100 Flowers and How They Got Their Names by Diana Wells

Author:Diana Wells [Wells, Diana]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Published: 1997-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

LOBELIA

COMMON NAMES: Lobelia, cardinal flower. BOTANICAL NAME: Lobelia. FAMILY: Lobeliaceae.

The blue lobelia we use most often in our gardens is Lobelia erinus, which was imported from South Africa in the 1800s and immediately became very popular as an edging or container plant. Its bright clear blue was much in demand for colored “ribbon” plantings. In the nineteenth century color was rediscovered like a new dimension. Bright colors and their juxtapositions interested not only gardeners but also artists and thinkers. Artists began painting out of doors using new pigment paints like rose madder, cobalt blue, and cadmium yellow, for the first time available in handy metal tubes. The theory of color became a preoccupation ranging from the bedding plans of gardeners to Goethe’s studies.

Newly imported tropical plants from South America and Africa were used to make colored parterres, or geometric beds with different flowers outlining their design. Strong flower colors, like yellow, red, white, and blue, were in great demand. The Lobelia erinus, whose bright, clear-blue blooms last all summer and form low, thick carpets resistant to rain and wind damage, was included in most kinds of geometric gardening, and it still is. Erinus may be from the Greek eri, “early,” meaning “spring flowering.” But although the plant is perennial and will last through the winter if brought inside, we are more apt to plant it outside in spring and let the frost kill it.

Lobelia cardinalis is a North American plant—supposedly called cardinalis by Queen Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I, because the color reminded her of a cardinal’s robe. Lobelia siphilitica, also from North America, was described by Peter Kalm (see “Mountain Laurel”) as a cure for the pox (syphilis). Lobelia cardinalis and Lobelia siphilitica are both perennials that grow well in American borders. They are a clear patriotic red and blue respectively.

The Lobelia erinus, whose bright, clear-blue blooms last all summer and form low, thick carpets resistant to rain and wind damage, was included in most kinds of geometric gardening.

Lobelia was named by Charles Plumier (see “Begonia”) for Matthias de l’Obel (see “Candytuft”), who corrected John Gerard’s famous Herball (and accused him of pilfering material). He also attempted a new classification system of plants, subdividing them by leaf characteristics. He wrote a history of cereals, a description of roses, and instructions for brewing beer. His own name, Obel, comes from abele, the white poplar, and his family crest was Candore et Spe, symbolized by the white undersurface of poplar leaves, demonstrating candor, and the green upper surface, hope.

Lobelia erinus comes in white and pink too. But like most good blues it really defeats its purpose to have it in other colors. Its wonderful blue fairly shimmers, and pots of it look like dished-up summer sky, or bowls of glinting Mediterranean sea that, even on dreary days on noisy town terraces, we can keep right there beside us.

He wrote a history of cereals, a description of roses, and instructions for brewing beer.

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