“[However] common the flowering quinces may be, they are still first-rate shrubs. They come in pink, white, orange, and scarlet, and in time form globular plants six or seven feet high, but are easily pruned to lower heights if you prefer. The large occasional fruits can be made into preserves. I did that once but never ate the stuff; possibly you could send them for Christmas presents.”
“Japonica blossoms burst out of bare branches in earliest spring before there are green leaves anywhere. They are sometimes white, but more usually red or brilliant coral, and they seem more like an implausible statement against the darkness of winter than real flowers….
“The naming of the japonica itself is complicated. The first japonica was named by the Swedish botanist Carl Peter Thunberg, a pupil of Linnaeus…. After this, the japonica played for a while a kind of nomenclatural musical chairs….
“Finally japonicas came to rest botanically by being classed as Chaenomeles, from the Greek chainein (to gape) and melon (apple), referring to a perception that the fruit was split. Thunberg’s original plant and its descendants became Chaenomeles japonica, and the plant from China and its descendants became Chaenomeles speciosa. Both are more often called ‘japonicas’ or ‘flowering quince.’ Both produce brilliant blossoms in early spring, followed by a hard pear or quince-like fruit that can be made into jelly.”
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The white quinces are flowering! Normally that’s not notable, since it’s common here to see scattered quince blooms throughout the winter then busting out all over toward the end of January or in February. But after our late-December deep-freeze (see Plant Entanglements (1 of 2), where I wrote about the damage to flora and fauna around town), the quinces were pretty stagnant: most of the leaves had been burned off by the cold weather and there were only a few small, crumpled flowers remaining. But after a nice warmup recently and some scattered rain, they’re on their way back.
What may not be so evident from the photos, though, is this: the flowers are coming back faster than the leaves — something unusual that I see happening in my own garden where several large fringe flower bushes have produced flowers but have not yet replaced the leaves destroyed by the cold weather. They look so weird: imagine long, thin branches similar to those in the quince photos below, with no leaves but just a tiny pink tassel hanging off the end. I was going to take some photos of them in that stripped-down condition… but I didn’t want to embarrass them….
Plants that wake when others sleep — Timid jasmine buds that keep Their fragrance to themselves all day, But when the sunlight dies away Let the delicious secret out To every breeze that roams about.
The roses red upon my neighbor’s vine Are owned by him, but they are also mine. His was the cost, and his the labor, too, But mine as well as his the joy, their loveliness to view.
They bloom for me and are for me as fair As for the man who gives them all his care. Thus I am rich, because a good man grew A rose-clad vine for all his neighbors’ view.
I know from this that others plant for me, And what they own, my joy may also be. So why be selfish, when so much that’s fine Is grown for you, upon your neighbor’s vine.
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It’s always fun to uncover splashes of color among the winterized branches and bushes. Below are a few photos of tiny jasmine blooms, the first I’ve seen so far as we try to wrap up winter. The blooms — even the fully opened ones — are barely half an inch long, but still glow with some very bright yellows.
Below the jasmine photos are some early rosebush and rose vine leaves. They have quite a few large and thorny thorns, mostly, I believe, to protect them from photographers who like to stick their faces and lenses into the bushes — but also to ward off plant-eating predators.
“SALVIA (Lamiaceae): With a name derived from the Latin, salvare (“to heal”), it is clear that some of the sages have a significant medical history. All have a powerful aroma, very clearly that of Lamiaceae to any reasonably experienced gardener or botanist, but also very different from each other. Indeed, it would be fair to say that there is probably as much difference in aromatics from sage to sage as among the scents of any other genus. The range of colour is also unrivalled….”
“ARTEMISIA: A large genus of aromatic and bitter herbs and small shrubs, mostly in the northern hemisphere, and most abundant in arid regions. Leaves alternate, often dissected: heads small and mostly inconspicuous, numerous and generally nodding, with yellow or whitish florets… In the West, many of the species, particularly A. tridentata, are known as sage brush.”
“SPIRAEA (Rosaceae): Once upon time this was a large genus, but the splitters have had their way, so Spiraea is down to around 80 woody plants found across cool temperate North America and Eurasia…. Spireas are deciduous shrubs of woodland edge and open damp habitats. All are long-lived clonal competitive shrubs, and some are able to sucker strongly to form thickets…. [The] plants contain salicylates and so have analgesic qualities. The genus is named after the Greek word for a plant used in making garlands.”
