limited language skills.
Language = Thought!
I am continually quoting J. Michael Straczynski's succinct pearl of wisdom:
"The quality of our thoughts is bordered on all sides by our facility with language."
But it was the great Austrian-born Austrian (and a perennial favorite at Blog Meridian & Varieties of Unreligious Experience), Ludwig Wittgenstein, who said it best:
"The limits of my language mean the limits of my world."
Is it therefore "over the top" for a curious gardener to pay attention to the language limits of his own garden? - Back to Text
[12] Source: "Why 2001 Won't Be 2001" by Keith Devlin from "Devlin's Angle, The Mathematical Association of America" January 1997 - But Pinker has several outstanding books in print: How the Mind Works, Words and Rules, The Stuff of Thought and many more. - Back to Text
[13] Let me be clear. No one need be bothered with anything. I mean, why bother to teach our children to read? Millions of people survive just fine (and have survived) without reading. But we do teach our children to read. And we do it because we want our children to have good lives. We believe that education equates to quality of life. Directly equates. And we believe this because we've SEEN education improve life... ten trillion times!
That said, we all live in a state of ignorance. It can't be helped. We cannot overcome the darkness of ignorance, no matter what we do. Such is the human condition. So we light as many candles as we possibly can, and use that light to look for more candles. Along the way we eat, make love, draw, make music, scratch dogs, laugh and build things. But do not be confused, these are all dalliances in our search for more candles. And we raise children so that the search might continue after we are gone.
That's about it.
To consciously and actively advocate ignorance is infuriating... and a betrayal of our own humanity. That's my two cents. I'll step off the soapbox now. - Back to Text
[14] For example: take a look at the chemical name, coined in 1972, for 'Coat Protein, Tobacco Mosaic Virus, Dahlemense Strain.'
It is all one word:
Acetylseryltyrosylserylisoleucyl-
threonylserylprolylserylglutaminyl-
phenylalanylvalylphenylalanyl-
leucylserylserylvalyltryptophylalanyl-
aspartylprolylisoleucylglutamyl-
leucylleucylasparaginylvalylcysteinyl-
threonylserylserylleucylglycyl-
asparaginylglutaminylphenylalanyl-
glutaminylthreonylglutaminyl-
glutaminylalanylarginylthreonyl-
threonylglutaminylvalylglutaminyl-
glutaminylphenylalanylseryl-
glutaminylvalyltryptophyllysyl-
prolylphenylalanylprolylglutaminyl-
serylthreonylvalylarginylphenyl-
alanylprolylglycylaspartylvalyl-
tyrosyllysylvalyltyrosylarginyl-
tyrosylasparaginylalanylvalyl-
leucylaspartylprolylleucylisoleucyl-
threonylalanylleucylleucylglycyl-
threonylphenylalanylaspartylthreonyl-
arginylasparaginylarginylisoleucyl-
isoleucylglutamylvalylglutamyl-
asparaginylglutaminylglutaminyl-
serylprolylthreonylthreonylalanyl-
glutamylthreonylleucylaspartylalanyl-
threonylarginylarginylvalylaspartyl-
aspartylalanylthreonylvalylalanyl-
isoleucylarginylserylalanyl-
asparaginylisoleucylasparaginyl-
leucylvalylasparaginylglutamylleucyl-
valylarginylglycylthreonylglycylleucyl-
tyrosylasparaginylglutaminyl-
asparaginylthreonylphenylalanyl-
glutamylserylmethionylserylglycyl-
leucylvalyltryptophylthreonylseryl-
alanylprolylalanylserine
That's 1185 letters: the longest word in the English language.
My first reaction to such a creation was amusement. But then I thought about it. Language. Isn't it spectacular that one scientist can pick up a telephone and utter the word above and correctly, specifically describe this:
Structure of the Tobacco Mosaic Virus Coat Protien
I don't think 1185 letters is too many AT ALL!
Fine. - Back to Text
[15] One problem with the "cut-and-paste" internet is that it is very likely that when one "publishes" a half-baked explanation for something, very soon that explanation, verbatim, will appear everywhere... as fully baked. It is as if no one actually thought about it. Ever.
One word-idea that mystifies me is that of a "vessel." What a word!
You know... like a container... or a canal... or a ship... or Hydrangeas. What?
Vessel: c.1303, "container," from O.Fr. vessel (Fr. vaisseau) from L. vascellum "small vase or urn," also "a ship," dim. of vasculum, itself a dim. of vas "vessel." Sense of "ship, boat" is found in Eng. c.1300. "The association between hollow utensils and boats appears in all languages" [Weekley]. Meaning "canal or duct of the body" (esp. for carrying blood) is attested from 1398.[viii]
Let's not even stumble on the spectacular language universality of boats and hollow utensils. That alone is enough to keep me busy forever... as if it is some sort of glimpse at a world before the Babylonians built their legendary tower...
Tower of Babel by Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1563)
I'm thinking instead of the word "Angeion" which has come to mean "vessel."
I've searched 20 or 30 different ways for a meaning that makes sense to me, but everything comes up "jar" or "vessel." But this isn't satisfactory to me. There are MANY Greek words for vessels and jars. Wine jars (Stamnos). Storage vessels (Pithos). Water jars. There are Greek words for two-handles wine-cups (Skyphos), cauldrons (Lebes) and ladles (Kyathos). Take a look at the pottery of ancient Greece.
The Romans used the words we use: vas, vasculum (vaso-, vas-, vasi-) (see above). I do not see a natural link to "Angeion." The only "A" word I can think of is a non-starter: The originally Greek amphora (a Latin word) jars were used around the Mediterranean for over 2000 years... and that word comes from the notion of "carrying" not "Jars."
Prize Vessel with Athena (Panathenaic Amphora)
Attributed to the Kleophrades Painter
Greek, Athens, 490 - 480 B.C.
Terracotta 25 9/16 x 15 7/8 in.
77.AE.9
The Getty Villa Malibu
Isn't this a sumptuous thing?
"The word amphora is Latin, derived from the Greek amphoreus (Αμφορέας) or amphiphoreus, a compound word combining amphi- ("on both sides") plus phoreus ("carrier"), from pherein ("to carry")."[ix]
Besides, the whole modern linguistic connection to "jars" doesn't come to us from Angio-anything. A quick look at the etymology of "urn" show us this much.
