"Pay attention to the world." -- Susan Sontag
 

Pink Painted Pyrethrum, or Persian Daisies (2 of 2)

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From “Autumn Composites” in My Garden in Autumn and Winter by E. A. Bowles:

“It is about the third week in September that the Asters in the pergola garden are at their best, and if the Vines on the vine pergola are doing their duty that season and have coloured well, the contrasts of colour are beautiful on a sunny day. A row of the lovely rosy-pink Aster… crosses the front of one of the square beds, hiding up the plots of bare ground where the Daffodils reigned in the Spring. Though the colour of this delightful variety is charming at all times, it glows out with an extra charm just at sunset, and increases in beauty every minute until the light has faded almost away….”

From “Border Flowers: Pyrethrum” in Flowers and Their Histories by Alice M. Coats:

“From the early days of its cultivation it was known that this plant was a principal ingredient in the manufacture of Persian insect-powder; and its near relation, P. cinerarifolia, was used for the same purpose in Dalmatia. The powder is produced from the flower-heads, which are cut just as they are about to open, carefully dried, and pulverized; and Pyrethrum-powder as an insecticide has become of increasing importance in the present century. Pyrethrums are grown for this purpose in Kenya, and were considered a crop of the first priority during the last war, for their value in the control of insect pests and the prevention of typhus and other insect-spread diseases.

“The pyrethrums are closely related to the chrysanthemums…. The Greek name comes from pyr, meaning fire, and was originally given to a plant with a hot, biting root…. The root of this plant was formerly used as a cure for toothache….”

Hello!

This is the second of two posts featuring photos of Tanacetum coccineum — commonly known as Painted Daisies, Persian Daisies, or (once upon a time) Pyrethrum. The first post is Pink Painted Pyrethrum, or Persian Daisies (1 of 2).

When I took this batch of photos, the sun had slipped behind some thin clouds, keeping shadows intact yet darkening the scene just a bit. The added saturation made many of these flowers even pinker than the previous pink ones. And — check it out! — the last one is waving “Goodbye” to you!

Thanks for taking a look!

Pink Painted Pyrethrum, or Persian Daisies (1 of 2)

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From “Pink” in The Secret Lives of Color by Kassia St. Clair:

“The word pink itself is relatively young….

“The first reference in the Oxford English Dictionary of the word being used to describe pale reds is the late seventeenth century. Before then pink usually referred to a kind of pigment….

“Pink pigments were made by binding an organic colorant, such as buckthorn berries or an extract of the broom shrub, to an inorganic substance like chalk, which gave it body. They came in several colors — you could have green pinks, rose pinks, or brown pinks — but were, more often than not, yellow. It is an odd quirk that while light reds acquired a name of their own, pale greens and yellows did not for the most part (although several languages, including Russian, do have different words for pale and deep blues). Most romance languages made do with a variation of the word rose, from the flower….

“Although it is not certain, it is likely that the English derived their word for the color from another flower, the Dianthus plumarius, also known as the Pink.”

From “The Narrow Border” in Cuttings from My Garden Notebooks by Graham Stuart Thomas:

“I have in mind a long narrow border of which the only views are from end to end because, although there is a grass walk to stand on while appreciating it, there is also a hedge completely sealing off all frontal views. Passing behind the hedge, therefore, one uses the grass walk as a means of viewing the border from end to end. Along the front is an edging of Catmint (Nepeta X faassenii), which if clipped over in July will remain in respectable bloom until the autumn, contributing its greyish leaves and soft lavender flowers to almost any colour grouping. Behind it are pyrethrums, irises and lupins, all for June display. Pyrethrums (Tanacetum coccineum) have good parsley-like foliage until autumn….”

Hello!

It can be a challenge to determine the names of some of the Asters I’ve been photographing, but I think I’ve correctly identified these very, very pink ones as the somewhat unpronounceable Tanacetum coccineum — commonly described by the easier-to-say names Pyrethrum, or Painted Daisies, or Persian Daisies. Even if I’ve gotten it wrong, they’re definitely pink! And the first one is waving “Hello!” to you!

Thanks for taking a look!

White Asters / Shasta Daisies (2 of 2)

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From “Best of Show” in The Reason For Flowers: Their History, Culture, Biology, and How They Change Our Lives by Stephen Buchmann:

“Almost everyone knows about Luther Burbank (1849–1926) and his russet Burbank potato, especially ardent fans of McDonald’s french fries. Making hand crosses in the manner of traditional plant breeding, Burbank, ‘the wizard of horticulture,’ created dozens of new varieties of fruits and vegetables, along with the much-beloved Shasta daisy and ninety-one other types of ornamental plants….

“Curiously, hybrid plant origins were something horticulturists often tried to conceal in the not-so-good-old days. In parts of Western Europe and America, hybrid plants were often regarded as ungodly, or certainly at least unnatural and to be avoided. Prideful man was not permitted to ape his Creator by producing a new kind of living thing….

“This sounds ridiculous today, but even Luther Burbank told a story about how a minister, posing as Burbank’s friend, denounced him from the pulpit for flouting God’s laws by creating hybrids. It seems that Burbank’s Shasta daisy, proudly grown in American gardens for more than a century, is not so innocent a bloom despite its many, pure-white ‘chaste’ petals.”

From “Adolescent Garden” in Red Clay by Eve Hoffman:

My garden is five years old, orderly and raucous,
blurring the line between what we planted and
what God planted….

A modest magnolia on the edge of the woods, an elm
growing so fast its limbs have been raised twice.
Oak leaf and lace cap hydrangeas
the deer pruned down to the ground when first
planted. White and purple beauty berries, tiny pale
blue butterflies. Red rhododendron blossoms
the size of white peonies next to them, blue iris….

Echinacea, shasta daisies,
bushes with berries that invite birds and tree branches
that fork to hold nests….

Summer wasps and weeds, wildness to be tamed,
plants surrendering to the Georgia heat.
And in the season of no blossoms
a hortus botanicus of texture and green.

Hello!

This is the second of two posts with photographs of Shasta Daisies (Leucanthemum × superbum) that I recently took at Oakland Cemetery’s gardens. The first post — with photos AND math — is White Asters / Shasta Daisies (1 of 2).

Thanks for taking a look!