Winter Openings at the Chelsea Physic Garden

Weeks before the official start of the season the Chelsea Physic Garden already welcomed visitors to peek behind its heavy walls on the first two weekends in February.

Chelsea Physic Garden Winter Openings

I took the occasion to have a look at the garden at this early time in the plant season, remembering last year’s opening when for once the otherwise rather neglected woodlands were the most attractive part of the garden.

The weather was nothing to write on this blog about. Sat 6 at least saw some sun, but the following Sat was simply freezing cold, with a nasty wind that made your bones shiver. To warm up the tropical corridor glass house was very much appreciated. Its 17°C felt like a steamroom compared to the outside and many visitors chose it over hunting for snowdrops.

The snowdrops, apparently up to 100 different species scattered across the garden, of course where the star of the show!
But also some other early spring plants reminded us that the better season is (soon?) to come.

What was out and about:

• The Snowdrop – Galanthus
  A solid collection of snowdrops was displayed in a Victorian-style primulasnowdrop theatre placed right next to Sir Sloane’s statue where galanthophiles and those simply trying to see whether there are actually noticeable difference between the varieties could conveniently study the little perce-neiges at eye level.

  

  Victorian Snowdrop Theatre

   

  The little snowdrop called “Lyn” with its frisky petals caught my attention:
  

  

  Galanthus Lyn

   

  Many more varieties were also availabe for purchase; among them the unpretentious “Good for nothing”. That must have been one frustrated snowdrop breeder!
  

  

  Galanthus 'Nothing Special'

 

• The Hellebore – Helleborus
  Hellebores belong to the buttercup family (Ranunculaceae) and can be found out and about with abundant foliage braving the elements in deep winter. The garden boasts different species, some of them of garden origin.
  

  

  Helleborus x Hybridus Early Purple

  
  

  

  Helleborus x Hybridus

  
  

  

  Helleborus foetidus - stinking hellebore

  
  

  

  Helleborus Lindus - Balearic Islands

 

• The Winter Aconite – Eranthis hyemalis
  Another species from the buttercup family equipped with nectar glands providing food for the early bee. With a yellow so bright it almost hurts your eyes it was a favourite with visitors.
  

  

  Glowing Eranthis hyemalis

 

• Petasitis fragrans and japonicus
  Certainly not for their mushroom-like “beauty” but more so for what’s to come in terms of hat-like foliage and most of all medicinal properites, Petasitis, or butterbur as it is commonly called – apparently because the big, cooling vegetative leaves were used to wrap up butter – should be listed here. Butterbur extract containing petasin and isopetasin as active ingredients is used in the prevention and treatment of migraine. The effectiveness of the extract has clinically been proven. For it to be administered liver-toxic substances need to be removed from the extract.
  So don’t try this at home!

 

• The Primrose Jasmin – Jasminum mesnyi
  Raise your eyes from the ground to spot the Primrose Jasmin hanging in long strands down the southern wall of the garden. Its tiny yellow flowers on dark green glisten like stars. Shyly pretty.
  

  

  Jasminum Mesnyi - Primrose Jasmin

 

• The Black Parsley – Melanoselinum decipiens
  From the delicate snowdrops to the strong towering Black Parsley whose new leaves emerge in dark red colours. This plant is native to Madeira and is thriving early in the year, producing one massive leaf after the other on a impressively strong, wrist-thick stem. Apparently it takes several years for the perennial plant to flower for the first time. I’ll be curious whether the specimen in the garden will be among them this spring. This should be quite a show!
  

  

  Melanoselinum decipiens

   

  Official start of the public season at the Chelsea Physic Garden is April 1, 2010. Lots will already have changed by then and from the early spring flowers probably only seeds will remain while many other plants will prepare for getting into flowering shape.

New year resolution revolving around plants

Who would have thought? My ambitious aim of writing one blog entry every week fortnight didn’t quite come true last year! There are substantial doubts that it will do this year as 2010 promises to be a rather busy year with a lot of things to plan (all those holidays for example ;-)…).

