It seemed to me unlikely that APRIL IN PARIS would live up to all the hype…
but, alas, I was wrong.
For the seasons had sped up, or perhaps started early, but at any rate, Spring had, indeed, come to this most beautiful of cities, while Philadelphia was wallowing in its usual late-spring spate of cold weather. In Paris rough countrymen were already selling bunches of lilacs and lily-of-the-valley on the streetcorners, as they have been for years, and the walled gardens are festooned in wisteria. In all of the public parks and gardens, Parisians and tourists alike were lounging in the sun, like lizards soaking up the heat from the pavements, filling the benches with a tapestry of colorful characters playing musical chairs. They arranged themselves around the forbidden grassy plots in appreciative admiration, chatting or greeting friends or tilting their chins to get a bit of sun. They sat in pairs of all sorts along the quaysides, equidistant, each couple camped out in their own bit of sun, vying for the right to be as close as possible to the Seine, slapped by the waves of the passing tourist boats.
C'est charmante. C'est Paris en printemps. It's Spring.
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| David and Dory in Parc Montsouris |
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| View towards Le Grande Gallerie de l'evolution, Museum on Natural History architect: Louis-Jules Andre |
The Jardins des Plantes is still, primarily, a teaching garden, as is evident by the arrangement of its many botanical wonders. In one area, plants are arranged by botanical family, to allow the student to see the structural similarities that Linnaeus used to categorize the chaos of the botanical world. By Linnaeus's time (roughly 1750) the garden had already been in existence for 100 years, as a teaching garden, a repository of rare and exotic plants, and as a living catalogue of medicinal plants.
The Jardin had been actively acquiring exotic specimens since the time of Guy Fagon, the garden's director until 1718, who had sent collectors to the Antilles and the Levant armed with royal authority. Thus the garden acquired pistachio trees, maples from Crete and a cedar of Lebanon brought as a seedling from England by Bernard de Jussieu in 1734. When the pot the seedling came in broke, Jussieu carried the tiny plant in his hat; today the gigantic tree towers over the garden's labyrinth.
In light of new discoveries, the Ecole de Botanique was totally reorganized as early as 1774, when Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu, Bernard's nephew, replaced an earlier system in favor of one developed by his uncle and based on Linnaeus's system of binary nomenclature. Antoine-Laurent later went on to develop and publish his own scheme. (The arrangement in the Ecole de Botanique continues to evolve—a brand-new sign explains that it's currently being revised to reflect recent studies on molecular structure.)
Vivian Thomas, Le Jardins des Plantes: Flora: 2012
In fact, according to the French, the glory of developing a system of botanical nomenclature should not belong to Linneaus, but rather to Jussieu:
In his study of flowering plants, Genera plantarum (1789), Jussieu adopted a methodology based on the use of multiple characters to define groups, an idea derived from Scottish-French naturalist Michel Adanson. This was a significant improvement over the "artificial" system of Linnaeus, whose most popular work classified plants into classes and orders based on the number of stamens and pistils. Jussieu did keep Linnaeus' binomial nomenclature, resulting in a work that was far-reaching in its impact; many of the present-day plant families are still attributed to Jussieu. Morton's 1981 History of botanical science counts 76 of Jussieu's families conserved in the ICBN, versus just 11 for Linnaeus, for instance. (Not that its a competition, of course!)
The arrangement in the Ecole de Botanique continues to evolve—a brand-new sign explains that it's currently being revised to reflect recent studies on molecular structure.
Here, rangy and unkempt alongside the path, I find Woad, an ancient plant that is the second best plant source for a blue dye. (Indigo being the first) The process by which this unassuming plant yields up its dye is a urine-driven fermentation which is as unpleasant as it sounds, and a testament to the lengths people were willing to go to get this beautiful color. Woad was the plant with which the fierce Celts used to paint themselves blue before going into battle -- as remarked upon by Julius Caesar himself -- and it has a reputation for provoking a hallucinogenic euphoria and inability to feel pain. These both seem like very useful attributes if you were planning on battling the Roman Legions basically in the nude -- and may, in fact, be one reason why it was used as a body paint.
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| Sesquiterpenoids are defined as the group of 15 carbon compounds derived by the assembly of 3 isoprenoid units and they are found mainly in higher plants but also in invertebrates. Sesquiterpenes, with monoterpenes, are an important constituent of essential oils in plants. They are the most diverse group of isoprenoids. In plants, they function as pheromones and juvenile hormones. |
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| Yellow Woad blossoms betray their relationship to mustard, another yellow member of the cruciferae family. Like a cross, both have four petals set perpendicular to one another. |
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The blossoms and stems of Primula veris, or common primroses, are a wonderful sedative addition to baths or to teas. Some species are said to produce a localized contact dermatitis, resembling eczema in susceptible individuals, but I have never experienced the effect. |
At Pennsbury Manor (1701) we grew a variety illustrated by Gerarde in 1633, called "Hose in Hose" or "Two-in-a-hole".
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| Milk Thistle here is seen embracing its descriptive signage. One of the plants essential in rebuilding the liver, it is a welcome discovery here, touting it virtues. A tincture of the fresh plant has been part of my post-surgical liver regeneration campaign, and an important part of my recuperation from the removal of my colon cancer metastases. Needless to say, I love this plant. |
