“Roses,” she thought sardonically, “All trash m’dear.” —Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway
Saint Valentine’s Day is for many a day to present roses as a token of love. Yet the production of perfect long-stemmed roses require large quantities of pesticides. The florist industry is neither eco-friendly nor worker-friendly. Live plants make longer-lasting and more sensitive gifts. A small ‘tete-a-tete’ narcissus or a Primula (primrose) is extremely cheerful and can be enjoyed in winter, kept alive, and planted in the garden to return year after year. House plants such as orchids or succulents are appreciated by many. Then, again, there are always chocolates.
“You never give the orchids I sent a glance,
No, you prefer cactus plants.
This is a fine romance.”—Jerome Kern, Dorothy Fields
Romance is alluded to in the names of many plants in the garden. The words love and heart and kisses are often included in common names. Many of these names are centuries old and present a sweet quaint poetry when speaking of garden flowers.
Cultivated since the sixteenth century, Nigella damascena, love-in-a-mist, has blue, pink, or white flowers encased in feathery foliage. A cultivar, ‘Miss Jekyll,’ has taller, blue blooms. Their black seeds are often used as a substitute for pepper. In France, the plant is known as poivrette, little pepper. A cousin, Nigella sativa, has been grown for thousands of years for its spicy seeds.
Cardiospernum halicacabum has a few romantic names: heartsease, heart-seed, and love-in-a-puff. This annual vine has unremarkable foliage and insignificant white blooms. The interest is in the fruiting body. The seeds are encased in papery green balloons; hence, the puff in its name. The puff turns light brown at the end of the season and inside are jet black, pea-sized seeds, each with a tiny white heart stamped against the ebony. The genus appellation comes from the Greek, kardia (heart) and sperma (seed).
Another annual vine, Ipomoea lobata, also known as Mina labata, is often labeled Spanish flag or exotic love. I’m not sure where either nickname arises from, but exotic love sounds appealing. The plants are charming in both leaf and flower. Small wands of flowers composed of red, orange, and yellow petals and the soft green, lobed foliage combine to make a handsome vine that can reach eight feet.
Amaranthus caudatus is known as nun’s scourge, kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate, chenille plant, or most often by its gruesome sounding moniker, love-lies-bleeding. The flowers are ropelike tassels of a dried blood red color and often reach and pool on the ground, explaining the macabre nickname. If that image is too much, there is a chartreuse cultivar, ‘Viridis.’ Their dangling blooms make stunning cut flowers.
Kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate is also the name given to flowers over the polygonum family. The annual Persicaria oriental soars up to ten to twelve feet in a season and is topped by magenta, arching blooms that could easily hang over a garden gate. Persicaria amplexicaulis, a perennial with the same common name, is only four feet tall with shorter flowers that last from June to frost. Unfortunately, Japanese beetles love the foliage of these plants.
Viola tricolor, known as Johnny-jump-up or heartsease, has been used to breed larger flowered pansies. Their friendly faces, available in a range of sizes and color, are welcome in the early spring. All will become scraggly by midsummer, but if cut back severely they will bloom again. The smaller violas self-sow prolifically and will appear as welcome volunteers for years to come. Shakespeare wrote of the viola in A Midsummer Nights Dream: “…the little western flower before milk white, now purple with love’s wound, and maidens call it love-in-idleness.”
The bleeding heart is a favorite perennial for the shade. Dicentra spectabilis has heart shaped, pendulous, pink blooms, each with a white droplet of “blood.” Dicentra exima is a native with smaller flowers shaped more like miniature pantaloons, giving it its nickname, Dutchman’s breeches.
There is a rose that deserves mentioning while speaking of love. Bred in France in 1820, this rose was given the name Cuisse de Nymphe Emue, or in English, Thigh of an Aroused Nymph, which refers to the color of the bloom. But, oh, what a lovely reference.
The allusion to love and hearts in the common names of flowers is endearing, but common names become confusing when they are used for more than one plant. Heartsease, kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate, or even daisy or bluebells are names used for many different plants. Botanical Latin is a system of nomenclature invented in 1753 by Carl Von Linne (Linnaeus) and used to effectively identify plants. The first term is the genus or plant family. The second is the species, which often reveals characteristics of the plant or refers to the person responsible for its discovery or its country of origin. Some examples: Albus equals white; gracilis, slender; sinensis, from China. Colloquial names lend an affectionate and charming quality to plants. Latin names provide accuracy.
The garden is romantic and romanticized. It is a location of beauty. Flowers with names that include love and hearts and kisses add an extra element of sweetness. In February, it is still a frozen world, a time to sit inside with flowering plants and a heart-shaped box of chocolates.
“All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt.”—Charles Shultz
February 2018
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