No, my new year’s resolution revolving around plants is inspired by the chapter “collecting” in David Attenborough’s book Life Stories – btw a delightful, leger read and a 9 Pound bargain on Amazon.
In this chapter there were two points about Charles Darwin that caught my attention:

1. He did not join the Beagle as a naturalist, but as an entertainer providing “gentlemanly conversation” to Captain Robert Fitzroy.

 

2. Despite his great reputation as the non-plus-ultra bettle collector, Darwin turned out to be quite a bad scientific collector while on the Beagle, who didn’t label his grand collection of differently shaped giant tortoise shells that he found on different islands.
   Sorry, Charles, now this is really a first semester biology student mistake! You do that once with your test tubes (e.g. by semi-labelling them with 1,2,3 or even adding !) and you never do it again. All that tedious cloning for nothing…
   But, in Darwin’s case he couldn’t make up for his mistake by starting the experiment again… Luckily, he could rely on his assistant Symes Covington’s labelling skills. Of course, being only the assistant, Covington didn’t get to collect the impressive tortoise shells, but the rather unimposing mockingbirds. True “mocking” birds though there turned out to be!

Not labelling collected objects appears incommensurate with – if not opposing to the idea of scientific collecting. Nonetheless, there is (at least) one more famous victim: Henry Wellcome. As I learned last weekend on a fantastic (free!) tour through the “Medicine Man” exhibit at the Wellcome Collection, Henry Wellcome left warehouses full of objects (ranging from weapons over paintings and artificial limbs to who knows what kind of curiosities) without any label!

Shaking my head it dawned on me: In my plant photo collection there are quite numerous unlabelled “mocking plants” to be found. Many of them beautiful to look at or at least very beneficial to humankind – but without a freaking label!

Just like Darwin who must have made his new year’s resolution the labelling of his collected items once he realised his mistake, my new year’s resolution will be the meticulous labelling of all plant pictures I take.

And then, there will also be more to write about!

Plant knowledge test (in German)

Like the leaves my inspiration is gone. Blown away and sucked up by the ever growing darkness of these dreadful lightless months.

I want to hibernate, or do like the plants do – have a break and come back when there’s light to see and warmth to feel again.

Until then, what to write about? No fruit remains on the trees. And apart from few dark “evergreen” plants, there’s not much. As I miss the green I occupy myself with other things, as an (most of the times rather unworthy) ersatz.

A nice quick divertisment thought is this little quiz on plant functions (termed “clever plants” by their creators, the editors of GEO.de that is.)

A small comfort that is nonetheless 😐 .

The other day I adopted a seed

I’m a seed mother now. And like all mothers, a very proud one! Adopting is easy: Pay Pounds – that’s it. You’ll help save some seeds of one of the many species that are at the edge of extinction or already extinct in the wild.

Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank latest fund raising campaign tries to surf on the wave of well-deserved auplause and recognition upon their achievement of having banked 10% of the world’s wild plant species in the Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank located at Wakehurst Place which was announced earlier this week.

There are many reasons why this work is of tremendous importance. I here refer to Steve Hopper’s viewpoint article “Bank on seeds – the world’s buffer” and comments. Big deeds are needed.

I started small. £ 25.

And just like everybody who donates I wonder what happens to my donation. I even wonder more so since I’ve worked in a biological science lab before and know that £ 25 won’t even pay for a single PCR reaction. Without being entirely certain I do hope they get further than that and do make the promised “contribution to the ongoing costs of maintaining the Millennium Seed Bank so that it remains an important resource for the conservation of the world’s plant species”.

Why did I not donate more? With £ 1,000 I could have saved an entire plant species and become a plant mother. A truly exciting thought! Unfortunately, not within my monthly spending possibility. Come time, come money, come action.