"Urn: 1374, "vase used to preserve the ashes of the dead," from L. urna "a jar, vessel," probably from earlier *urc-na, akin to urceus "pitcher, jug," and from the same source as Gk. hyrke "earthen vessel."[x] The word "Jar" is an Arabic construction: jarrah "earthen water vessel".[xi] In fact, the only way I can find to get anywhere near a "container" is the Greek word for "box" - angos.
Take a look at the "woodland and forest tree of Eastern Australia [which] is known by a variety of names including Smooth-barked apple, Rose Gum, Rose Apple or Sydney Red Gum. [It] differs from the majority of gum trees in that it is not a Eucalypt, but rather a closely related genus."[xii] (Angophora)
"The name Angophora comes from the Greek phora, ("carries"), phoreus ("carrier"), from pherein ("to carry"), and angos, meaning "box", "jar" or "vessel": this refers to the cup-shaped fruit borne by members of the genus."[16]
Angophora costata seed capsule
Jar Carrier? They look like goblets!
And there's the situation: "Angeion" has (inexplicably?[17]) come to mean "vessel." But sure enough, "Angeion" is a diminutive of "Angos."[xiv] Little box.
Is a box the same thing as a vessel? I suppose it is for you to decide.
"Vessel" is one of those catch-all words. - Back to Text
[16] Well... the source for this direct quote is Wikipedia: Angophora. However... I should probably disclose that... well... I'm the guy who put that particular bit into the Wikipedia article... so... it is sort of like me quoting me with no real scholarship..., which seems like an asinine thing to do. What else is new? - Back to Text
[17] Sometimes it is interesting to think of the errors (and quasi-errors) that have been made by very smart people. In fact, sometimes the errors are more interesting than the "correct" work. I make some rather grand errors rather frequently, but I'm not referring to myself. I'm thinking of smart people who are supposed to know better... or so we think.
I won't get deeply into Linnæus' forays into the quagmire of "race" as it pertains to our species: humanity. But it makes only too much sense that a mind devoted to the classification and organization of everything in the natural word would attempt to classify and organize us... into hierarchies! And of course, stir some 18th Century-Nordic-Lutheran-righteousness into that sauce and we get close to the scala naturæ conception: God at the top; then angels; and then we start ranking human races in "the great chain of being!" YIKES!
The results were ill considered, but interesting for that very reason.
Don't discount this notion as being obscure... or simply Nordic. The issue of race and "the great chain of being" is a commonly trod minefield, littered with fine corpses. "To some, notably Thomas Jefferson, it seemed that Africans were to be classified on a scala naturæ as creatures standing midway between beasts and human... "[xiii] OUCH!
Interpreting historical people's beliefs outside of the context of their times is always a blunder.
And, on the topic of science & blunders, in the October 2000 edition of Discover, Judith Newman wrote an essay entitled "Twenty of the greatest blunders in Science in the last twenty years." She (quite entertainingly) distinguishes between several kinds of blunders.
"Some were errors in concept: Bad science chasing a bad idea. Some were errors in execution: This would have worked so well if only it hadn't blown up. Others were cases of deliberate fraud, out-and-out hoaxes, or just dopey moments that made us laugh. Perhaps Albert Einstein said it best: "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the universe""
HA!
But I'm thinking of Paul Hermann, the German/Dutch scholar. The whole "Angeion" thing is unusual (I think?). It isn't a common usage at all. I cannot ascertain why Hermann might have picked his "Angio-" prefix. My guess is that the reason rests in one of the following situations:
1. Dr. Hermann was being poetic.
2. There is some Deutsch / Dutch linguistic connection between boxes and jars of which I am not aware.
3. Dr. Hermann was not proficient in neo-Latin... or perhaps only just proficient and not adept with a poetic vocabulary.
4. All of the above.
Am I being tedious? Perhaps. It is just that there are so many great classical words for jars and vessels. I don't get the box thing. Not at all. I smell something hidden here.
Maybe Hermann meant, "vessel." Maybe he meant, "box." Maybe he just meant, "encased." It IS clear that because of him, the term means "vessel" today. You see, many others read his works and carried forth from where he left off. - Back to Text
[18] Language, that never ending feast so closely tied to culture, is particularly interesting when it comes to the word for seed. The word "sperm" comes to us almost unchanged from the distant past... as thought it (as the word for one half part of the magic of life) is somehow scared and we daren't change it. But... it is culturally revealing to see from where it comes. In Roman Latin the word was sperma ("seed, semen"). This was directly taken from the Greek sperma ("seed"). And the Greeks? Well, they created the word from speirein ("to sow or to scatter").
The history of our Western Language is very male is it not?
To scatter.
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(Please give me a moment on this. I'm thinking. Trying to remember. "Scattering." OK. Got it!)
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As a male, I am not a vessel. THAT is the female role. Therefore, the notion of scattering is... well... somewhat appealing in theory (though, as my father always told me, "If you date two women at once, you'll spend twice the money and have half the fun!").
As a gardener, I know that sowing many seeds in many "vessels" is the safest way to ensure a bloom. However, it devalues the individual vessels.
Flo(we)r - Lace Cap
Flickr Photo originally uploaded on 16 August 2006
By Carlos Manta Oliveira
In fact, this is precisely the strategy adopted by most hydrangeas in one way or another. Not one "major" flower but an inflorescence of hundreds of "minor" blossoms. Some of the vessels (flowers) are actually sacrificial and sterile. This is most visible in the Lacecaps, where the larger, showy flowers are the sterile sacrifices..
Hinkley writes it much more eloquently than I can, but of course, he's referencing something else entirely: the similarity between Hydrangeas and the double-file Viburnum (which I am also growing).
"This floral strategy of sacrificing the fertility of a few flowers to provoke a bit of curiosity by commuting pollinators has co-evolved in other non- related groups, most notably in the genus Viburnum. Thus, it would not come as a complete surprise to those who have grown a double-file viburnum, Viburnum plicatum, that the second Asiatic hydrangea to be noted by Western botanists (in Japan, in 1777) was named Viburnum serratum."[xv]
Scatter... Ahh... our beautiful language... - Back to Text
[19] I have this from several sources, the most trustworthy being the Online Etymology Dictionary: Angiosperm. But I can't place it precisely. See, most of Hermann's works were published posthumously. In a typically strange twist of history, it was this posthumous-ness that directly led to the papers being important (and relevant today).
