Not lost, simply for a time mislaid

And suddenly this surprising earth,
No longer clouded, was known again,
And all you had thought lost you found
Was simply for a time mislaid.

(from a poem by Brian Patten b.1946)

Stargazer Lily and Sonnet

From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud pied April, dressed in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,
That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him.
Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in ordour and in hue,
Could make me any summer's story tell.
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew:
Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;
They were but sweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.
Yet seemed it winter still, and, you away,
As with your shadow I with these did play.

Sonnet 98 by William Shakespeare (1564-1616) 

Wild Strawberries

When I remember to tend a particular corner of my garden the results can be surprising. Apparently the phrase 'wild strawberries' in colloquial Swedish  alludes to an underrated gem of a place of personal or sentimental value.

Swedish film-director Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries (1957) features Victor Sjöström in his last screen appearance as retired Doctor Izak Borg, who travels from Stockholm to Lund accompanied by his daughter-in-law Marianne, (Ingrid Thulin) to be awarded a life-time honorary doctorate. 

 In some ways Wild Strawberries is an early road movie, the story centring upon a journey both external and internal. En route Dr. Borg has experiences which remind him of his past. He offers a lift to three hitch-hikers, the pert and vivacious Sara, (Bibi Andersson) with her two competitive lovers, and to an argumentative married couple who he soons asks to get out of his car for the sake of the young people.  But by far the most memorable moments in the film occur when Bergman conjures up surreal settings and imagery to portray Dr. Borg's unsettling dream world. Reviewed by critics as one of Bergman's warmer and more accessible films, Wild Strawberries nevertheless hovers in the shadowy world of  life self-assessment with its regrets and past loves.  

Wikilink - Ingmar Bergman

Hawthorn tree

The coldest winter for 50 years followed by the driest ever March and then the  warmest ever April are strong indicators that it's not  just the weather but the  very climate which is changing. I've lived  near to  a specimen of  Hawthorn tree for over 30 years and its the first time I've ever seen  one flower in April, invariably it flowers later in May.  

While cucumber and strawberry growers are reporting an early bumper crop, due to the warm weather, by far the most concerning weather feature at present is the fact that in the East of England it's not rained for almost 3 months. Without water life on Earth is unsustainable. The present-day weather extremes are ominous indicators of  climate change.

Stargazer lily

                             When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
                             I summon up remembrance of things past. 

The translated English title of Marcel Proust's vast novel A la recherche du temps perdu originates from Shakespeare's Sonnet 30. The Stargazer lily was created in 1978 by Leslie Woodriff, a lily breeder in California, USA.

Plums

Plums are just about ripe now. They are another fond memory of childhood summers spent with my Grandmother.

My garden still has the statutory two fruit trees planted by a progressive City Council for every tenancy almost nearly 60 years ago. The pear-tree is a bit decrepit now, but one can't imagine social-housing planning planting fruit-trees for tenants anymore. However the Norwich Labour Party's fruit-tree scheme was more of a remedial measure to ease the malnutrition and poverty of the working population. For although the City of Norwich can boast of being England's second City circa 1400-1700, historically it has also for centuries been recorded as one of the lowest paid regions of the UK.

Sunflower

I'm not a very green-fingered person so I was well pleased that at least one seed from the packet flowered! Poets seem to be inspired by Sunflowers, often favouring the wilting, withered kind. The American poet Allen Ginsburg (1926-97) in his 'Sunflower Sutra' 1955 was inspired by the Sunflower to write-

Look up at the Sunflower, he said, there was a dead gray shadow against the sky, big as a man, sitting dry on top of a pile of ancient sawdust....

A perfect beauty of a sunflower! A perfect excellent lovely sunflower existence!

The British Liverpudlian poet Brian Patten (b.1946) in a first-line entitled poem from the collection 'Vanishing Trick' 1976 wrote of sunflowers

You missed the sunflowers at their height
Came back when they were bent and worn
And the gnats, half-froze, fell one by one
Into the last of the sprawling marigolds.

Floating somewhere between meticulous 'occular observation' and 'cosmic awe', Sir Thomas Browne in his Discourse 'The Garden of Cyrus' notes-

A like ordination there is in the favaginous Sockets, and Lozenge seeds of the noble flower of the Sunne. Wherein in Lozenge figured boxes nature shuts up the seeds, and balsame which is about them. - Chapter 3

It cannot be a coincidence that the Sunflower is featured in the Discourse, 'The Garden of Cyrus',  as symbolically it's the Solar half of the 1658 literary diptych. The pattern enclosed within the seed-structure of the Sunflower-head is a fine example of 'how nature geometrizeth' and exemplary of the 'Quincunciall Lozenge' pattern as illustrated in the Discourse's frontispiece.