So far I will content myself with having spread the word about the Adopt a Seed campaign and having contributed a small deed to it.

I thus end the way I end so many posts with a tentative “more later”.

Highgate Cemetery London

Entering Highgate Cemetery is easily done virtually. But real world visitors might struggle with

• getting off the tube stop “Highgate” (sounds logical after all) instead of “Archway” (yep, that’s the one!)

• puffing along wondering how London all the sudden got so hilly

• finding the entrance gates

• deciding which of the two Highgate cemeteries to go to: East or West, that’s the question here!

Go West!
The choice is yours: East, with Karl Marx as indisputably the most famous inhabitant, a “livelier” atmosphere and to be explored on your own. Or West, more secretively only accessible by guided tour, but according to the receptionist a more romantic atmosphere.
Not quite sure what to make of the livelier atmosphere, we chose the West Cemetery. Which translates into waiting in front of the gate and waiting again inside by a nervous attendant who counted at least 5 times to make sure no more than 20 people were on a tour.

Similarly nervous was our tour guide herself, finding it “highly disconcerting” that people on the tour were taking notes. Suffering from a memory like a sieve, I in turn found that highly annoying. But calmed down as we were to be lead for a good hour on a sunny late September day through the truly romantic cemetery.

We learned about James Selby the clever horse racer who managed to break the record of racing from London to Brighton and back in less than 8 hours. His good luck should continue in the afterlife as his tomb is decorated with horse shoes.

And a prize boxer whose tomb is now guarded by a chockingly real life looking dog.

Eternal watchdog

Then there is Nero, in both life and stone a remarkably peaceful lion, having kids ride on his back at the menagerie of George Wombwell whose tomb he now thrones upon.

Lion Nero, a star in the menagerie and Highgate Cemetery

Plants
Plant-wise beeches, pines and many other trees provide shade allowing lush ivy to take possession of most tombs. A patchwork of lichens and mosses add hues of bilious green and off white to most stones and statues.

Celtic cross

One of the oldest plants counting 300 years of age must be the Ceder of Lebanon towering above the Cedar Circle of mausoleums. According to our guide roots of Cedars tend to weaken and grow shallow the older a tree gets if they are left to spread freely in the soil. Apparently the flower pot structure formed by the Cedar Circle keeps the roots together. This is thought to be the reason for the tree having reached such an old age whilst not reaching maximal height (Cedars can grow up to 40 meters). Would Cedars grown in this climate actually reach their maximum height (Mental note to myself to ask at GPC as they used to have 4 adult Cedars tree…)?

My personal star at Highgate: the 300-year-old Cedar tree

After an hour breathing cemetery air, hearing life and death stories and learning about the history of the cemetery we arrived back at the gate. Cold, as the sun only occasionally brakes through the foliage. A quick look at black and white fotographs and historical drawings and out we were to head for a hot drink. Luckily we found a good tea and cappuchino closeby at the Café in Waterlow Park which neighbors with Highgate Cemetery.

For those eager to learn more about the history of the cemetery consult their website and the usual Wikipedia suspect.

Beautiful Ipomoea

Most All plants are interesting; many are very useful (these are the ones I’m mainly interested in), and many are beautiful (those are the ones most poeple are interested in) and some are simply stunning.

Two that belong to the latter group are Ipomoea tricolor and Ipomoea purpurea. In fact there are quite a few really beautiful Ipomoea species. Even the sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) has a not too bad looking flower 😉

But look for yourself:
(A note to all of you interested in the exact variety: will look these up and add later.)

Ipomoea tricolor in full blossom

Ipomoea purpurea and Japanese winter squash

After this superficial “cosmetic” blog post, the next one will treat an ugly, but terribly useful old tuber 😉

Competition: chance to name a species

Have I mentioned that I LOVE the Natural History Museum in London? Despite it constantly suffering from overcrowding, a high noise level and well, some of the exhibits have accumulated quite some dust…I love it – from the building itself to the fantastic shop (also online) where I could spend ours and a lot of money.

