Meleager was a Greek mythological warrior who killed the brothers of his mother, who, in turn, caused his death. His sisters wept unceasingly after he died until Artemis transformed them into Guinea hens. Their tears created the spots on their feathers. “Meleagris” is a term used in Latin plant and animal names.
Before the ground freezes solid there is still time to plant bulbs for spring flowers. I also pot up some bulbs to trick them into blooming this winter. Into the cool basement for a period of hibernation will go pots of tulips, narcissi, and hyacinths. And this year I will add a few pots of Fritillaria meleagris, bulbs whose flowers I find exquisite. They have quite a few descriptive common names including: snake head, chess flower, checkered lily, leper’s lily, frog cup, and guinea hen flower. In late April fifteen inch stems are topped by nodding bell flowers with unusual checkered patterning in shades of maroon and pink or cream and white. The plants are native to river plains from Europe across to Siberia and do best here in damp areas of the garden. Vita Sackville-West wrote, “In order to appreciate its true beauty, you will have to learn to know it intimately. You must look closely at all its little squares, and also turn its bell up towards you so that you can look right down into its depths and see the queer semi-transparency of the strangely foreign, wine-coloured chalice. It is a sinister little flower, sinister in its mournful colours of decay.” In his herbal of 1597, John Gerard claimed, “Every leafe seemeth to be the feather of a Ginny hen, whereof it takes his name.” I have to disagree with my idol Vita here. The flower is gorgeous, hardly sinister.
The Latin name for the plant is derived from a roman dice box with checkered patterns, a fritillus, the basis for the genus name; and the species is a term meaning “spotted like a Guinea fowl”. Guinea fowl, Numidian meleagris, are native to Africa but have been raised as food for centuries in Europe. Constantinople, in Turkey, was a commercial hub where guinea fowl were sold. Those taken to England became known as Turkey cock, shortened to turkey.
When Europeans came to what they called the New World, they encountered a big bird, our native turkey. It reminded them of the Guinea fowl and settlers in Massachusetts gave the the term ‘turkey’ to the big native fowl. It’s Latin name, Meleagris gallopavo, reflected its link to Guinea fowl. To add to the confusion, conquistadors in Mexico brought the birds back to Europe, but because they thought they had landed in India, they called them “poules de l’Inde” or “chickens of India”, now shortened to “dinde”, the French word for a turkey.
I adore the wild turkey as much as I love the checkered fritillaria. When the bulb is blooming in spring the turkeys are gathered in the fields with tom turkeys strutting their stuff. The hens go off to lay eggs and return to the fields with the young poults. Meanwhile the toms go their separate ways. It is a treat to see the hens hovering over a bunch of little ones or to see a group of hens and chicks foraging in the grass. An old friend, and fellow gardener, Larry Sheehan, often remarked that it was a few mothers with children and an unattached aunt who visited his yard.
Meleager and his sisters provided scientific, but poetic, nomenclature for three strangely beautiful creatures. This fall I am planting one hundred Fritillaria meleagris bulbs in anticipation of spring. And I will stop along the roads to let the turkeys, Meleagris gallopavo, amble across. And, in this month of November, I am reminded of a song from kindergarten,
“The turkey ran away
Before Thanksgiving day
He said ‘they’ll make a roast out of me
If I should stay.’”
Run turkey, run!
September 2022