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Spring must be on its way: bits of color are starting to appear!
The salvia (in the first six photos) has begun making new leaves, shedding purplish winter ones for freshened up green. Spirea (in the last six photos) has popped out some of its tiny white blooms, while showing off their bright yellow collars. Sagebrush (in the middle) doesn’t really have much color, but I liked the fluffy silver look mixed with some shadowy blues — the closest we ever got to ice-on-plants this year.
“We often think of trees as things, as objects. We perhaps see them as providers of shade, but mostly we think of them as things we can use, shape, and force into restricted spaces….
“Trees are victims of their own immobility — they are anchored in place. We forget that they live with us on this planet and that the planet, indeed, was theirs for tens of thousands of years before it was ours. They grab on to the planet… unshakeable and strong and able to regenerate, to begin again from the beginning, leaf after leaf….
“We forget that they breathe every day, leaf by leaf. We forget about their unique and extraordinary ability to draw food and energy from light. We overlook their constant and vital contribution to the life of the planet as they produce oxygen and supply it to other creatures. The fact that trees provide oxygen is such an acknowledged and accepted fact that it loses all meaning. It is an obvious notion — something we learned in school as kids — so we forget it….
I saw from this fair region, The smile of summer pass, And myriad frost-stars glitter Among the russet grass.
While winter seized the streamlets That fled along the ground, And fast in chains of crystal The truant murmurers bound.
I saw that to the forest The nightingales had flown, And every sweet-voiced fountain Had hushed its silver tone.
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Here’s something a bit different; or at least partially a bit different. We had very few sunny days in January, but I did slink out into the neighborhood on one of them, and in addition to aiming my camera toward the little things I usually photograph, I took these pictures of some of the giant trees that populate the grounds at Oakland Cemetery. With the trees still sporting their winter leaflessness, the views of them and beyond them were quite fantastic. As is often the case with wide-angle-zoom images, it can be difficult to interpret the scale of what is shown; but for comparison, I will say that the cluster of pointy pine trees is thirty to forty feet high.
The two buildings I zoomed in on (in images nine and ten) are about two miles from the grounds, if a straight-flying crow headed in their direction. The silver cylinder on the left is the Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel, known for its glass facade and its 360-degree view of the city from a restaurant on one of the top floors. The building to its right is 191 Peachtree Tower — an office tower with matching art-deco structures at its top, with an overall design that somewhat mirrors a building it replaced, the Majestic Hotel.
The grassy photos were experimental — or whatever! — because I was aiming 300mm of zooming at a few blades near a fence, from six feet away. The wisps kept moving in the breeze — as wisps do — but I got a few I was satisfied with, and their backgrounds are somewhat pleasant.
Hark to the merry birds, hark how they sing! Although ’tis not yet spring And keen the air; Hale Winter, half resigning ere he go, Doth to his heiress shew His kingdom fair.
In patient russet is his forest spread, All bright with bramble red, With beechen moss And holly sheen: the oak silver and stark Sunneth his aged bark And wrinkled boss.
But neath the ruin of the withered brake Primroses now awake From nursing shades: The crumpled carpet of the dry leaves brown Avails not to keep down The hyacinth blades.
The hazel hath put forth his tassels ruffed; The willow’s flossy tuft Hath slipped him free: The rose amid her ransacked orange hips Braggeth the tender tips Of bowers to be….
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I’ve passed by the fascinating plant featured in the images below many times at Oakland Cemetery’s gardens, but never photographed it before. It stands about five feet high and stretches perhaps fifteen feet laterally, producing delightfully twisty branches and clusters of catkins as it’s winter garb. On a trip to the gardens a couple of weeks ago, I decided to give it some attention, then learn more about it.
The shrub is a Corkscrew Hazel, and, like many plants, its name has a history of its own. It’s named after Hazel Corkscrew (born “Hazel Culpepper” with a similarly botanical surname), who was a Victorian Burlesque performer well-known in the late 19th century for her unusual contortionist abilities. Ms. Corkscrew would appear in jester’s slippers shaped like the plant’s catkins and, while dancing, was able to stretch and bend her arms and legs into curves that looked a lot like the plant’s branches. Several British botanists — having observed the plant in nature and the performer whilst out pubbing — couldn’t resist informally naming the shrub after Ms. Corkscrew, and after a while, the name stuck. Ms. Corkscrew lived well into her 90s — those stretching routines really paid off! — and in addition to being a botanical inspiration, she worked as a labor relations advocate in retirement, successfully unionizing many younger burlesque performers, who became known as — you guessed it — The Corkscrew Girls.
