Tag: windflower

From “Anemone” in Japanese Gardens by Wendy B. Murphy:

“The Japanese anemone, a perennial grown for its late-summer flowers, is actually a native of China — Hupeh, the source of one of its Latin names, is a Chinese province — but it is considered one of the classical plants of Japanese gardening. Traditionally it is grown in the shade of trees or against dark rocks, where the clear, light colors of its flowers can best be appreciated. Sometimes plants listed as A. japonica are actually hybrids of this plant and A. vitifolia (grape-leaved anemone), a Himalayan species; this hybrid is taller than either parent, up to 5 feet, and is generally too large for use in a Japanese garden.

“The Japanese anemone grows to a height of 2½ to 3 feet. It has slender, branching flower stalks and deeply cut dark green leaves that form a 12-inch mound of foliage. The 2- to 3-inch-wide flowers are generally pink or mauve, though there is also a white variety. For Japanese gardens single-flowered varieties are considered more suitable than those with double flowers. The Japanese anemone is long-lived, and if left undisturbed it grows more beautiful with age….”

From “White Anemone” by Bryllion Fagin in The Music Makers: An Anthology of Recent American Poetry, compiled by Stanton A. Coblentz:

I keep in memory one lovely hour
That stirs my heart through darkened days and fair;
Faint with the struggle to escape the snare
Set by the world’s grim, vision-crushing power,
By chance I found a garden where a flower,
Gold-chaliced, raised its face in fragrant prayer
In its own petaled shrine, and kneeling there,
Felt my bound soul fly from its grief-barred tower.

Since I have found the path to beauty’s place
My peace-enamored self shall never know
Again the haunted cells of loneliness.
For I have looked upon an angel’s face
Incarnate in anemone’s pale snow,
Fair as a spirit, and as passionless.

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Hello!

This is the second of two posts with photographs of Eriocapitella japonica (previously named Anemone japonica) from Oakland Cemetery. The first post is Eriocapitella japonica, the Japanese Anemone (1 of 2).

The tropical storm formerly known as Hurricane Isaias left behind some cool, breezy, and mildly overcast weather this past Sunday — finally introducing some autumn-adjacent conditions The Photographer was pining for toward the end of September. Autumn photography at Oakland is something that took me a few years to fully appreciate, but I’ve come to see it as a season of color equal to spring and early summer, far beyond how its oaks and maples change. This past Sunday’s photography haul included images of Aromatic Asters, Gaillardia (unexpectedly blooming late), Goldenrod, Rudbeckia, Tanacetum, Zinnias, Zephyr Lilies, and a new encounter with a giant tree called Cunninghamia lanceolata, the Chinese Fir Tree whose pine-needle branches turn bright orange and yellow before they drop to the ground like piles of leaves.

On this Sunday trip, I revisited the location where I’d found the Eriocapitella japonica for these two posts and was happy to discover that their double pink relatives (Eriocapitella × hybrida) had come into bloom since late September, just around the corner. I had only photographed a few of the double-pinks one other time (see Eriocapitella, or: The Plants Formerly Known as Anemone (1 of 2)), and on this trip found many more than the eight I’d photographed last year. I’m still working on those photos, but here’s a sample…

… and here’s another sample where a hoverfly joined the photoshoot and stood still long enough for me to get several shots, including a pretty tight yet still well-focused closeup. Little pollinators everywhere seem to like the cooler temperatures as much as I do, and this particular one’s black and orange striped body provided a nice color contrast to the flower’s pink petals.

While it’s still a little early for the bulk of Oakland’s most colorful asters and mums — except Aromatic Asters and a few Tanacetums — here’s a hint showing flowers of the near future in one location where they fill part of a large raised memorial garden and are probably less than a week from opening in full.

I passed about a dozen similar areas on the grounds where the flowers were at this stage of preparing to bloom, so I expect I’ll be romping through the property again this weekend to see what I can find.

Thanks for reading and taking a look!

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From “Begonia and Other Flowering Herbs” in The Garden Flowers of China by H. L. Li:

“The anemone, a perennial free-flowering plant with pink and white flowers, is one of the most desirable herbaceous flowers of the autumn garden. It has a long period of cultivation in China, where it is known as Pai Tou Weng (White-haired Old Man), and is a familiar plant in the autumn garden. The plant was formerly used in medicine for a variety of diseases from rheumatic pain to dysentery.

“The anemones now ornament the Western garden, and these are mostly hybrids of European origin evolved from the Chinese species. Called the Japanese anemone, Anemone japonica, this, like many other garden plants, did not originate in Japan but was first noted by European naturalists in that country in the eighteenth century. These naturalists named many a species japonica that was only Japanese by cultivation but actually Chinese in origin (Bowles and Stearn, 1947).”