1658 Frontispiece to The Garden of Cyrus

The pattern of seeds in the Sunflower is also a good example of the Fibonacci sequence of numbers in Nature. The Fibonacci number sequence, a mathematical progression can be detected in many works of nature. The spiral structure of the Pineapple and Pine-cone also have the Fibonacci numbers in their structure. They too are noted in 'Cyrus'. Browne's own highly symbolic number, the number five is included as part of the Fibonacci sequence - 0 - 1- 1- 2- 3- 5- 8- 13- 21 - 34 - 55

Fibonacci pattern in Sunflower head

There's a big difference between the first photo at the top and the bottom photo's posted. Taken within a few minutes of each other , one against a background of sky, the other in a dark corner, reveals the strong effect that bright light and shade has upon colours.

Ginseng

It's often imagined that the use of the root plant Ginseng in 'complementary' or 'alternative' medicine is a relatively new phenomenon, but in fact the trade and medical use of Ginseng has a long history.

There are several claims surrounding the discovery and trade of Ginseng in North America. One source states that it was found growing in Quebec in 1716 by Father Lofitau, a Jesuit Missionary to the Iroquois Indians. Another source claims that American settlers discovered Ginseng in New England in the mid 1700’s. It is known for certain however that by the late 1700's the trade in the shipment of Ginseng from America to China made considerable profit.

Perhaps because the fleshy Ginseng root is shaped resembling the body and limbs of a human, all manner of medical and 'all-healing' properties have been attributed to it. It is scientifically recognised for its anti-carcinogenic and antioxidant properties. Widely cultivated in China for centuries Ginseng is used in Chinese medicine as a muscle relaxant. As early as the 17th century one English doctor noted of Ginseng -

Deare Sonne, - You did well to observe Ginseng. All exotick rarities, especially of the east, the East India trade having encreased, are brought in England, and the profitt made therof. Of this plant Kircherus writeth in his China illustrata, pag. 178, cap. "De Exoticis China plantis".

This extremely early reference to Ginseng, highlights the deep similarity of mind shared by both seventeenth century scholars. Sir Thomas Browne established a European reputation for himself as a scientist, botanist, archaeologist and commentator upon comparative religion with the publication of his encyclopaedia Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1646-76); a work which also frequently cites, 'that eminent example of industrious Learning, Kircherus'.

The various scholastic commendations applied to Kircher as "the last Renaissance man" (Edward W. Schmidt), "a giant among seventeenth-century scholars", "one of the last thinkers who could rightfully claim all knowledge as his domain" (Alan Cutler); and perhaps most aptly of all, 'the supreme representative of Hermeticism within post-Reformation Europe' are equally applicable of Kircher's follower, Sir Thomas Browne of Norwich. As to whether either Kircher or Browne actually ever acquired or ingested Ginseng, it is not known, perhaps not!

Peruvian Bark

Because throughout history to the present-day malaria is a world-wide killer of thousand of lives, the discovery of Peruvian Bark is a well-documented chapter in the history of medicine. The ability of bark from the cinchona tree to combat the symptoms of malaria, its eventual synthesizing as Quinine, and its subsequent world-wide usage is a vast subject. However one small footnote on Peruvian Bark in the history of British medicine may yet be added.

The discovery of Peruvian Bark's medicinal properties is attributed to several people. The Jesuit priest Agostino Salumbrino (1561–1642) who had trained as an apothecary is credited as among the first to observe that the indigenous Quechua or Inca people used a diffusion of the bark from the cinchona tree to alleviate the symptoms of malaria. Indeed the original Inca word for the cinchona tree bark, 'quina' or 'quina-quina' roughly translates as 'bark of bark' or 'holy bark'. It's also recorded that in 1638, the countess of Chinchon, the wife of a Peruvian viceroy used the bark of the cinchona tree to relieve the fever-induced shivering symptoms experienced during the onset of malaria to remedy a 'miracle cure'.

While its effect in treating malaria and also malaria-induced shivering was unrelated to its effect to control shivering from rigors, Peruvian Bark was nevertheless hailed as a successful medicine for malaria. Modern science has detected that the bark of the cinchona tree contains a variety of alkaloids, including the anti-malarial compound quinine which interferes with the reproduction of malaria-causing protozoa, and also quinidine, an antiarrhythmic.