The short version goes like this: The good doctor passes away. His widow, who loved him and wanted to care for his memory, hires a young scholar to go through the late doctor's papers and "edit" them into some kind of... well... a book maybe. The young scholar begins.
Being a bright young scholar, he recognizes that the late doctor's papers are remarkable. He puts together a book. And then another. And then another. (The most famous is probably Paradisus batavus.)[20] But this takes time... and remember that the young guy is counting on this revenue. This is his job. All the while the young scholar is meeting other scholars... some young and some older and damned famous. "So...," they ask, "what are you working on?" "Well...," he answers, "you won't believe this, but... " Word begins to get around.[21]
The next thing you know, these books and rough notes are being bequeathed, passed around, sold and borrowed. Ultimately, Joseph Banks buys them.
That would be "Sir Joseph Banks" - a baronet and the president of the Royal Society and the guy who went with Captain James Cook around the world (the first time)! Banks ultimately gives the papers to the "British Museum"... but not before he loaned them to Linnæus... who devoured them.
In fact, by all accounts, Linnæus poured over these papers for years... the same years he was writing his own world-changing Species Plantarum (which ultimately became part of his Systema Naturæ) which has been deemed perhaps the most important publication in the history of biology. [23]
But Hermann died in 1695 and the attribution is 1690. This nugget (Angiospermae) is therefore not from the edited posthumous books but from his notes... and I'm having some difficulty ascertaining what else there was... and what else might be hidden there. If I could read German, I'd go to London and read the actual notes. - Back to Text
[20] Hermann's Paradisus batavus is a description of the botanical gardens at the University of Lieden. But that title... wow... that's a baroque title if I ever saw one! The Paradise of the Netherlands! That must have been some garden!
The whole "Batavia" thing always throws me. There's a word that is RICH with historical meanings... all of them have something to do the Netherlands. It started with a Germanic tribe that the Romans called Batavians. It follows that the Romans designated the land of the Batavians as Batavia (or Isla Batavia).
Rome fell. Europe changed and changed and changed and changed. About a thousand years later the peoples of the Netherlands began to trade all over the world. Everywhere they went the founded settlements called 'Batavia.' So... Batavia can mean almost anything. Indonesia, Suriname, Argentina, All sorts of places in the US where Dutch settled. All are Batavia. And then it gets better. Napoleon rolled through and set up his own "republic" which was, you guessed it, The Batavian Republic (Bataafse Republiek).
I love that the "German born Dutch" Hermann's book was entitled "Paradisus batavus." - Back to Text
[21] Of course these conversations were probably happening in French or German or Dutch... or Swedish. - Back to Text
[22] I should mention that I more than willing to begin touring the world (as a guest in great castles, villas and manor houses). I don't, at the moment, have a female "page" to dress as a boy, but I have some female dogs. Also, I don't really know any didactic neo-Latin poetry - but let me tell... I know some EXCELLENT Limericks! Think about it! Let me know. - Back to Text
[23] The most important publication in the history of biology? Wow. That might be a tough position to defend. Maybe. What might some of the contenders be? On the Origin of Species? What else I wonder? - Back to Text
[24] I didn't make this term up, but the concept is new to me.
The Dome and Gustavianum in a red hue
Flickr Photo Originally
Uploaded on 5 February 2007
By Mack2
When I attended the Symposium in Sweden (Visiting Linnæus) in June, part of the program was social. One evening there was a wine and cheese thing at the Gustavianum. This is Europe. There are wine and cheese things every day... that's what Europeans call "daily life." (If I sound envious it's because... I am.) I mention this because the Gustavianum is interesting... and something fascinating happened to me there.
The structure was built in 1622-1625 to be the "Main Building" of Uppsala University way back when (though the University was already 150 years old at the time of construction). It is now a Museum among other things.
Anyway, about a quarter century after the building was built, Olaus Rudbeck (the elder) added the "cupola" to house a theatrum anatomicum - a theater of anatomy - a place to watch dissections (or gruesome vivisections).
Operating Theater 2
Flickr Photo Originally Uploaded on 21 August 2006
By jayKayEss
This is quite a place. I've written about it and Rudbeck before (the Black-Eyed Susan is Rudbeckia hirta ) - A Tale of Two Susans I - but I little did I imagine in March (when writing) that I'd be standing in the theatrum in June.
Life is interesting.
The theatrum is small and tight. The rake is steep. The vibe is strange. It was stifling hot.
The wine and cheese thing didn't happen in there. All that took place a flight of stairs or three below. But we had complete run of the place (as it was open just for us ). We all found our way up. The chamber was odd.
No one spoke.
Well.. almost.
We were all in there of our accord, taking it in as individuals in a small crowd. After a time, one of the group (Allan Ellenius, Professor Emeritus of Art History at Uppsala University[25]) cleared his throat (shaking us from our reveries) and said something like "You know, many years ago I wrote a paper about this auspicious space, perhaps I should tell you all what I know. Would that be pleasant?"[26]
In a word?
PLEASE.
As an art historian and antiquities expert, his perspective was completely refreshing. And off the cuff, he launched into it. He spoke for almost two hours and held our attention the entire time. Art. Europe. Architecture. Science. Politics. Economics. It was all tied together. And finally he said, "I believe I'd like to have a glass of wine and it is terribly warm. Shall we adjourn downstairs?"
I could have listened all night. Spectacular.
Anyway, it was from Ellenius that I first heard of "Baroque Science" and "Baroque Scientists" - Leave it to an art history professor to pull it all together!
Upon returning home, I looked further into the idea further and discovered the following book: The Atlantic Vision: Olaus Rudbeck and Baroque Science (Hardcover). I mention this because it was written by Gunnar Eriksson, also of Uppsala University. - Back to Text
[25] Perhaps I should introduce you to his "point of view." He's written several books if you are interested: Baroque Dreams: Art & Vision in Sweden in the Era of Greatness, (Paperback), Iconography, Propaganda, and Legitimation (Origins of the Modern State in Europe, 13th to 18th Centuries), (Hardcover) (Expensive but WOW.) He's also (as one would expect) contributed to several journals. Here's one:
Johannes Schefferus and Swedish Antiquity by Allan Ellenius Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 20, No. 1/2 (Jan. - Jun., 1957), pp. 59-74
He's also an expert on Swedish Painter Bruno Liljefors. - Back to Text
[26] Now... I know that the standard 1950s Hollywood "Swedish - English" accent is very sing-song. My experience is contrary to this. The Swedes I've encountered speak English in a fluid, melodious way. It is almost "Southern" and very gentle to my ears. Like Alabama or Savannah Southern. Delicious.
