Plants in Early American Gardens - Kwanso Lily

Kwanso Lily (Hemerocallis fulva cv.)

Daylilies are tough, long-lived perennials that have been cultivated for centuries. The Chinese grew them for beauty and also for their edible flowers. The single-flowered species was grown in Europe since at least the 1570s. The double-flowered ‘Kwanso’ type, noted by a European traveler in 1712, was first brought to the West from Japan in 1860. 

It was offered in the London nursery trade by 1861 and soon thereafter arrived in America. Daylilies are more suited to the climate of the United States and their culture here eventually surpassed European efforts. Flowers attract butterflies.

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Botany spreads to the common man in the early Republic & flowers reappear

From Flowers to Grass to Flowers with Proper, Scientific Names

During & immediately after the Revolution, many gardeners began banishing intricate patterns of flowers in favor of the less ostentatious simplicity of turf. Philadelphian Elizabeth Drinker wrote in her diary, “flower roots…were dug out of ye beds on ye south side of our garden--as my husband intends making grass-plots and planting trees.”

During this period, plain grass flats often defined the terraces of the gentry. However, at the same time, a flood of newly arrived professional seed merchants were enticing the growing gardening public to plant curious bulbs & roots imported from Europe. And the middle class merchants and artisans were beginning to accumulate both leisure time that could be spent in improving their homes and grounds and a bit of extra cash to spend toward this end.  This flurry of marketing paid off, and the style that caught on. By the 1790s, specimen gardens & flowers once again flourished in the Chesapeake.

By the turn of the century, the popularity of intricate flower beds once again soared.  Flowers remained a garden favorite, but gardeners now tended to segregated flowers by type rather than integrating them into a complicated design.  Diarist Anne Grant reported that, in the gardens she saw before the Revolution, flowers “not seen in ‘curious knots’, were ranged in beds, the varieties of each kind by themselves.”

In the 2nd half of 18th-century America, small private & public botanical gardens were beginning to appear in the colonies & early Republic.  The public was becoming more familiar with the study of botany.  They were aware of the concept of botanical gardens which were the most structured way of observing plants where similar plants were grown & displayed together, often arranged by plant families, & labeled for easy reference.

The Paduan Garden, in Roberto de Visiani’s L’Orto Botanico de Padova nell’ anno MDCCCXLII (Padova, 1842, frontis.).

The great age of plant discovery which began in the 16th century with the exploration of the Americas triggered an interest in the scientific study & classification of plants. The plants & seeds which made their way to Europe from foreign ports were cultivated to determine their potential uses. At first this was chiefly to determine their potential medical applications.  The great botanical gardens founded in the 16th century at Padua, Leiden, & Montpellier were attached to medical schools.

Johannes van Meurs, 1579-16 Leiden University Garden. Engraving after a design by W. Swanenburgh (1608), from Orlers (1614).

The Hortus Botanicus in Leiden was established soon after the founding of the university in 1575. The head of the early garden there was Charles de l’Ecluse (1526–1609) or Clusius, who had a wide network of correspondents across Europe & had written extensively on botanical subjects. In 1593, he brought with him from Frankfurt a great number of seeds, bulbs & plants to form the foundation of the garden, which had about 1,000 plants when it opened. Other distinguished botanists associated with the garden were Herman Boerhaave (1668–1738) & Johannes Fredericus Gronovius (1686–1762), an early patron of Carolus Linnaeus(Carl Linnaeus, Swedish Carl von Linné) 1707-1778, who would transform plant collecting with his uniform system for classifying them (binomial nomenclature).

Oxford Botanic Garden

The Oxford Botanic Garden was founded in 1623, by Henry Danvers, later the 1st Earl of Danby (1573–1643), but was not planted until at least a decade later. Danby had arranged to appoint the great London-based gardener & plant collector John Tradescant the elder (1570-1638) as the first gardener, & there is some evidence that Tradescant may have been briefly involved in the planting before he died. Danby then appointed the German botanist Jacob Bobart (1599–1680) as gardener, who was succeeded by his son, also named Jacob Bobart (1641–1719). The 1st catalogue, listing some 1400 plants growing in the garden, was published in 1648.

Chelsea Physic Garden established in the grounds of Chelsea Manor owned by Hans Sloane. Engraving by John Haynes, 30th March 1751.