It was the Renaissance maverick alchemist Paracelsus who first urged the physician to examine and analyse substances from the vegetable, mineral and animal kingdoms in search of new medicines. By the seventeenth century with the colonization of South America by the Spanish and Portuguese, as well as migration to North America, an abundance of published reports upon the flora and fauna of the American continent became available to the physician. Foremost amongst such reports were those of the Jesuit missionaries who collected facts on all manner of botanical, geographical and social phenomena they encountered in their imperial-orientated colonization; including the discovery of the Cinchona tree's medical properties. For these reasons Peruvian Bark was also widely-known as 'Jesuits' powder'.

In 1658 the English weekly Mercurius Politicus announced that: 'The excellent powder known by the name of 'Jesuits' powder' may be obtained from several London chemists'. However Peruvian Bark did not achieve full official approval and was not entered into the British Pharmacopoeia until 1677. This was mostly due to religious prejudices. Because it was known as 'Jesuits' Powder' it was associated with Catholicism. Even seemingly well-educated persons such as King Charles II, who took an active interest in the scientific inquiries of his age, sanctioning approval for the Royal Society was wary of 'Jesuit's Powder' because of its presumed association with Catholicism. However when suffering from malarial fever Charles II consulted Mr Robert Talbor, who had found fame for his miraculous cure of malaria. Talbor was obliged to give the King the bitter bark decoction in great secrecy. The treatment completely relieved the King from malarial fever and he rewarded Talbor with a life-times membership of the prestigious Royal College of Physicians.

Incidentally its alleged that Oliver Cromwell died of Malaria, refusing Jesuit's Powder as a remedy, simply because of his hatred of Catholicism! But as autopsy's were inaccurate in the seventeenth century, this allegation may simply be nothing more than Royalist propaganda enhancing the virtue of 'progressive monarchy' in contrast to the anti-monarchist Republic which was established by Cromwell.

Many physicians throughout England in the seventeenth century were interested in reports of the healing qualities of Peruvian Bark, in particular those who lived in regions prone to the spread of malaria; East Anglia with its many marshes, broads and Fens; geographic areas whose large tracts of low-laying land and many slow-flowing or stagnant stretches of water were ideal for the spread of the insect-borne virus. In correspondence dated 1667 to his youngest son, Dr. Thomas Browne of Norwich requested-

When you are at Cales, see if you can get a box of the Jesuits' powder at easier rate, and bring it in the bark, not in powder.

Its suggestive from this letter in his request to his son to obtain Jesuits' powder from a Continental source and not from London, that Dr.Browne may have been wary  the thriving trade in Peruvian Bark could be vulnerable to dilution by apothecaries. Its also evident from his preference to obtain it from a continental source and insistence on  bark and not powder that he was well-familiar with Peruvian Bark's composition.

Incidentally, it was for the entertainment and education of his youngest son Thomas that Sir Thomas Browne penned the Latin work Nauchmachia, a descriptive account of a Sea-battle in antiquity. Tragically however, young Midshipman Thomas was listed as lost at sea, presumed dead shortly after receiving this letter, he was most probably a  fatality in the Anglo-Dutch naval-battle of Lowestoft in 1665.

But by far the most detailed document in British medical history of a physician's assessment of Peruvian Bark occurs in an undated and untitled note concerning the Cortex Peruvianus or Quinana Peruve by Dr.Browne.

I am not fearful of any bad effect from it nor have I observed any that I could clearly derive from that as a true cause: it doth not so much good as I could wish or others expect, but I can lay no harm unto its charge, and I have known it taken twenty times in the course of a quartan. In such agues, especially illegitimate ones, many have died though they have taken it, but far more who have not made use of it, and therefore what ever bad conclusions such agues have I cannot satisfy myself that they owe their evil unto such medicines, but rather unto inward tumours inflammations or atonie of parts contracted from the distemper.   Source: Brit. Mus. Sloane MS 1895

 

Because the above statement is undated with no addressee, there's no evidence for who, where or when Dr. Browne penned his assessment of Peruvian Bark. One would like to imagine that it was an assessment made for the benefit of King Charles II who had met and knighted Browne in 1671. It could theoretically have been surreptitiously passed onto Charles II via Browne's eldest son Edward who resided in London, had access to the Royal Court and was later President of the Royal College of Physicians. But it could as easily have been written for the benefit of any enquiring member of the gentry. In any case it demonstrates that not only was Dr. Browne well informed of the latest medical discoveries, even aware of excessive and 'illegitimate' usage of 'Jesuits' Powder', but was also able to independently assess such discoveries.

Flower of Chinchona pubescens

Hydrangea

Hydrangea thrive upon chalky soil of which there's plenty throughout the low-laying county of Norfolk.