Plus, they also send out an interesting newsletter – which makes them stand out from the masses of spammy marketing newletters out there – and their website is very informative.

Now, the news of the day is – you, me, we, the general public, have the cance to name a species! Be Linnaeus for once! It’s a parasitic wasp, leaving lots of room for ourr imagnination to go wild in search of a really nasty name 😉

The concept and the competition is further explained in this Times online article and you can enter your suggestion directly on the Times Science blog. The only annoying thing is that you need to be a UK resident in order to participate – given that not only visitors of the NHM, but also readers of the Times and certainly science itself is international, what’s the point?. Does it have to do with sweepstake regulations and these sort of things???

But for now let me think about my entry…need to come up with a good name until the 18 October!

Gärten der Welt, Berlin (Marzahn)

Almost 3 5 weeks ago now, on a lovely sunny late summer day we were driving around Berlin and happened to be in the area of Marzahn. Not a part of Berlin you’d usually visit as a tourist. For those without a car, the U5 and S7 have stops nearby.

I can’t tell you what else there is to see in Marzahn (doesn’t seem to be much, but pls correct me if I’m wrong here!), so we went for the gardens of the world, a big park really.
Entrance is 3 Euros/adult, very reasonably priced.

Now to understand my blog post and my view of the garden you should know that I’m a geek, nutsaboutplants, and I do look at the labelling plates, trying to remember the name (taking notes), comparing plant families and trying to associate the country of origin with one of the many plant hunters who might have travelled that peticular part of the world. But that’s me 😉

Most people might describe the park Gärten der Welt as ideal: A big park areal, generous green lawns, benches and resting spots with the opportunity to buy refreshments everywhere, differently themed little garden sections – from the Oriental garden to the Japanese and Korean ones – all of them little oasises of calmness where the visitor can take in the atmosphere specific to the different gardens. And I loved these aspects – but (big BUT) – where are the labels describing which plant I’m looking it? Which lovely maple is it that which looks so fresh in the Chinese garden? And the impressive bamboo hedge? Or the ground cover in the Balinese garden?
Good that there’s only one Ginkgo species left 😉
Seriously, only having a few plants, by far only a small minority labeled (and not very informatively either…), was extremely disappointing.

The lack of information continued…well, there were information boards (one at the entrance of each garden), not sure “information board” is the right word though, since they didn’t contain a wealth of information. A few more words on the architecture and its unique features of the respective garden would have been very much appreciated.
The herabal garden was the biggest disappointment of all – and most of them you can really almost grow all year round – but there were too many empty pots and more than just “Basil” a little more information would have been much appreciated.

Now that I’ve satisfied my need of complaining, let me mention the things I really liked:
Lots and lots of green space, benches everywhere nicely placed so you get some privacy and don’t feel like sitting on another visitor’s lap. Also picnics seemed to be no problem and kids had – apart from the 2 (?) playgrounds a lot of space to roam freely. Getting from one garden to the other involved a bit of walking, but hey, that’s why it never felt crowded.
There seemed to be a few different cafes and stands to grab some food, but since in good German manner brought our own, there was no need for that.

The general feeling of the different gardens is that they are still quite new, some of them feeling almost void, and apart from the herbal garden, they were are well looked after, plants looking fresh and healthy. Hope my pictures do that, too and convince you that – despite the cons I’ve mentioned above – this garden was well worth a visit. Not sure though I’d make the extra trip, only if there was really nothing else to see and I needed some green (but then again you have so many inviting lakes around Berlin…), but if in the area stop by. Overall I think it is more a local park with some “exotic” garden highlights. And apparently the Chinese garden is the biggest one outside of China (really???) which is a selling point to some tourists…but I’d prefer to visit China one day to see that for myself 😉

More information on the Gärten der Welt here.