From “September’s Farewell” in My Garden in Autumn and Winter by E. A. Bowles:

“Anemone japonica is a plant I should like to grow every known form of, even some of the very double ones, but space forbids, so I have limited myself to a few. It is one of those plants that when first introduced to Britain was treated as a greenhouse plant, and instructions for so growing it may be found in old gardening books, of the date of Mrs. Loudon’s. Also, like so many introductions from China or Japan of that date, it was a garden form that came, a semi-double, crude pink one, still with us, but one of the least desirable. It is only within the last few years that the really wild type has arrived….

“It is a charming plant, perfectly single, of a soft tone of pink, with neat habit, round flowers about two and a half inches across, and one of the best of the many plants that have poured into our gardens lately from the Chinese province of Hupeh. It was at first called Anemone hupehensis, but is now generally regarded as a wild form of A. japonica. I like it as well as any of the larger forms, for it has the look of a species about it, and a wonderful substance in the flowers….

“Then there is the beautiful old white form, formerly known as Honorine Joubert, and a plant one should allow to naturalise itself among shrubs and in cool, half-shaded borders as much as it likes, for it will give nearly three months’ display of its well shaped pure-white flowers, which have the most lovely of golden centres, both for form and colour, of any flower I can think of except Rosa bracteata.”

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Hello!

This is the first of two posts with photographs of a plant from Oakland Cemetery that has come to mark the transition between summer and fall for me. I’ve so far encountered two (probable) species on the grounds, one of which (Eriocapitella japonica, formerly named Anemone japonica (among other names)) appears around September, and one (Eriocapitella × hybrida) that’s more likely to start blooming later in October. Since it’s still just barely September, this post includes only Eriocapitella japonica, but I’m sure I’ll hunt down the other species in a few weeks, and may even find some Eriocapitella japonica plants still producing blooms.

Like the Clematis from my own back yard (see Clematis Abundance (1 of 3)), plants in the Eriocapitella genus are members of the Ranunculaceae family, and they carry the distinctive center structure that earned the whole family the common name Buttercup. Coincidentally, one of the Eriocapitella japonica plant’s earliest botanical names was Clematis polypetala, perhaps as an observation that the flowers looked like tiny versions of Clematis blooms. This is of course something I just made up, yet it’s not an unreasonable theory given that Clematis polypetala goes back to the early 18th century and early scientific plant names were often developed around appearance similarities. For my part, I’m just glad I finally learned to spell the name of these delightful plants without having to copy and paste it from another document. And the pronunciation tip I created in last year’s post — see Eriocapitella, or: The Plants Formerly Known as Anemone (1 of 2) — has held up pretty well, which also helps me get the spelling right.

Farewell September!

Thanks for taking a look!

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From “Anemone or Windflower” in Lexicon of Romantic Gardens by W. T. Wehmeyer and Hermann Hackstein:

“The name Anemone comes from ‘nemos,’ the Greek word for wind, and indeed the delicate flowers do move at the slightest breath of wind. The rather fragile-looking flowers have always been symbolic of innocence, trust, transitoriness, and vulnerability. Yet appearances are deceptive, because windflowers are in fact rather undemanding plants that do not require much care.

“Windflowers prefer a sunny to semi-shaded site in the garden. They look especially attractive when planted in small groups. Depending on the species and variety, the flowers may be white, pink, red, blue, or violet, and appear in spring, summer, or fall. Planting different species will thus ensure an enchanting display throughout most of the year.

“Very attractive species include Anemone blanda, for example, which is also known as Greek thimbleweed, and which flowers between March and May. Anemone coronaria, the poppy anemone, garden anemone, or crown anemone, also flowers in spring. Anemone japonica, on the other hand, also known as Japanese anemone, or autumn anemone, ensures color in the fall.”

From “Anemones: Flowers of the Wind” in The Secrets of Wildflowers: A Delightful Feast of Little-Known Facts, Folklore, and History by Jack Sanders:

“Anemone is based on the Greek word for ‘wind,’ whose root word means ‘breathes’ or ‘lives,’ the same root from which words like animated and animal stem. Some authorities say the generic name means ‘wind’ because the flower was believed to bloom when the wind blows. Another theory is more specific, maintaining anemone is a combination of anemos, meaning ‘wind,’ and mone, ‘habitat,’ suggesting that the plant lives in windy places….

“Anemones have a long history of folk recognition, for better or worse. The ancient Greeks believed that Anemos, the wind, used the flowers to herald the coming of spring. Romans carefully picked the first anemone of the year, with a prayer to protect them from fevers.

“Crusaders are said to have returned from the Middle East with the beautiful poppy anemone (A. coronaria). The sudden appearance in Europe of this red-and-white flower sparked tales of its having sprung from the drops of Christ’s blood, and it became a popular flower in the gardens of medieval monasteries….