In England, the Chelsea Physic Garden, founded by the Society of Apothecaries in 1673, came to prominence under Scottish gardener Philip Miller (1691-1771) & remained the premier garden in the country during much of Miller’s lifetime. Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753) had granted the Society a perpetual lease on the Chelsea property, & one of the conditions was that each year 50 new plants were to be described & donated to the Royal Society as dried specimens. This required the continuous introduction of new plants & ensured that Chelsea was at the forefront of knowledge about their cultivation. Miller was a highly skilled horticulturist & many imported plants & rare species of indigenous plants were successfully grown by him at Chelsea. Miller  networked, & he was at the center of a vast network of plant enthusiasts exchaning plants & seeds with other gardeners throughout Britain, her colonies, & Europe.

 Pagoda & Temperate House, Kew Gardens

As Chelsea was fading in the latter part of the 18th century, the great gardens at Kew were growing in importance under the leadership of Sir Joseph Banks & head gardener William Aiton (1731–1793) who had trained under Philip Miller at Chelsea. Aiton produced the 1st printed catalogue of the gardens at Kew, listing some 5600 species. Just over two decades later, the 2nd edition of the catalogue by his son William Townsend Aiton (1766–1849) listed over 11,000 species.

In London, street vendors were selling plants door to door. New Cries of London Sold by Darton and Harvey 1803 Flowers for your Garden

In Philadelphia, Bartram's is America's oldest surviving botanic garden. John Bartram (1699-1777), early American botanist, explorer, & plant collector, began his garden in 1728, when he purchased a 102-acre farm close to Germantown. Bartram's Garden grew into an extensive collection of familiar & intriguing native plants; as he devoted his life to the discovery of examples of new North American species. Bartram's lucrative business centered on the transatlantic transfer of plants.

In 1748, what is now Lafayette & Astor Place, was New York City’s first botanical garden, established by a Swiss physician, Jacob Sperry, who farmed flowers & hothouse plants. Jacob Sperry, born in Zurich in 1728, came to New York at the age of 20, & although educated a physician, decided to become a florist. He had means at his command, with which he purchased this then uncultivated tract of pasture land, & established himself as a horticulturist. He built a house near by, where he resided, rearing a family of 4 sons & 5 daughters. In 1804, Jacob Sperry sold the much improved property to John Jacob Astor for $45,000.

An 1801 map of the Astor Place when it was the land of Jacob Sperry, a Swiss florist, physician, and gentleman.

In the British American colonies, just as in Europe, many early botanical gardens focused on the medicinal uses of plants being collected.  In 1769, Dr Peter Middleton, professor of medicine at King's College, speaking at the opening of the Columbia Medical School in New York City stated, "By botany, we are  instructed in the natural history and distinguishing characters of plants. This, pursued as a science, or branch of medical study, presents to us a fund of knowledge, both valuable and ornamental  As this continent yields most of the medical plants now in use, and abounds also with a variety of others, whose qualities we are as  yet but little acquainted with... a teacher of botany will soon be appointed, and a botanical garden laid out, and properly furnished? This would open an extensive field for further discoveries in, and for large acquisitions to the materia medicia."  David Hosack, who would eventually establish the Elgin Botanic Garden, reported that in 1794, the New York Agricultural Society was endorsing that the botanical garden be connected with an endowed professorship in Botany.  In the next 20 years, botanical gardens would pop up at Harvard, Princeton, and at the universities of Pennsylvania & South Carolina.

 Botanic Garden at Elgin in the Vicinity of the City of New York. About 1806 William Satchwell Leney (American artist, b. England, 1769–1831) after Louis Simond (American artist, b. France, 1767–1831)

By 1785, George Washington had dedicated a part of his gardens to botany.  He wrote in his July diary, "Sewed one half of the Chinese Seed given me by Mr. Porter and Doctr. Craik in three rows in the Section near the Quarter (in my Botanical Garden.)"  In June of the next year, Washington recorded dining with Francois Andre Micheaux, "a Botanist sent by the Court of France to America...he returned afterwards to Alexandria on his way to New York...where he was about to establish a Botanical Garden."

In 1787, Rev Manassah Cutler wrote that Dr Benjamin Rush was "endeavoring to raise a fund for establishing a Botanical garden" in Philadelphia.

In both England & in the early American republic, botany & new classification systems for plants caused a surge in collecting plants. In 1789, William Hamilton instructed the gardeners at his Philadelphia estate, Woodlands, to plant “exotic bulbous roots…at six or eight Inches from each other…taking care to preserve the distinctions of the sorts.”

18th-century woodcut

In 1805, Rosalie Steir Calvert (1778–1821) wrote to her father from Riversdale in Prince George's County, Maryland, "The fancy for flowers of all kinds is really increasing; everyone takes an interest, and it is a great honor to have the most beautiful.”