As strange as it is to write, I enjoy listening to Swedes speak English. When conversing, I have to remember to speak because I get lost in the sounds. (Not good for conversation.)
Professor Ellenius is no exception to this experience. - Back to Text
[27] If "angiosperm" and "gymnosperm" are adjacent mile-markers in two different ages (and what the hell do I know about it?), the question becomes: which two ages?.
I believe "Angiosperm" to be a late Baroque creation. It was what came next that shook the world: The Age of Enlightenment: Isaac Newton (who, along with John Locke, Adam Smith and a few others got the ball rolling), Thomas Jefferson, Paine, Voltaire, Rousseau, Hume and yes... Linnæus!
But all of that came to an end with the Napoleonic Wars... and Napoleon Bonaparte crowned himself emperor in December of 1804.
By 1830, when "Gymnosperm" appeared, the world was a thoroughly different place from Hermann's. But what do we call the post-Enlightenment period? Romanticism? The Age of Reflection? I don't know. Nineteenth Century thought was fairly all over the place.
Schopenhauer, Hegel, Mill, Kierkegaard, Marx, Nietzsche, Darwin... wow. One has a difficult time putting Nietzsche in a category with "Romantic" in its name.
The point is simply that Hermann's originality spanned an amazingly robust period of intellectual creativity... and survived in tact! - Back to Text
[28] In 1753, Linnæus named the Camellia as a "Latinized" form of the name George Joseph Kamel[xvii], a Jesuit botanist who (among other things (like helping many people)) described the flora of the island of Luzon, Philippines. Kamel probably didn't discover the Camellia, but Linnæus never claimed that Kamel did so. The connection is just a passing whimsy. Kamel died the year before Linnæus was born. They were, therefore, not associated. But no doubt the great Swede came across the Jesuit's writings - herbarium aliarumque stirpium in insula Luzone Philippinarum[29] - and associated the Camellia with the Philippines, and naturalich, associated the Philippines with Kamel. - Back to Text
[29] Herbs and Medicinal Plants in the island of Luzon, Philippines - Back to Text
[30] Maybe I'm reaching... but I don't think so. This is what I mean:
"The word sapience is derived from the Latin word for wisdom, sapientiae or sapientia. These are related to the verb sapere, which means 'to taste' but with the sense of tasting the meaning of life. It is generally interpreted in the English-speaking world as meaning to be wise, and the present participle forms part of Homo sapiens, the Latin binomial nomenclature created by Carolus Linnaeus to describe the human species. Linnaeus had originally given humans the species name of diurnis, meaning man of the day. But he later decided that the dominating feature of humans was wisdom, hence application of the name sapiens. Strangely, it seems that he did not consider the idea whether humans were just another kind of animal when choosing this name, instead basing his selection on contemporarily deep religious convictions that man was a product of special creation. Thus, his chosen biological name was intended to emphasize man's uniqueness and separation from the rest of the animal kingdom." [xviii]
[31] When I write "some" travel, this is an UNDERSTATEMENT. It seems that every paragraph begins with "when I was in Korea... or Tibet... or Peru... or China... " and so on. That's good. It gets better. I'll have to reread it, but I think I can summarize it with the following paragraph(s):
"Hanging off the side of an almost impossible to reach mountain in the [almost impossible to reach region] of [some very remote nation], I was delighted and surprised to come across [an almost impossible to find species or hybrid or cultivar of] hydrangea. It was [an almost impossible height] in meters and then in feet. I [took seed, air layered a cutting, sequenced it's genome, genetically engineered a new strain of wheat, etc.] and cultivated the species in my garden. I named the clone after [a nearby Buddhist temple, a woman who waited in the rain, an old friend, a Shinto spirit]. It is now blooming in my garden."
That's impressive. But it gets better:
"When I climbed that mountain two years later, the specimen was still there and doing well."
If I sound jealous... well...
[32] The species name quercifolia made me curious, but it is simple. Quercus is Latin for "Oak Tree." It is also the genus for oaks. The hydrangea species quercifolia is simply: Oak Leaf... or "Leaves like Quercus." - Back to Text
[33] Of course, now I think I'm one or two zones too far. The Puget Sound feels about right. - Back to Text
[34] The quote from page 52 of Hinkley continues:
"Unfortunately, hydrangeas from Japan are forbidden from entry in the United States, though Europe does not ban their importation. Furthermore, as Hydrangeas can come into the U.S. through Europe under post entry quarantine, these exciting new plants will ultimately be made available through the trade, though not necessarily at the pace I would prefer."
Market forces being what they are, if Americans wanted the more subtle selections, we'd have them. We'd be breeding them here or something to meet the demand.
I'm not judging. This is neither good, nor bad. My point is simply that we are coming from a different "hydrangea place" than the Japanese. - Back to Text
[35] I've phoned them. I've written. Soon I may hear back. I have to have some of this DNA, but I want to see the undersides of the leaves. I'll keep you posted. - Back to Text
[36] Take a look at this beauty! I've footnoted here for two reasons (and neither of them are subtractive to the beauty of the plant.
First: the name. The whole "Hortensia" thing. Don't get too mired in this. In another section I plan to address the Hortensia confusion. The important thing to realize is there IS some confusion surrounding the Hortensia nomenclature.
Second: the scent. I don't have a H. paniculata 'Grandiflora' but I really want one. Why? It's because of something Hinkley wrote about the "aroma." I suspect that what he wrote was intended to be a caveat. It is certainly funny. But to me, it sounds WONDERFUL.
"Sargent’s collection from Hokkaido in 1893 led to development of ‘Praecox’, which blossoms nearly six weeks earlier than the much celebrated H. paniculata ‘Grandiflora’, the above mentioned peegee, emitting a fragrance that has been aptly described as a heady infusion of horse and Chanel No5." [xxv]
That's a magnificent olfactory styling of the caliber I've come to expect from Chuck B at Whoreticulture. (Maybe Chuck was in Japan with Hinkley?)