“Oddly enough, however, many European peasants avoided some anemones as if they carried the plague. When they came upon a field of the flowers, they would hold their breath and run by, fearing they would fall ill if they inhaled the vapors of the blossoms. Egyptians considered the flowers a symbol of sickness, and in China they were planted on graves and called the flowers of death.

“Nonetheless, old herbalists found the plant useful for headaches, gout, leprosy, eye inflammations, and ulcers. Typical of the buttercups, anemones are generally acrid plants, and many species are said to be somewhat poisonous. North American Indians of Quebec used an anemone tea for just about any ailment, while other native nations employed it in treating boils, lung congestion, and eye illnesses. Virgil J. Vogel, in American Indian Medicine, reported that Meskwakis burned seeds to make a smoke that was supposed to revive unconscious persons. Some Ojibwas used the plant to soothe and prepare their throats for singing.

“Modern authorities usually advise against such practices because the plant has some poisonous constituents. Carolus Linnaeus, the Swedish botanist who developed the modern system of classifying and naming plants and animals, reported that underfed cows died from eating A. nemorosa.”

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Hello!

This is the second of two posts with photographs of plants in the genus Eriocapitella, commonly called Windflowers, or, as we learned in the first post (see Eriocapitella, or: The Plants Formerly Known as Anemone (1 of 2)), less accurately called Fall-Blooming Anemones or Japanese Anemones, from Oakland Cemetery.

Like many of Oakland’s plants, Eriocapitella variants are used both as landscaping plants and as plants linked to memorial displays. The photos in my previous post show their use as landscaping plants providing visual interest and color contrast to open gardens or pathways; the photos in this post are associated with historical memory or family memorials. As such, photographing this post’s series meant that I could position the colors and shapes of the flowers among the surrounding stone structures to create compositional variations between the subject and background, especially since plants and flowers reflect light so much differently than the textured memorials nearby.

There are trees at Oakland Cemetery that date back to its founding decades (see Celebrating the Trees at Oakland), so may be 150 to 175 years old and represent a kind of historical continuity between the natural landscape and the human-built elements (some of which are just as old) because of their longevity. When I photograph plants like these Eriocapitella (or any of the others!), I often wonder about their longevity too: am I photographing the initial generation of a particular plant, or subsequent generations of the original plant, or a “branch” of the plant created by pollination or propagation? These are conjoined historical and botanical questions that occur to me because in addition to photographing the plants, I typically spend time researching their histories, and there are threads of merging timelines between any given plant’s botanical history and its use at Victorian gardens like those of Oakland.

Here, for example, is an overview of the plant’s early historical arc — which takes us from the 1600s to the 1800s — from Flowers and Their Histories by Alice M. Coats:

The flower so named [as Anemone japonica] is in fact a native of China, but was introduced to Japan at some early date as a cultivated plant. It was first described by a German, Dr. Andreas Cleyer, who lived in Nagasaki from 1682 to 1686 while in the employment of the Dutch East India Company. At that time, and for nearly two centuries afterwards, no European was allowed to penetrate further into China or Japan than the immediate vicinity of two or three ports, so it was natural for later botanists to believe that the flower was indigenous to Japan, more especially as it had escaped from cultivation and become naturalized there….

But the first living plant (as distinct from dried specimens) to reach Europe came from China; it was sent to the Horticultural Society in 1844 by Robert Fortune, who found it ‘in full flower among the graves of the natives, which are round the ramparts of Shanghae; it blooms in November when other flowers have gone by, and is a most appropriate ornament to the last resting-places of the dead.’

Coats goes on to explain subsequent botanical developments in detail, describing hybridization that resulted in many of the ancestral cultivars whose children are still used in gardens today, especially those created through the earlier twentieth century, to around 1910. Likely introduced to gardens in North America in the mid-to-late-nineteenth century, the plant engendered widespread use in the United States just as it did in England and Europe, because of its resilience and its late blooming period that provided pre-winter seasonal color. So we have overlapping timelines between the plant’s European introduction, the development of its first cultivars, its transition to North America, and its appearance in historic gardens — and the creation of Victorian-themed cemeteries like Oakland. These are not coincidental historical happenings, but instead represent the emerging and continuous connections between flowers, their histories, and their cultural significance. It’s noteworthy, too, that Robert Fortune’s explorations found the plants “in full flower among the graves of natives” and he described them as a “most appropriate ornament to the last resting-places of the dead” — given their frequent use in cemeteries and the memorial meaning attributed to them (explained in 100 Flowers and How They Got Their Names) as symbols of hope, resurrection, and rebirth.

Thanks for reading and taking a look!

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