The Oriental Garden

View through the trees onto the Japanese stone garden

Japanese stone garden

A beautiful maple displaying its red leaves in the Japanese Garden

Entrance of the Chinese Garden

Water reflexions in the Chinese Garden

Chinese Garden panorama

Tranquility in the Chinese Garden

Moist and steamy in the Balinese Garden

Tacca chantrieri – Fledermauslilie/Teufelsblume – Balinese Garden

Adult Tacca chantrieri – Fledermauslilie/Teufelsblume – Balinese Garden

Orchids everywhere in the Balinese Garden

Capsicum annuum

If I had to pick a favourite plant family chances are it would be the Solanaceae – but don’t let me think about it too long as I might change my mind 😉

Origin(s) and distribution
And the capsicum genus is just as interesting. Let along the species “Capsicum annuum” counts more than 100 different varieties [1]! And they sure look different as well, not only what is commonly referred to as capsicum/paprika (the fruit), but also the leaves, in short the entire plant. Well, not surprisingly if you consider that C. annuum had been cultivated before the arrival of Christopher Columbus, already then often with local varieties. It is now thought that the origin of Capsicum annuum lies in Columbia and Southern Brazil [2], however, other sources [3] state Mexico. Wherever it might have been, today C. annuum is wide-spread – mainly thanks to Columbus!

C. annuum var. unfortunately not noted

C. annuum – variety “Aurora” with purple fruits

C. annuum var. annuum “Holiday Cheer” (white round fruit) next to C. chinense “Dorset Naga” with green fruit

Sorry, the pictures have a long loading time!

Apart from the aspect of varieties of species and an entire history of cultivation and spread around the world [for more on that see [4], there are (at least) two main aspects that should be mentioned when talking about C. annuum
– Capsaicin
– Vitamin C

Capsiacin
Searching for Capsaicin in PubMet confronts us with over 9000 entries (and I though C. annuum with a little more than 500 was a lot….)! Combining the two throws out a lot of articles on receptors and reasearch into neuroscience. Interesting though not the point here. Here we talk about capsaicinoids, those substances that we perceive as “hot”, pungent and associate with chilies.

MORE LATER

[1] Podlech, Herbs and Healing Plants of Britain & Europe; Europe, HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, 2008
[2] http://www.uni-graz.at/~katzer/germ/Caps_ann.html
[3] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsicum_annuum
[4] Govindarajan, Capsicum production, technology, chemistry, and quality. Part 1: History, botany, cultivation, and primary processing; Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr. 1985; 22(2):109-76

Abney Park, London

You can feel about London whatever you want, one thing is for sure: it’s always good for a surprise and will continuously let you explore new things. And Abney Park in Stoke Newington, north-east London (bus stop at Bouverie Road), is definitely worth exploring!

It is indeed a very unusual public park. Most of the park is taken up by the Abney Park Cemetery (for more information see Wikipedia on this). So far not that unusual…
But most of the graves were lushly overgrown by vegetation, trees forcing their way, turning over stones and ivy thickly creeping its fingers over beloved messages to the deceased. There were a few ones dating from 2007 or 2008, but the big majority – if you could decipher the inscription – was at least 100 years old…

Tomb in Abney Park

Tombs in Abney Park

Tomb stones in Abney Park

Tombs in Abney Park

In the centre of the cemetery is Abney Park Chapel (more information on Wikipedia) which shares the same fate as most of the tombs – ivy crawling up on one side, trees on the chapel tower; plus some graffiti one the backside, while the door and windows have been removed.

Abney Park Chapel

Despite the dominance of vegetation left to its own devices and the feeling of having entered the setting of a horror movie or a magical maze, Abney Park is a park – no need to illegally climb fences, there’s a park map at the entrance, a visitor centre, officially labelled paths and botanically labelled trees. And people behave like they’re in a park – meeting up and having picnics (on the tombs, it should be added, which makes you look for pointy teeth…).