Haha! I just made all that up, pulling out my special Authoritative Tone of Voice to try and convince you. Yet it’s not that farfetched, given that the plant does have a connection to the 19th century entertainment industry. It’s known by multiple common names (such as twisted hazel and winter hazel, with its twisted branches so much more visible during leafless winters), including “Harry Lauder’s Walking Stick” — a name linked to Scottish entertainer Harry Lauder, whose performances included the use of a contorted cane or walking stick that resembled the plant’s branches. Lauder made and accumulated a large number of such walking sticks throughout his career; and some, it has been said, may have been made from a Corkscrew Hazel’s branches.
I dug in for a while trying to find the genesis of “Harry Lauder’s Walking Stick” as its common name, but my research only led to a lot of assumptions that it “came to be known” that way, without uncovering a source or even a reasonably precise time frame. In Elizabeth Lawrence’s Beautiful At All Seasons, for example, Lawrence mentions the common name, but skips over its origins. She does, however, point toward the plant’s emergence in British gardens, which is an interesting story in itself:
“The original plant was found by Lord Ducie in a Gloucestershire hedgerow. He gave a plant to Canon Ellacombe, who passed it on to E. A. Bowles, and now, one hundred years later, it is in the trade and anyone can have it….
“I remembered some notes on the twisted hazel in an old issue of the Royal Horticultural Society Journal, and looking back I found a photograph of Mr. Bowles’s shrub, taken in early spring when the bare branches were hung with silken tassels. It really is beautiful…. In the picture the catkins are perfectly straight, but the branches twist and turn as wildly as ever, so that the whole bush is ‘a collection of various curves and spirals, a tangle of crooks and corkscrews from root to tip.’ The reason for these contortions is that the outer bark of one of the parent plants was slow growing, and the inner bark of the other grew fast. The wood of the offspring never has a chance to straighten out, but is always being pulled in the opposite direction.
“Perhaps the popular name needs some explanation to the present generation, which may not know about Harry Lauder’s crooked cane. The twisted hazel was the first and the most interesting inmate of the part of Mr. Bowles’s garden that he called the ‘Lunatic Asylum,’ a home for demented plants. Freaks of nature interested and amused him. He collected all that he could find or hear of, and gave them the greatest care.”
The “E. A. Bowles” that Lawrence refers to is Edward Augustus Bowles, a British horticulturalist, whose book My Garden in Spring contains a chapter called “The Lunatic Asylum” — where he elaborates on his home for wayward plants:
“[A] home was needed for some trees and shrubs of abnormal characteristics that I had been collecting, and the Lunatic Asylum sprang into existence.
”The twisted Hazel was the first crazy occupant, and is perhaps the maddest of all even now. It was first found in a hedge by Lord Ducie, near Tortworth, who moved it into the garden, increased it by layering, and so distributed it to a few friends, my plant being a sucker given me by Canon Ellacombe from his fine specimen….
“It is a most remarkable form, for it never produces a bit of straight wood; the stem between each leaf is curved as though one side had grown much faster than the other, and alternating lengths are generally curved in opposite directions; frequently they are twisted spirally as well, so that the whole bush is a collection of various curves and spirals, a tangle of crooks and corkscrews from root to tip. They do not straighten out with age and thickening, and in winter, when leafless, the interlacing twigs are beautiful as well as curious… I have not seen catkins or nuts on it, and wonder whether the former would be curly lambs’ tails, and the latter coiled like rams’ horns.”
It’s hard to say why his corkscrew hazel hadn’t produced catkins — though he does refer to their presence in a subsequent book, My Garden in Autumn and Winter — and his speculation that they might look curly like lambs’ tails is certainly correct. And though he never refers to the plant by the name “Harry Lauder’s Walking Stick”, his description of the mechanism by which the plant’s branches twist is quite compelling — and fits my photos really well! — even if he’s not the source of its delightful popular name. We may not know how the “walking stick” name actually came about — but we can still get a kick out of the plant with a history in his Lunatic Asylum, and enjoy the photos!