I have sentimental reasons for liking the Chanel. And what's better than a horse? To me, this aroma seems to indicate a beautiful woman at a gallop!
The problem I have is that I can't be sure to which species is being referred. Too many commas. Not enough periods. But I am too often guilty of the same thing to vociferously criticize. My question is this: DOES ANYONE KNOW WHICH VARIETIES BOAST SUCH A SMELL?
[37] A few paragraphs up, I mentioned something about makeup and how I'm not such a big fan. I need to amend that statement. Lipstick is good. A natural face with some moist red... I'll leave it at that. - Back to Text
[38] Either extreme will burn the hell out of you. I mention this because, as a kid, I assumed that only acid could hurt. I starting screwing around with some "basic" stuff I found somewhere. NOT GOOD. "This should NOT have hurt me," I told my dad. It is basic. Not acidic. It was at this point that my father taught me another, more useful, word: "caustic." Indeed. - Back to Text
[39] I suspect that as the variety of hydrangea cultivars increases, this will change (or is already beginning to do so). I'm thinking of Hydrangea macrophylla 'Geoffrey Chadbund'.
According to Vintage Gardens: Hydrangea Care, Culture & Historical Background, "And some hydrangeas refuse to be changed to clear blue, like Geoffrey Chadbund, making a royal purple flower at best, when treated."
To my way of thinking, a potential cause of this might be the presence of an additional anthocyanin. Or it could be something else too. What do I know? - Back to Text
[40] I don't know about that number (ph<4.5). That seems rather... uh... "hot." It contradicts another figure later. How would one determine the point of pH at which Aluminum (or Aluminium) solubilizes (or solubilises)? Maybe it is like a flash point versus a fire point. Maybe at 4.5 Aluminum will GUARANTEED solubilize... but it may begin to do so at another number. This must be an easy thing to figure out... like... on my kitchen table... somehow. How does one "measure" soluble-ness? Is it even possible? Maybe it is a binary thing. Maybe the thing to do is to keep checking the solution until SOME aluminum shows up. This is WAY out of my league. Any ideas? (I need a bourbon to work this one out. Kentucky. Not Tennessee.) - Back to Text
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You made my Sunday. I'm going to save this read to savor this evening.
You're right. No hydrangeas here at Ellis Hollow. They're not deer candy, but they are frequently damaged. You see a few in the neighborhood, but they usually have that 'bush in bondage' look with netting all around them to keep the deer away.
Posted by: Ellis Hollow | July 29, 2007 at 06:15 AM
You are messing with my mind, Hank. I am sure, I am certain, there was a post here about your departure from blogging. Glad to see it was just a hallucination.
Like Craig, I will save this long and lovely Hankesque post on hydrangeas for a later time. But I will say now that the first time I ever heard of hydrangeas was as a kid, watching It's a Wonderful Life with my dad on TV. Hydrangea blooms still make me feel warm and fuzzy, as if all is right with the world.
Posted by: Christine (myplateoryours) | July 29, 2007 at 09:29 AM
Welcome back, my friend. I don't know Keith personally, but I occasionally dream the entire Köln Concert.
Posted by: Bruce | July 29, 2007 at 12:26 PM
After a long, hot, and arduous weekend of moving stuff into storage in preparation for a life changing move, finding you have decided to post again was my reward. Hydrangea blooms are my bell weather marker of a leisurely summer well spent.
Like many here, I have downloaded the post to read at my leisure a bit later (perhaps with a bit of Handel playing and nice glass of summer wine). Welcome back Hank. You have been missed.
Posted by: breadchick | July 29, 2007 at 02:24 PM
I saw Keith Jarrett live, in the old Warner Theatre in Washington, DC, about 20 yrs ago. Memorable doesn't quite capture it. I can still hear him moaning or vocalizing or whatever it is that some musicians do when they perform that sounds almost atonal. I agree that you should try to be in his presence at least once in this lifetime.
Posted by: Pam J. | July 29, 2007 at 03:47 PM
The first time I saw that Seurat painting was when I also went to see Monet... a whole exhibition of Monet, back in 95 (96?) when my college honors and scholars program offered us tickets to the show, bus trip and hotel overnight for $40. (Seriously. I was a poor college student who had no money, but I had to go for that price.) I was blown away by the picture of his wife in the red kimono, which I had always dismissed. (A blonde in a red kimono? Come on. I figured it was the back-then equivalent of Pamela Anderson in a tight Labatt's Tshirt.) But seeing it in person, with all of the ungodly precise detail... you could see in her face that she felt like a beauty in the kimono (and that he thought she was, too) and it just floored me. Instead of the cheap pinup that I had imagined, it was an intimate glimpse into a playful, loving relationship.
Oh, but I digress. Seeing the Seurat was a mistake. We had just 20 minutes after we got through the Monet exhibit before we had to meet our bus in front of the art museum, and I HAD to go find Picasso's blue guitarist... so we dashed off (doing that running but not running because you're not allowed thing) to find it. We did, and I was just absorbing its fiery blue glow (why does it look gray in some prints?!) when I turned and saw the Seurat on the far wall. Jesus. Another picture I had never appreciated in books or prints... but I think that my jaw dropped. I got close, I stood at the back of the room, I went up halfway. I told my friend to go on ahead and tell the bus that I was right behind her so they wouldn't leave me, and I looked at it some more. I couldn't tell you what else was in that room other than those two paintings.
Only once since have I ever felt like that after leaving an art museum... that feeling of having my brain filled, my body strained and my heart ripped open all at the same time. When I finally made it back to the bus, I was so exhausted that I slept the entire way back to Dayton.
Ah, but your post was about hydrangeas, and here I am spewing emotion about my trip to Chicago. Your posts just make my brain swirl (in a very delightful, challenging way) and I can't help what comes out. I have a few things to add about hydrangeas, too, but I think I need to go read Hinckley's article first...
Posted by: Kim | July 29, 2007 at 05:45 PM
I've spent a lovely Sunday reading back and forth between Professor Arronax describing the flora of the ocean floor and the County Clerk describing the flora at Digitalistan. Verne's got nothing on you, Hank -- get a publisher! (And treat yourself to Chapter XVI of 20K Leagues Under the Sea, "A Stroll on the Ocean Floor".) (Actually, think about reading the work -- A Lake County Poiint of view has not a few similarities.)