The large hydrangea shrub in my garden is certainly over thirty years old, maybe as old as my plum and pear tree, planted when the houses and gardens of Woodlands Estate were first established early in the 1950's. I personally associate the large flowering heads with happy summer days spent with my grandmother as a child.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines hydrangea as - a shrub with flowering heads of white, blue or pink florets, native to Asia and America. Origin, mod. L. from Gk hudro -'water' + angeion 'vessel' (from the cup shape of its seed capsules).

Honeysuckle

This posting seems an apt follow-up to the preceding one on smell and the nose. I'm fairly confident that Sir Thomas Browne would have delighted in the sweet aroma of honeysuckle currently saturating my garden and would have waxed lyrical upon its 'delectable odour' and 'noble scent'; something which as of yet a computer is unable to convey!

Cactus

This morning I woke to find that once again my 25 year old cactus has burst into flower. Not that it was totally unexpected because during the past week, two large stalks have rocketed forth from it, ready to bloom into quite enormous flowers, which sadly only last a few days at most. The stems of the flowers are about 20 centimetres and the diameter of the flowers some 10 centimetres, really enormous. Quite how this miracle of nature always flowers at either the new or full moon I don't know. I took these photo's a year or two ago, sometimes there are just two flowers, sometimes as many as five. But in any event a true miracle of nature, reminding us that things are not always what they seem, and that from the apparently mundane something extraordinary can occur beyond human power.

Tulips

This troop of tulips spotted in a garden by one of the busiest inner-road junctions in the City. Nevertheless standing proud against the noise and fumes.

A certain seventeenth century medical undergraduate was in Holland during the height of 'Tulipmania' (1630-34) when vast fortunes were speculated and exchanged upon the sale of rare Tulip-bulbs. I just love the story of one speculator who having spent a small fortune on a rare bulb, when arriving at the docks to collect his expensive bulb, saw to his horror a workman tucking into a sandwich, adding to it what he believed to be an onion. The poor unfortunate was prosecuted heavily for his mistaken error.

There's an allusion to tulip-mania in the dedicatory epistle to Sir Thomas Browne's 'The Garden of Cyrus';  a mirthful and tongue-in-cheek observation upon the extremes some gardeners have gone to in their horticultural passion.

Some commendably affected Plantations of venemous Vegetables, some confined their delights unto single plants, and Cato seemed to dote upon Cabbage; While the Ingenuous delight of Tulipists, stands saluted with hard language, even by their own Professors.'

There's also the botanical query in 'The Garden of Cyrus'-

How the triangular capp in the stemme or stylus of Tuleps doth constantly point at three outward leaves.

I remember cycling in '83 through the vast industrial-sized fields of tulips cultivated in Holland. A truly eye-watering optical experience.

Bluebell woods

Only a minute's walk from my door there's a chalk ridge woodland of beech and chestnut trees standing high upon the brow of the river Wensum valley. It's probably survived because it's hilly and undulating, therefore difficult to deforest and 'develop'. Better still some good conservation work has been done to it, clearing the woodland floor of brambles, allowing a large area of bluebells to colonize . A small secluded sanctuary in an increasingly volatile world.

Daffodils

Now it's British Summer Time with longer light in the day and very slowly getting warmer, its great to just get outdoors with a camera. I thought I'd better snap these dafs soon before they disappear for another year. And yes that is a grave-stone in the background, quite appropriately as regards the myth and poetry associated with the daffodil.

The symbolism and stories behind flowers is quite interesting. The Persians named the daffodil "the Golden" and the Turks "the golden bowl". But its in Greek mythology that the symbolism of the flower is most developed. In Greek mythology it was the flower that Venus recommended to Pluto to drop from his chariot to entice Prosperine to the infernal regions. The Daffodil is thus symbolic of unrequited love. Chaucer alludes to the Greek myth of Prosperine and the daffodil in his poem 'The Winter's Tale'.

O Prosperina,
For the flowers now that, frighted, thou lettest fall
From Dis's wagon: daffodils
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty.

The Elizabethan poet Robert Herrick waxed lyrical in his address to daffodils, the flowers themselves replying in the second verse.

Fair daffodils, we weep to see
Ye haste away so soon;
As yet the early-rising sun
Has not attained his noon:
Stay, stay,
Until the hastening day has run
But to the even-song,
Will go with ye along.

We have short time to stay as ye,
We have as fleet a Spring,
As quick a growth to meet decay
As you or anything:
We die
As your hours do, and dry away,
Like to the Summer's rain.
Or as the pearl of morning's dew,
Ne'er to be found again.

Magnolia

This hopefully is what will be blossoming in my garden in a few days! Magnolia is only just in bud now. Checking the date this photo was taken to compare how early/late Spring is this year is revealing. This photo was taken 24th March 2006. I thought it feels like Spring is very late this year.