The next spring, she was “curious to know if it is becoming fashionable in your country to become horticulturalists. Here we occupy ourselves with that more every day and are getting much better.”

Her father sent tulip bulbs in late 1807, and Rosalie Calvert wrote back, “now I will have the most beautiful collection in America, and I assure you my reputation is already quite exalted.”

In London, street vendors were selling plants door to door.  Tuer, Andrew White, 1838-1900 Old London street cries (1885) All a Blowin', Choice Shrubs and Plants, Alive and Growing

In the early republic, townsfolk began to frequent the local nurseries popping up in towns up and down the Atlantic coast.  A new cycle in English & early American pleasure gardening had begun.

In London, street vendors were selling plants door to door.  London Melodies; or Cries of the Seasons. Published anonymously (before 1818) All a Blowin, Choice Shrubs and Plants, Alive and Growing

History Blooms at Monticello - Yellow Crown Imperial Lily

Yellow Crown Imperial Lily (Fritillaria imperialis 'Lutea Maxima')

The Crown Imperial Lily was brought to Western Europe from Southern Turkey and Kashmir as early as 1576. By 1770 Dutch bulb growers had developed 13 distinct varieties. 

Thomas Jefferson ordered this lily from Philadelphia nurseryman Bernard McMahon five times before receiving three "roots" of the orange and a rare "silver striped" form in 1812. It is also called "Stink Lily" and "Old Stinky," because of its foxy odor.

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Garden to Table - The poor, forgotten quince...

In Praise of the Misunderstood Quince

By Michael Tortorello New York Times. Published: May 2, 2012

Quince at the Cloisters Museum in New York. Photo by Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

After half a century in public life, the most famous quince trees in New York are looking — let’s say mature. Or how about distinguished? No need to beat around the bush, said Deirdre Larkin, the horticulturist who tends the four beloved quinces at the Cloisters Museum and Gardens, along the Hudson River in Fort Tryon Park.  “They are old, and nothing will change that,” she said.  Yet in Europe, where the quince’s yellow pome is a culinary treasure, orchardists will buttress the sagging limbs with a crutch...But, Ms. Larkin said, “trees can live for hundreds of years.” ...

What most Americans know about quince (Cydonia oblonga) — if they know about quince at all — is that it was once a fixture in Grandma’s garden. O.K., Great-Great-Grandma’s garden. As long ago as 1922, the great New York pomologist U. P. Hedrick rued that “the quince, the ‘golden apple’ of the ancients, once dedicated to deities, and looked upon as the emblem of love and happiness, for centuries the favorite pome, is now neglected and the least esteemed of commonly cultivated tree-fruits.” Almost every Colonial kitchen garden had a quince tree. But there was seldom need for two, said Joseph Postman, the United States Department of Agriculture scientist who curates the quince collection in Corvallis, Ore. Settlers valued quince, above all, as a mother lode of pectin for making preserves. And for that task, a little fruit went a long way.

“If you put the seeds in a cup of water, it becomes almost like Jell-O,” Mr. Postman said. This goo doubled as a pomade...Like so many American workers, the quince lost its job to a disruptive technology: powdered gelatin, introduced by Charles Knox in the 1890s...Today the nation’s entire quince crop covers a paltry 250 acres ... By contrast, farmers this year will raise some 350,000 acres of apples and 96 million acres of corn.

Quince Jacques le Moyne de Morgues (c. 1533–1588)

So we arrive, perforce, at a fundamental question: Is raw quince edible? ... The skin, fuzzy at first, has an objectionable texture,...And when the flavor is not sour, it’s sour and astringent...The key to enjoying quince at home, apparently, is to cook it and cook it and cook it. At that point, the quince is ready to cook...

The quince tree is self-pollinating: you need only one. If you train the growth to a few trunks, a quince shouldn’t get much taller than a gardener can reach with a six-foot ladder.

By now, Mr. Postman has probably grown more varieties of quince than anyone else on the continent. The Corvallis germ-plasm repository contains 50 or 60 edible varieties, and provides material to researchers and plant breeders...When I spoke to Mr. Postman, in fact, the couple was driving across Arizona with a fresh quince cutting in the back seat. Mr. Postman had just stopped at the historic Mission San José de Tumacácori, about 20 miles north of the Mexican border. Researchers there have been replanting the neglected orchard with the forgotten fruit varieties of 17th-century Jesuit missionaries...

