From “Smuggling Tea and Chrysanthemums” in Chrysanthemum (Botanical) by Twigs Way:
“In 1796 William Curtis (1746–1799), botanical writer and editor of the Botanical Magazine, widely known as Curtis’s Botanical Magazine, announced in that publication the arrival in England of the ornamental and highly valuable acquisition for all flower fanciers, the ‘Indian’ chrysanthemum or (in the classical language of botanists) the Chrysanthemum indicum….
“Setting aside the casual manner in which plants from ‘the East’ were regularly assigned to some mythical all-encompassing ‘India’, it seems almost incredible that the flower so beloved of the East had not made its way to England prior to the late eighteenth century. However, that is exactly what Curtis went on to suggest and although there has subsequently been some confusion over ‘when is a chrysanthemum not a chrysanthemum’, Curtis’s claim to have been the herald of the first true florists’ chrysanthemum on English soil remains largely unchallenged and oft repeated….
“In fact flowers named ‘chrysanthemum’ had been described in the numerous ‘herbals’ and ‘plant histories’ well before the eighteenth century, as might be expected given that the term literally meant ‘gold flower’.”
From “Gold Chrysanthemums” by Hattori Ransetsu in Enjoying More Poetry, compiled by R. K. Sadler:
Gold chrysanthemums!
White chrysanthemums!
Others need not be mentioned.
Hello!
This is the first of three posts featuring photographs of mums I took at Oakland Cemetery’s gardens whose colors include shades of yellow, orange, and gold. Unlike the yellow ones I posted previously (see White and Yellow, Mums and Daisies (1 of 3)) — which show soft yellow and white shades that were common to early or native mum variations — the mums in these images exhibit years of selective breeding that produced new (and sometimes astonishing) flower colors and color combinations. In addition to the apparent yellow and orange colors you see among these flowers, my Color Slurp utility reveals their variations of gold — many of which are among the shades of gold described on Wikipedia.
PlantNet identifies all the flowers in this series as either Chrysanthemum × morifolium or Chrysanthemum indicum — both of which commonly appear around here as late as early winter and tolerate dropping temperatures very well. According to my research assistant ClaudeAI, they can withstand the cold temperatures — including falls below freezing at night — because their stems contain chemical compounds that act like biological antifreeze that keeps the cellular structure of the stems, leaves, and flowers from breaking down. As the plant detects lowering temperatures, it responds by generating more and more of these protective chemicals and pushes them throughout its cells. ClaudeAI described this anti-freezing mechanism as “really clever” — which, I suppose, it actually is!
I was going to name this post “There’s Gold in Them Thar Mums” — after the phrase “There’s gold in them thar hills” — but thought that might be a little too corny, even for me. But, as one does, I started wondering about the genesis of that phrase. I only remembered it from Looney Tunes and Bugs Bunny cartoons (having absorbed hundreds of them as a kid), and didn’t even know it was attributed to a non-cartoon human named M. F. Stephenson.
Stephenson was a miner during the Georgia Gold Rush that lasted from 1829 until the 1840s, a rush that was second only to California’s Gold Rush in significance and the volume of precious metals extracted from the north Georgia mountains. He coined the phrase not only so Bugs Bunny could use it in the 1950s and 60s, but as part of a speech encouraging other prospectors to hit up the Georgia mountains rather than travel for months from Georgia to California. The New Georgia Encyclopedia has a nice summary of Georgia’s gold rush era, if you’d like to read more about it.
Thanks for taking a look!
