A Peek Inside Garden Flora’s Immense Plant Archive

“Did you know that epimediums contain a compound similar to the active ingredient in Viagra? Or that the wild daffodil celebrated by British poets was actually introduced by the Romans over 2000 years ago? Waterlilies, it turns out, are among the most primitive of flowering plants, existing as early as the Jurassic period. And entire ancient armies were decimated by eating poisonous rhododendron honey.”

Ready to find out more about your favorite plants? Read on…

Bamboo

“The range of bamboo is truly incredible, with more being discovered all the time…Historically, the material enabled the Chinese to be particularly inventive, for example in making suspension bridges and drills for natural gas, long before anything similar was attempted in Europe.”

Tulips

“Tulips have traditionally featured in Persian and Turkish poetry, often as a token or symbol of love…The narrow angular shape (reminiscent of the modern Division 6), however, is very different from the rounded, full stylization of a tulip that has always been more popular in the West…The single flower, on top of its straight stem was seen, in the Ottoman world, to represent the letter alif (for “Allah”) and therefore the unity and uniqueness of the monotheistic god.”

Cistus

“The plants have a very complex set of relationships with a wide range of mycorrhizal fungi, which enables them to thrive on very poor soils. Some of the fungi have considerable gastronomic significance, such as truffles and boletes; cistus inoculated with truffle fungi are available commercially in France. The highly aromatic gum exuded by several species has been used as a source of incense for millennia and was reckoned to be the nearest vegetable equivalent to ambergis (an aromatic gum derived from whales).”

Delphinium

“The name comes from the Greek, for the seeming resemblance of the bud to a dolphin. Greek legend tells of the springing up of delphiniums from the spilled blood of the hero Ajax; various cultures have used parts of the plant as dyestuff– blue, but also yellow. The plants are generally toxic, and there are few herbal or other uses.”

Orchids

“Above all, orchids have a mystique– the product of their often unusual cultivation requirements, the undeniably sexual quality of the flowers, and the late-19th-century orchid craze that swept western Europe, a craze which established them as plants for a wealthy and decadent elite. To botanists there is a mystique too: the incredible range of species, the rarity of many, and, especially, the highly-specialized and almost arcane range of pollination mechanisms.”

Primula

Asian primulas enjoyed something of a craze during the early 20th century, with some fanciers making primula gardens to show off their collections. They were, however, difficult to maintain, and some species were lost. Gradual crossing to form multi-color hybrid swarms may have looked pretty, but it threatened the genetic integrity of the collections. At a few choice country house locations, the plants have effectively naturalized.

Excerpted with permission from Garden Flora © Copyright 2016 by Noel Kingsbury. Published by Timber Press, Portland, OR. All rights reserved.