A bushel of good quince will fetch $2.50 at farmers’ markets in New Jersey. At least it did in the late 19th century, when the Rev. William W. Meech published Quince Culture, in 1825.  It is the definitive — and possibly the only — guide to cultivating the fruit.  You can read the updated 1888 version here.  or the original 1825 edition here ...

The portingegale Quince. John Tradescant (c 1570-1632) 1634 Plant List

 John Tradescant the elder (c 1570-1632)

A few random quince facts...

Apples (Malus communis, M. pumila, & M. sylvestris), pears (Pyrus communis) & quince (Cydonia oblonga) belong to the rose family.

The homeland of the quince lies between the Caspian Sea & the Black Sea, a mountainous region called the Caucasus that touches northern Turkey & Iran as well as Southern Georgia.

Mention of quince appears in Greek writings about 600 BCE as a ritual item in wedding ceremonies. Pliny mentioned the Mulvian variety, a cultivated quince, as the only one that could be eaten raw. Columella described three other varieties he names as the sparrow apple, golden apple, & the must apple.

Cultivation of the quince began in Mesopotamia, an area now Northern Iraq between the Tigris & Euphrates Rivers. Between 200 & 100 BCE, this "golden apple" was cultivated by the Greeks. The quince was cultivated prior to the apple & reached Palestine by 100 BCE.

Following the battles for power between the Arabs & the Byzantines circa 763 CE, the some Arabs traveled to Isfahan in Persia for quinces, apples, saffron, & salt.

Charlemagne was partly responsible for introducing the quince into France with his orders in the year 812 to plant quince trees in the royal garden.

Chaucer mentions quince using the name coines, a word that comes from the French coing.
 O mosy quince, hangyng by your stalke,
 The whyche no man dar pluk away ner take,
 Of all the folk that passe forby or walke,
 Your flowres fresshe be fallyn away and shake.
 I am ryght sory, masteras, for your sake,
 Ye seme a thyng that all men have forgotyn;
 Ye be so rype ye wex almost rotyn.

When European & Near Eastern immigrants began to settle in the New World, they planted quince in North America.

Quince enjoyed the spotlight only briefly during the colonial period in New England. A March 16, 1629 entry in the Massachusetts Bay Colony's Memorandum listed quince as one of the seeds requested from England.

By 1720, quince was thriving in Virginia. Many home gardens throughout the colonies were reaping a fall harvest from their quince trees; however, apples quickly snatched the spotlight from the quinces. Americans had become accustomed to sweet fruits like the apple & found little about the quince to favor.

Quince cheese, an old New England specialty of the 1700's, required all-day boiling of quince preserves to achieve a solidified state, probably similar to the French specialty cotignac.

Quince grew traveling legs as the westward movement took hold in the United States. In the 1850's a Texan, who owned a large land grant, grew many fruit trees on his property. Among them was quince, along with peach, fig, raspberry, pomegranate, & plum.

Quince Folklore...

Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, was known to consider apples sacred. Historians believe the apple favored by Aphdrodite were really quince. The legendary golden apple of Hesperides that Paris gave to Aphrodite was really a quince.

The ancient Greeks considered quinces to be the symbol of fertility & dedicated them to the goddess of love.

An Athenian wedding tradition of the ancient Greeks had friends & family tossing quinces into the bridal chariot as the groom was escorting his bride to her new home. Once they arrived, the bride ate a ceremonial cake flavored with honey & sesame. To insure fertility, she was then presented a quince.

One myth says that pregnant women who indulge their appetites in generous quantities of quinces will give birth to industrious & highly intelligent children.

Quince Cooking...

Apicius, Rome's first cookbook author, first century CE, preserved whole quinces with their stems & leaves attached in a bath of honey diluted with defrutum, a newly prepared wine that is spiced & reduced by boiling.  Another quince dish prepared by Apicius, Patina de Cydoniis, combines them with leeks, honey, &broth in hot oil.

The earliest true preserves came about during classical times when quinces were cooked with honey & vinegar, a combination that produced a gel or pectin-like quality.

From the15th century to the present, Cotignac d'Orleans, a clear gel made from boiled quince juice & sugar, is set into small wooden boxes to form confections. These treats were originally presented to French royalty in honor of their visit to cities & outlying villages.

When Joan of Arc arrived in Orleans in 1429, to liberate the French from the English, she received the honored gift of cotignac.

The English, during the 16th & 17th centuries, delighted in preparing many variations of quince preserves which they called quidoniac, quiddony, marmelade or paste of Genoa. The preserves formed a thick paste that could be shaped into animals or flower forms. Though the quince paste is rarely found in England today, a coarse version, called membrillo, is a favorite treat presently served along with cheese in Spain.

