Dawns Lilacs

Lilacs in Georgia, Vermont.... more

by Deborah Benoit

Title

Dawns Lilacs

Artist

Deborah Benoit

Medium

Photograph - Original Photography By Deborah Benoit

Description

Lilacs in Georgia, Vermont.
********************
Lilacs � both Syringa vulgaris and S. � persica the finer, smaller "Persian lilac", now considered a natural hybrid � were introduced into European gardens at the end of the sixteenth century, from Ottoman gardens, not through botanists exploring the Balkan habitats of S. vulgaris.The Holy Roman Emperor's ambassador, Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, is generally credited with supplying lilac slips to Carolus Clusius, about 1562. Well-connected botanists, like the great herbalist John Gerard, soon had the rarity in their gardens: Gerard notes that he had lilacs growing �in very great plenty� in 1597, but lilacs were not mentioned by Shakespeare, and John Loudon was of the opinion that the Persian lilac had been introduced into English gardens by John Tradescant the elder. Tradescant's Continental source for information on the lilac, and perhaps ultimately for the plants, was Pietro Andrea Mattioli, as one can tell from a unique copy of Tradescant's plant list in his Lambeth garden, an adjunct of his Musaeum Tradescantianum; it was printed, though probably not published, in 1634: it lists Lilac Matthioli. That Tradescant's "lilac of Mattioli's" was a white one is shown by Elias Ashmole's manuscript list, Trees found in Mrs Tredescants Ground when it came into my possession (1662): "Syringa alba".

Uploaded

May 28th, 2014