Beatrix Potter's Cacti

One always hopes for earth-shaking discoveries from research.  Sitting in the Morgan Library Reading Room on August 23, 2011 with a stack of Potter reference materials on the table, I felt a strange vibration.  My chair was moving, so was the table and my laptop.  When I saw the puzzled look on the librarian’s face, I knew it wasn’t me.  Within seconds, the Huffington Post tweeted about the earthquake, centered in Virginia and that had nudged the eastern seaboard of the United States ever so slightly. But in addition to participating in a natural phenomenon usual to New York City that day, two pieces of plant-related Potter research came together with a satisfying click.

The twin motivations for this particular trip to the Morgan were an illustration in Linda Lear’s biography and selections from The Choyce Letters, edited by Judy Taylor.

In Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature, plate 16 you will find ‘Leaves and Flowers of the Orchid Cactus’, a lyrical watercolour held in the Morgan Library’s Charles Ryskamp Collection.  

Orchid Cactus: http://www.nccsc.net/blog/grownups-guide-beatrix-potter

In The Choyce Letters, cacti are mentioned in three letters from Beatrix Heelis to her friend (and former employee) Louise Choyce as follows:

July 19 1939

I am interested to have the cutting of cactus, it may be like one that was in the cool greenhouse at Lindeth How  – a very delicate salmon pink; growing something like the common magenta, but larger and much more lovely. I think it should root easily. Its been a season for cactus. I have had 2 plants large scarlet cactus with 6 flowers each – a blaze of flame colour.

June 29 1943

I have been excited about your cactus, it has had 5 flowers – lovely – very like my old pink cactus, put prettier as the trumpet is pearly white instead of deep pink all over. It is such a pretty plant, with fresh green leafage. One of my scarlet has had 7 large flowers’ the other variety at Hill Top has had only one flower, it does not flower so freely as the pink.

August 16 1943

Your cactus has grown another (6^th) flower bud. I am trying a cutting from it; its [sic] a most pleasing variety.

My focus was to compare the cactus shown in the painting to those described in the letters.  In 2000, John F. Reed, retired Director of the Library at the New York Botanical Garden, had identified the specimen shown in the Morgan’s painting as Epiphyllum phylanthus.  Potter herself left us clues to its cultivation.  The catalog entry for the painting reads, “Signed at lower left, in pencil, H.B.P. 1886; inscribed on verso, at lower left, in pencil, At Camfield / Given to Miss Hammond. ’87 / Helen Beatrix Potter.” 

Commonly called Orchid Cactus, Epiphyllum phyllanthus is a large member of the family Cactaceae.  It is one species of sixteen from Central and South America, first described in 1812 by Englishman botanist Andrian Hawworth.  Bushy and semi-erect, E. phyllantus can grow up to three meters (nine feet) tall, earning its other common name:  Climbing Cactus.  Thankfully it does not have spines like the typical desert cactus.  It is used to growing in the jungle, nesting in soil pockets in the forks of trees.  If you invite this rather stiff green monster into your home or glass house, it may reward you with several large fragrant flowers that open on summer nights, buds pushing out from its scalloped green branches.  (Think epi- “upon” and –phyllum “leaf.”) The flowers do not resemble an orchid’s, but are equally exotic. 

I picture Beatrix Potter and her governess, Miss Hammond, strolling out after dinner to Camfield’s conservatory, their skirts brushing against the benches and gravel crunching underfoot.   The gardener would have passed along the message that the cactus would open that night.  Beatrix would have brought her sketchpad to capture the short-lived yellowish-white blooms, opening for a night or two, then fading until the following year.  Pity she did not record it in her journal, but alas, her mentions of Camfield in summer 1886 center on plumbing and insect infestations.

Also interesting to note, Potter’s 1886 painting of Epiphyllum phyllanthus is a botanical study with the bloom shown from two different viewpoints and the green, leaf-like stems carefully detailed. This layout and rendering is botanical art, that intersection of art and science.  It was during this period that Potter’s interests were moving toward scientific illustration. In A Victorian Naturalist Anne Stevenson Hobbs notes, “Most of her microscopic drawing dates from 1886-87: insects and spiders, the wing-scales of butterflies and moths.” (p. 144)  Her Epiphyllum painting is a precursor to her fervor for fungi which seems to have germinated in 1887.  