In 1570, Pope Pius V gave a spectacular banquet that featured as its piece de resistance, a quince pastry that required "one quince per pastry."

In Britain, quince was incorporated into the cuisine in various pies & tarts. The British also prepared a sauce made from quince that became a traditional accompaniment to roasted partridge.

Although the most favored quince marmalade, called marmelada, originated Portugal during the 1500's, the British were preparing many versions of marmalade from quince well into the 1600's.

For even more on quince, see Vegetrians in Paradise

History Blooms at Monticello - Sword Flag

Sword Flag or Corn Flag (Gladiolus communis ssp. byzantinus)

This species of Gladiolus, native to the Mediterranean region, is delicate and small-flowered compared to our modern hybrids. Sword Flags also tend to be more winter hardy. John Parkinson’s Herbal, published in London in 1629, provides the first description, and it was growing in American gardens by 1800. 

Thomas Jefferson received 12 hardy Gladiolus bulbs from Philadelphia nurseryman Bernard McMahon in 1812. G. communis ssp. byzantinus will slowly naturalize in the garden.

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Botany - 19th-Century American Fruit Illustrations

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Taking a break from art history. Each year at this time, I long to be outdoors in a garden somewhere or reading about gardens. I will take you along with me this spring...

This interesting insight into history & these lovely illustrations are from an article on America's 19th-century nurserymen from the Smithsonian Magazine of August 2011. Yale historian Daniel J Kevles writes "How to Trademark a Fruit: To protect the fruits of their labor and thwart 'plant thieves,' early American growers enlisted artists."

Red Astrachan Apple

Kelvles' begins his story in 1847, when Charles M. Hovey, owner of a 40-acre nursery in Cambridge, Masschusetts, began distributing a series of prints of American fruits. In 1852 & 1856, Hovey published his series of prints as The Fruits of America, Volume 1 & 2. Hovey borrowed the tactic of America's 1st important 19th-century garden author (1806) Bernard M'Mahon by declaring that he felt "a national pride in portraying the“delicious fruits...in our own country, many of them surpassed by none of foreign growth, thus demonstrating the developing “skill of our Pomologists” to the “cultivators of the world.”

William Prestele's Michaux Grape

Since the end of the American Revolution commercial seed & nursery entrepreneurs had been steadly growing in the United States. State horticultural societies began to organize at the end of the 18th-century; and in 1848, several of their leaders in the Eastern states gathered together to form the first national organization of fruit men—the American Pomological Society, named for Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruits.

William Hooker's Noblesse Peach.

Fruit growers knew that if they were to protect their new varieties of fruit from appropriation by others, they had to identify them. And so a body of American botanical art began to emerge. The American Pomological Society quickly established a Committee on Synonyms and a Catalogue, hopeful, as its president said, that an authoritative voice would be the best means of preventing those numerous impositions and frauds which, we regret to say, have been practiced upon our fellow citizens, by adventurous speculators or ignorant and unscrupulous venders.”

William Prestele's Wineberry, or Wine Raspberry

The worried fruit growers were aided in the efforts to publicize & lay claim to their varieties by the arrival in the United States in the late 1830s, of William Sharp, an English artist, immigrated to Boston with a printing technology, chromolithography, which enabled the production of multiple-colored pictures.

Some engaged an artist named Joseph Prestele, a German immigrant from Bavaria who had been a staff artist at the Royal Botanical Garden in Munich. He had been making a name for himself in the United States as a botanical illustrator of great clarity, accuracy and minuteness of detail.

Coe's Golden Gumdrop Plum

To learn of the development of these books & catalogues & the patent issues involved for both the large nursery operations & small firms as well, read Daniel J Kevles' article in the Smithsonian Magazine here.
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Plants in Early American Gardens - Golden Seal

Golden Seal (Hydrastis canadensis)

This Eastern North American perennial is found in rich, moist, marshy places in cool, deciduous forests. It was discovered and sent to Britain in 1759. Goldenseal’s yellow root was once used by Native Americans for dyeing a bright yellow color, as well as to produce a medicinal narcotic. 

Although this member of the Buttercup family (Ranunculaceae) is not found in the woodlands of Monticello, its cousin the Yellow Root, Xanthoriza simplicissima, grows along the banks of the Rivanna River and is a favorite species on Monticello’s “Saturdays in the Garden” wildflower walks every April.

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