It has been a
difficult day: if I just record here the name Microsoft Word, no doubt
we can leave it at that. To counteract some of the churning emotions
of the daylight hours I wandered out into the churchyard at St
Olave's with my camera and took some shots of the magnolia trees—now in spring
bloom—that stand atop the old plague pit (I kid you not) in
the centre of this historic ground. The dear things did not disappoint.
The genus Magnolia is named after the
great French botanist, Pierre Magnol, whose dates (1638-1715) make him
pretty exactly contemporary with the most famous of St Olave's
parishioners, Samuel Pepys. In addition to lending his name to a large and
popular genus of beautiful trees, Magnol was the author of the snappily
titled Prodromus historiae generalis plantarum, in quo familiae
plantarum per tabulas disponuntur. (Montpellier 1689) ["Precursor
to a general history of plants, in which the families of plants are arranged in
tables"], and perhaps his greatest and most enduring contribution to
plant science is in the concept of plant families: the working out of
relations between plants based on shared combinations of
morphological characteristics. There you have it.
 |
| As far as I can tell, this is an example of Magnolia liliifera, otherwise known as Japanese magnolia since, although native to China, it was first introduced to English-speaking countries from cultivated Japanese origins. The blooms are now going off and the large, luxurious petals strew the lawn beneath the trees, their pure white concave inner surfaces making them resemble—as the Corporation of London's plant expert described them to me a few days ago—porcelain cups. He did not add the word 'exquisite', but it would not have been out of place if he had. |
No comments:
Post a Comment