Category: exploring place

From “An Impression of Chrysanthemums” in Chrysanthemum (Botanical) by Twigs Way:

“One of several Japanese exhibitions of the early nineteenth century, [the ‘Japan-British Exhibition’ of 1910] was driven by Japan’s desire to improve public relations and encourage tourism following the renewal of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. Based at White City in London, it was the largest foreign exposition that the empire of Japan had ever participated in and lasted over five months. There were more than 2,000 exhibitors of arts, crafts and technology housed alongside two large Japanese gardens complete with tea tents where the famous tea ceremony was enacted….

“These gardens were designed as authentic Japanese gardens rather than the hybrid Anglo-Japanese style that had already infiltrated both England and France, and they were constructed from scratch at the exhibition site. Trees, shrubs, wooden buildings, bridges, and even stones, were brought in from Japan as well as the actual designers and gardeners. The two gardens were named the Garden of the Floating Isle (replete with Japanese tea-house) and the Garden of Peace. Although not rich in flowers, instead focusing on the ‘architectural’ elements and layout of a traditional Japanese garden, they gave further impetus to quasi-Japanese gardens and planting in England….

“Visited by 8 million people between 14 May and 29 October, they gave a boost to the popularity of plants such as the orchid, bamboo and chrysanthemum, all of which began to appear in even the most ‘popular’ of gardening books. In 1911 the Chokushi-Mon (Gateway of the Imperial Messenger) from the exhibition was moved to Kew Gardens, where its stylized flower and animal carving can still be seen, including of course the chrysanthemum emblem.”

From “The Old Tea Master of Kyoto” by Antoinette Rotan Peterson in Lotus and Chrysanthemum: An Anthology of Chinese and Japanese Poetry, selected and edited by Joseph Lewis French:

Our race has given to the world
A matchless art in all things small.
This lacquered box with dragonflies impearled
And gold chrysanthemums against a wall
Of silvery rocks where runs a quail to cover
Upon a ground of purest cinnabar,
Shall we not rightly reverence it
And make our conversation fit
The artist’s great achievement over
A strange intractable material,
The ceremonial tea occasion gives
For studious contemplation of the arts
And never bidden guest departs
But feels anew that Beauty lives
With power to lift man’s hearts….

Hello!

This is the last of three posts featuring photographs of late-2024 mums from Oakland Cemetery’s gardens showing off their yellow, orange, and gold colors. The first post is Mums in Yellow, Orange, and Gold (1 of 3) and the second post is Mums in Yellow, Orange, and Gold (2 of 3).

Thanks for taking a look!

From “In Peace and War” in Chrysanthemum (Botanical) by Twigs Way:

“The first mention of chrysanthemums being exhibited in America is in the rather unglamorous periodical the New England Farmer of 26 November 1830. This gave a report of chrysanthemums being shown at the Massachusetts Horticultural Society on 20 November of that year, including some well-known ‘English’ varieties including ‘Tasseled White’, ‘Park’s Small Yellow’, ‘Quilled Lilac’, ‘Quilled White’ and ‘Golden Lotus’….

“The cultivar namings indicate that the origin of the chrysanthemum infiltration was most likely England and not direct from China or Japan or via the continent. An American catalogue of 1857 refers to the ‘magnificent seminal varieties’ latterly produced in Europe (thanks to the special trading relationship with Japan and China) and goes on to indicate that chrysanthemums were now filling the gardens of the middle and southern states, where they supplied ‘one of the principal adornments by an ever-varying display of beauty during the autumnal period when most other plants present us only [with] the remains of departed verdure’….

“Names of varieties available by 1857 indicate an influx of European varieties by this period alongside the original English colonists; these varieties included ‘Duchess d’Abrantes’, ‘Grand Napoleon’, ‘Guillaume Tell’, ‘General Lafont de Villiers’ and ‘La Superba’, alongside the English ‘Annie Salter’, ‘Annie Henderson’ and the ‘Cloth of Gold’ (a suitably fine yellow colour)….”

From “Soothsayer” by Mary Ursula Bethell in An Anthology of Twentieth-Century New Zealand Poetry, selected by Vincent O’Sullivan:

I walked about the garden in the evening,
And thought: How Autumn lingers —
Still a few gold chrysanthemums —
Still one late rose —
The old blackbird still has voice.

I walked back down the pathway,
The evening light lay gently on the orchard;
Then I saw a redness on the peach boughs,
And bulb-spears pushing upwards,

And heard the old blackbird whistle —
‘Get ready. Get ready. Get ready.
Quick. Quick. Spring.’

Hello!

This is the second of three posts featuring photographs of mums I took at Oakland Cemetery’s gardens whose colors include shades of yellow, orange, and gold. The first post is Mums in Yellow, Orange, and Gold (1 of 3).

In the quotation at the top of this post, I added search-links for each of the flower variants mentioned by the author, many from the horticultural journal New England Farmer, which began publishing in the early 19th century. The number of images varies quite a bit (possibly some of the names are no longer commonly used), but many of the flowers by those unusual names are quite fetching. I especially liked Quilled Lilac and Quilled White with their lacy flower petals — two plants I’ve never seen before but would surely like to encounter somewhere.

Thanks for taking a look!

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!