Posted by: Jennifer | July 29, 2007 at 07:51 PM
Now that was an informative post, covering a vast range of subjects and centuries. I've a fondness for Olaus Rudbeck, the younger ... fascinating guys these Swedes were.
Funny how the Henry James novels I've read have never featured a woman on the cover. Perhaps that is because library hardcovers of classics tend to be without much decoration.
Oh and the East India Company ... well, I could expound on that subject but shan't ... at least not in a blog.
Posted by: kate | July 29, 2007 at 08:24 PM
Craig of the Hollow: I hope the meander lived up. I didn't have certain things on my other property for the same reasons. Deer. Some other visitors. Here in my new little community things are different. We have some foxes but the deer don't come down my street. 'Bush in bondage' Too funny.
My next door neighbor uses tomato cages for everything. Need to prop up a gladiolus? Put a tomato cage around it. Don't want forget where the bleeding heart is? Put a tomato cage around it. Delphiniums getting too tall? Tomato cage. Lillium getting leggy? Tomato cage. Old corroded, bent cages EVERYWHERE. It is a 'garden in a cage' - or a cell block - or something.
Actually, it's fine. What do I care? At least the guy is taking care of his plants. Your 'bush in bondage' comment made me think of it.
Christine (myplateoryours): I'm clearly insane. Wasn't trying to mess with anyone. Or test anyone. I'm just a little... uh... touched maybe. Sorry 'bout that. (I sort of... was... uh... thinking about Hydrangeas.) "Hydrangea blooms still make me feel warm and fuzzy, as if all is right with the world." That's the way I feel about gardens in general.
Bruce: The Köln Concert... I've been listening. Wow. You know I'm sucker for a piano... but THIS is just mind blowing. 66 minutes of piano improv? UNBELIEVABLE. Thanks for the head's up. When he does Carnegie Hall again, you'll be getting on plane brother.
Breadchick: Why thank you! Life changing move? I hope it is GOOD life change. As for your comment about "Hydrangea blooms are my bell weather marker of a leisurely summer well spent" - THAT is quotable. I'm beginning to get some blooms. Spectacular!
And yes! Alittle Handel in summertime! What's better than that?
Pam J: That must have been something. Yes, I love when a musician gets so wrapped up with what he or she is doing that they begin to... yeah. There is word for this and I cannot, for the life of me, bring it to my fingertips. It is a good word... a $25 word. It will hit in the dark of night.
Kim: I have to laugh. I don't think one can PARK in Chicago for $40. Sounds like a cool trip. I only vaguely recalled the Monet you mentioned. I know the story (La Japonaise) but couldn't bring the image to mind. I went looking. Yeah, I like it. You know me and a smiling lady. And Camille Monet looks so happy. Very nice. Thank you for putting that in my head.
EXACTLY! That's EXACTLY what the Suerat is like. I forgot about the Van Gogh. Yes, it's right there too. The room is full of amazing things... but that Suerat on the far wall... mind blowing.
You and color... take a look at this article about Suerat and Paul Signac: The Joy of Color.
"Only once since have I ever felt like that after leaving an art museum... " Where else?
I feel this way ALL THE TIME when I leave Natural History Museums and places like the The Met (which is, I suppose, an ART museum... but also a history museum. (Their tagline is "5,000 Years of Art")). Some photography touches me deeply... and I've left some photo-shows fairly taxed. But I don't normally feel this way in other Art Museums... and I can be moved by art. But the shock and "overwhelming-ness" of that Suerat is something I can never get enough of.
You said it best. You are looking at a VAN GOGH and the Suerat STILL captures the room. I think of it often. In fact, I'm going down there.
And thank you for such kind words.
Jennifer: HA! Thank you. What a compliment. I will pick up the book in the morning. I know the story but I bet reading it is spectacular. I'm wrapping up "Great Expectations." I knew how it would end before I opened it. But I've been lost in Victorian England. So nice.
I'm pretty high on Dickens right about now.
I think Verne may also have been a poet. Maybe I'm misremebering. I'll have to go through my books. I seem to recall a spectacular poem. Rather, I recall that I recall a spectacular poem. But I can't find it in my memory.
"A Stroll on the Ocean Floor" - what a thought!
Thank you for such generous compliments.
Kate: I just got Rudbeck the Younger's Iter Lapponicum... his journals from Lappland. No question: the Rudbecks are an impressive bunch.
Library? What the hell is that? You mean, you have to... uh... give the books BACK? I couldn't do it. When I spend that many hours with a book, I'm living with it the rest of my life... or at least that is my intention.
And as far as the East India Company goes: You can't leave me hanging darlin. That's like whispering into my ear that you love me and then telling me you just want to be friends. please expound someplace!
PAM: Yes... Huxley at the dinner table. ABSOLUTELY!
I am not moved by Frida Kahlo. Of course, I've never SEEN them in actuallity.
Re Hydrangeas... I saw your post. Wow. You are loading up.
Ha! Thanks for the curler info. Good. I need to know what the ladies are doing... so that... you know... I can be cool. (Probably nothing major bewteen men and women has changed in 2 years... but I have to stay current. Just so you all know: men don't usally wear curlers either. At least I most certainly hope not.
"Poetry that teaches!" - I hear you. ALL poetry teaches something. But this stuff is like "a poem denoting the rules and dogma for XYZ." Yeah... and it rhymes... Dante's Divine Comedy could actually be considred "didactic poetry" about how to behave.
Re: Angophora seed capsules - I'd like to have a gardening "look around" down under.
As for the list of blunders, yeah... I don't believe you. You are just being modest.
I'll check out the 25-Greatest list. It looks good
Posted by: The County Clerk | July 30, 2007 at 01:46 AM
So I come here all excited about my planned comment on hydrangea serrata. Instead of posting it right away I decide to follow your link... and now I can't get something else out of my head--or even out of the way enough to post on hydrangeas. Signac convinced Seurat to get rid of earthen tones to "purify" his colors... wow. What a concept. I am a bit floored. And now I want to go home and paint... anything. And reimagine everything in "pure" colors to imagine what that would be like. Heaven? Or some kind of technicolor hell? Hmm.
The only other time I was completely blown away was a year or so ago when I went to the Cleveland Art Museum to see their exhibit about Barcelona and Modernity. It was excruciatingly thorough, showing everything from the avant garde design of anti-government propaganda to beautifully ornate, organic-inspired wooden room dividers that once resided in Gaudi's Casa Milo apartment building. The museum did an amazing job sharing the climate and context in which these pieces came to be, and I was most surprised at the works by Joan Miro that they included. These were much more compelling than I had ever imagined--in fact, I had always mentally written off Miro as gimmicky. In person, seeing the actual works, however, I felt moved. And I can generally describe my reasons for feeling those things in terms that an art grad student would understand even if they secretly roll their eyes at my lack of accepted terms... but I couldn't this time. I just felt it in my gut. Amazing.
Posted by: kim | July 30, 2007 at 01:31 PM
Well....I see the jars! Another uber-informative post, as always! I never fully understood the science behind hydrangea colors, but now that I do, I can hardly wait to see what mine looks like next year. (My soil is very acid.) Thunbergia alata-nice! I'm digging that hydrangea 'Samantha' also...you may have inspired another collection for me! (Like I even NEED a partner in crime! ;-) As for art...never been to an art museum in my life, and clearly I am missing something!
Posted by: lisa | July 30, 2007 at 02:52 PM
Sometimes I'm envious of you who come to these things late, so that you discovered the magic of hydrangeas and the magic of the Seurat after you had knowledge and education and a framework to your universe. You appreciate and see them in a way that can never be mine.
Hydrangeas like 'Hills of Snow' and 'Annabelle' were in everyone's garden when I was a child, and I grew them, too, along with Oakleaf hydrangeas and the climbing Hydrangea petiolaris - these offwhite domes defined the word hydrangea for me. That's the bad part of spending a "lifetime in the dirt" - you think you know something. Hank's post shows me I know very little about hydrangeas!
I met the Seurat when I was 16 and loved it on sight, but a certain complacency was involved. Tourists and travelers come from all over the world to see the Art Institute, the Adler Planetarium, the Shedd Aquarium, the Museum of Science and Industry, the Chicago Historical Society and the Field Museum. Philo and I went to college decades ago in Chicago, and hung out in those celebrated institutions. As students, we could enter during less popular hours, and wander the beautiful classical buildings, absorbing culture while finding the occasional secluded corner - it may be a destination for you, but for us the Art Institute was a cheap date!
Returning to the present: The H. serrata 'Jogasaki' is exquisite. I can't imagine what it would be like to live in a place where they will grow.
No one I knew in IL had success with even the ordinary mophead pink or blue kinds because they bloom on old wood. The plants will live there, but in most winters freeze back so the buds are lost.
At my previous Austin garden I planted a peegee and a variegated hydrangea, and after watching them die, gave up trying to make hydrangeas grow.
Today we went to Lowe's for paint, and the serendipitous combination of Hank's words still ringing in my mind and the presence of a Hydrangea on the bargain table made me decide to try again. This one is a hybrid between H. macrophylla and H. serrata. It's a different garden with different soil so there's a chance it will live - wish me luck.
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
Posted by: Annie in Austin | July 30, 2007 at 06:01 PM
I have been scrolling down for half an hour looking at this captivating posting and something just dawned on me... you are all crazy. Not just Hank, the author, but you all, his readers. Do any of you have children or pets? How can you all find the time to read this and the other dozen or so blogs I'm sure you read. I don't know if I am jealous or scared. :-)
Hank, with each and every increasingly larger essay you post, the more I start to empathize with and resemble the intellectual capacity of our current president.
Mozart once cleverly illustrated why brevity was a much more difficult than diarrhea of the mouth/pen...
Posted by: Marcel Cairo | July 31, 2007 at 12:45 PM
Marcel... thank you for the compliment. :) My general insanity is aided quite nicely in this case by my quick reading ability, I must admit. That said, I do make time for Hank's posts, working in additional time to chew things over in my head.
Annie, and I am jealous in return of those of you who have had the luxury (cheap date or whatever the reason may be) of almost living with such things, and at least of growing up around them. There is something of an easy familiarity in that which I can never achieve. Unfortunately, I am destined to always be the person who realizes that she has been staring at a painting in the museum with her mouth open and eyes bugged for at least a good 5 minutes. How uncouth!
Posted by: Kim | July 31, 2007 at 07:49 PM
Kim: You kill me. These links lead to links lead to... sometimes I get deep and far before I even noticed what happened. Signac was an interesting cat, no doubt. But color is such a biological thing (to me). We see what we see because our eyes work in the way they do. If our eyes were different, color would be also. I'm thinking of all those "invisible" colors on the extremes of the spectrum. IR. UV. The notion of "PURE" color is interesting but it doesn't "arrest" me, as some thoughts do. Did you go home and paint?
(I did.)
Pure colors within the context of "Heaven? Or some kind of technicolor hell?" Now... THAT'S interesting. And funny.
I've never been to the Cleveland Art Museum. In fact, the my only Cleveland memory is that I once wrecked a car there. LONG STORY. As for Joan Miro, I've always had a special place in my life for Miro. Some of you reading will know who I am talking about. When I was boy, in South Texas, there was a family with whom I was friends. The father in this family was an unusual guy and his family followed suit. This family happened to be very involved in "theatre." This was South Texas mind you, but this fellow (the father) was a big investor in New York theatrical productions and films. South Texas Oil Avant-Garde. Very "New York" in a Georgian Manor in South Texas. Anyway, their home was filled with art in the 70's/80's New York way. I'd never experienced that before. And this was SERIOUS art. In the powder room there was a Warhol soupcan... signed "Bon appitit! NAME and NAME - Andy" The walls were covered. Sculpture. You name it. Above the fireplace in the family room was a large Miro (there were a few in the home). I was young. "What's that?" "That's a Miro!" The art in my own home was not like this (it was more traditional). Strange, but in my mind Miro is the quintessential modernist painter... for THIS REASON ONLY. Bobby liked Miro. I, therefore, did too. And still do. I guess that collection is spread across the children's homes now. It was remarkable all in one place.
(I'd still love to read what you have to write about Hydrangea serrata.)
Lisa: This is another collection IN THE GARDEN. It is therefore allowed and allowable. You should do it. If I find a Samantha, I'll let you know. And... as far as art - "never been to an art museum in my life" - you ARE missing something. It was only in New York (and from there) in the late 60's onward that "Art" became such a scene. Art is for everyone. You should go. Don't worry about knowing anything about it. You don't need to know ANYTHING except yourself. You'll see some "famous" things that don't tickle you at all. And then you'll see something - (who knows what it will be?) - that will knock your socks off. So... just keeping looking at that.
The Chicago Art Insititute is WORLD CLASS. In MANY MANY MANY ways, the Art Institute is one of the finest collections IN THE WORLD. (Depends, of course, on what collection.) Not like top 20. More like top 3. You live way too close not to see this. And it is cheap to enter the museum. Like a movie. Or less. (I know you have money and all that but my point is that it isn't a big finacial deal to visit). There are people who live in places that will never have a chance to see these things. You are not one of 'em.
You'll LOVE it.
Annie: Ha! We all walk a different road. I'm sure you look at many things with "fresh" eyes... just DIFFERENT things from me... but I don't believe ANYONE could see that Seurat and not experience some kind of visceral reaction. And how delightful that the Art Institute could be a "Cheap Date."
The McNay, in San Antonio, was the same for me - I used to stash a basket of food and wine (sadly, stolen from my parents cupboards as I was underage and couldn't get it at restaurant or store) in the gardens of the museum and then go pick up my date. We'd wander the galleries and then the gardens. And then. we'd get to the Gazebo at the Japanese garden and I'd "discover" a basket of goodies... corkscrew, glasses, cheese. "Look what I found!" We'd sit with our ankles in the water and sip wine and (maybe) hold hands. Maybe I'd work up the nerve to steal a kiss, but usually not. (It never occured to me that they might be there WAITING for me to do so.) So young. Such "fresh" young girls too. What a time it was. And then security would come by (I knew 'em (I'd cleared it in advance without pointing out the wine thing). They'd cough and make noise, assuming we were doing something torrid, and tell us that gates would close in half an hour.
Ahhh... to do that again.
(I need a minute here.)
-
I'm back.
There are many new Zone 5 macrophyllas that bloom on new wood. I hope your Hydrangea experiment works out! Please keep us posted. And OF COURSE, I wish you luck.
Marcel: Don't be jealous. Be afraid.
And when YOU make jokes about intellecctual capacity, that is REAL irony brother.
(Also... this space is a refuge where pro-and-anti-Bush stuff doesn't fly. You know how I feel about it. Any other talk is just polarizing.)
Also... I can't but assume that you are saying that I have "diarrhea of the mouth/pen..." - HA! Is a fifty page blog post too long?
Kim: Thank you for the nice compliment. And yes... I am jealous of Annie's Art Insitute life as well.
As for "staring at a painting in the museum with her mouth open and eyes bugged for at least a good 5 minutes" is there ANY OTHER WAY TO DO IT?
Posted by: The County Clerk | August 02, 2007 at 12:35 PM
CC: It is amazing how much we 'see' without really 'knowing'! I grew up with Annabelle in the 'Alice in Wonderland' garden of my grandfather and I credit them both with my love of gardens and gardening but your post reminds me that there is so much to be learned and re-learned. (I know I have forgotten more than I now know.) Let me tell you that this was well worth the wait and also an inspiration to start cataloging the plants in the garden in some sort of organized way...not so much to show what I do have there and enjoy but really to show what is missing! You are not changing your garden's name to Hydrangealistan are you? I like Digitalistan although it does not have the permanence of the shrub!
Posted by: layanee | August 06, 2007 at 05:59 AM
About a week ago I received an email about this post. The person clearly didn't want to "go public" and elected to email me. So... I'll handle it this way and respond.
-
"*The origin of the Japanese word AJISAI was AZU SA AI, the meaning being "gathering blue colors"." - from plants and Japan.
"i hope i'm not being an unrepentant knowitall... but i only know about ten japanese words. and one of them is flower (hana), and i knew that ajisai couldn't possibly be "rain flower". if it helps, one of my favorite words is "hanabi" which is "fire flowers". which is close to what they call fireworks in Land of the Dead. that cheers me up. i'm enjoying the rest of your post very much... where did you hear "rain flower"?"
"meant in the least obnoxious way possible, "
[signed]
Posted by: ANONYMOUS c/o County Clerk | August 06, 2007 at 09:32 AM
Layanee: I agree with you. When I elect to "pay attention" (which is not as often as I'd like) I marvel at a million common mysteries. They are everywhere. And THEN, when I "discover" something, I am elated... until I realize that I've discovered a thing that millins of others already know. The discovery is private. There is no contribution to my tribe. I'm just a guy in a garden having thoughts. YES... "there is so much to be learned and re-learned."
As for cataloging plants in a garden, that is a fundamental part of my nature. I have to do it. But I imagine that, for most, it is not neccesary.
As for Digitalistan, the nation of Foxglove remains. (But Hydrangealistan is funny!) I'm a foxglove nut. I can't wait. (But in terms of number of species/varieties I have MANY berberis, hydrangea, and delphinium too.) Many of the shrubs are small. We'll see what happens.
Anonymous: First of all, "knowitalls" are welcome here. I like "knowitalls." I like being surrounded by people who know things. Second of all, you are right. I am wrong. THANK YOU for the good information. What I should have written was that Hydrangeas are a symbol of the rainy season in Japan. They are sometimes informally called rain flowers (but not formally). And... isn't it interesting that flower named for water (Hydo) is a rainy season flower in the East?
Posted by: The County Clerk | August 06, 2007 at 09:50 AM
You are absolutely right, Hank! I NEED to go to the Chicago Art Institute, and since I've been jonesing for a concert, I may have to make a trip next summer for the Chicago Blues Festival and do the museum then! Oh yea....sweet home Chicago!
Posted by: lisa | August 09, 2007 at 12:32 PM
Bulk? I had to read the tag twice to make sure. Interesting designation.
There's always a spoiler in the crowd. I'm afraid the Seurat left me cold. How to describe it... too indistinct, too much surface and technique? Give me a Beckmann any day.
Posted by: Ki | August 09, 2007 at 08:43 PM
You're back. You're back. I was so distraught when I thought I would have to miss your posts. Thanks for returning.
Posted by: mgmason | August 12, 2007 at 12:41 AM
I like your candle metaphor for ignorance. LIGHT MORE CANDLES PEOPLE! :- )
Posted by: Candle Metaphor | June 22, 2008 at 04:51 PM