In the three Choyce letters, Mrs. Heelis refers to cacti that are easy to propagate in a range of colors:  the common magenta, scarlet, flame, pink and salmon.  I originally assumed that these were Schlumbergera, the so-called Holiday Cactus, which bloom in that color range in my sunroom from October through December.  But looking at the dates, I note that the cacti in question were blooming in summer, unlike the Schlumbergera of my acquaintance. 

A bit of additional research revealed starting in the 1830 and ‘40s restless horticulturists in England and across Europe were starting to cross and re-cross the rather unwieldy Epiphyllum phyllanthus with other genera, often smaller terrestrial cacti.  The result:  the introduction of hundreds of hybrid cultivars, named varieties in a wide range of color and bloom time and a much smaller habit.  One hundred years later, when Beatrix Heelis was writing to Miss Choyce, they were discussing these cacti, much better suited to a windowsill at Hill Top or Castle Cottage than their E. phyllanthus forebear.

The “Epies” as they are fondly known are easy to share as they propagate easily from cuttings.  As an experiment, my friend Cathy brought me a cutting of her night-blooming cereus (Epiphyllum oxypetalum) on her last drive down from Maine to New Jersey.  It was wrapped in a not-so-damp paper towel for about a week along the way.  I unceremoniously cut in it half, plunked it in a jar with a little water, and look:

It's ALIVE!!!

So it is possible that Louie Choyce sent a cutting of this “most pleasing variety” to her friend Beatrix Heelis through the post.  Perhaps a hybridizer can name a new specimen for Beatrix Potter one day soon.

Beatrix Potter and the Women of Kew

Beatrix Potter did not wear knickerbockers.  At least not that I know of.  In her journal in 1896, she recounts a hasty departure from a visit to Kew Gardens, "Uncle Harry was afraid of missing his train and we trudged across grass, under showers of red blossom and across the rock-garden, and distant glimpses of the two young women presumably in knickerbockers tying up flowers."  

Her eyes were not deceiving her.  The director of the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, William Thistleton-Dyer, had appointed the first female gardeners that same year.  They wore the same uniforms as the male gardeners, as seen in this picture from the Kew Library website.

It is possible that the women Beatrix spotted had been trained at the Horticultural College for Women at Swanley, Kent established in 1889.  The Kew Journal of May 1894 had an interesting take on possible hybridization:

"Cannot some arrangement be made whereby a Kewite and a Swanley Miss can join their forces and thus be a source oIf strength to each other?  We might then have gardeners offering their services for the outdoor department, wife to take charge of the orchids and fruit, or a woman gardener might undertake to manage a large garden, her husband to act as foreman.  Kew and Swanley should certainly have a special attraction for each other.  Double-barreled gardeners would be an advantage, and their offspring would be born gardeners; but alas! gardeners as a rule are forbidden to have offspring."

As far as I know, this never happened.

Beatrix Potter never gardened at Kew, but she consulted with them and used their library. And she did take up the idea of gardening on her property in the Lake District, even if not in knickerbockers.

"In the Very End of the Harvest!"

This week commemorates the 100th anniversary of Beatrix Potter's marriage. 

Helen Beatrix Potter married William Heelis on October 14, 1913 in St. Mary Abbott's Church in Kensington.  She was 47; he was 42.

If you know anything of Miss Potter's life story, you may already know that her first love, Norman Warne, died suddenly before their engagement was made public.  Her parents did not approve.  Norman, her editor at Frederick Warne & Company, was in the trades.  Their opinion was sadly made moot, as Norman died in 1905  Here is Norman shown with one of his nephews, an image from Margaret Lane's biography The Magic Years of Beatrix Potter, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Norman Warne with a nephew, circa 1900

Seven years later, despite initial parental objections, Miss Potter married Mr. Heelis, a solicitor from Hawkshead who had helped her with some of her property transactions.  Here is a picture of Beatrix and Willie, as she called him, on the eve of their wedding.  It was taken in the back garden of 2 Bolton Gardens, her parents' home in London.  Once again thanks to Wikipedia, and to Judy Taylor's biography, Beatrix Potter: Artist, Storyteller, and Countrywoman.

Beatrix Potter and William Heelis, October 13, 1913

Of her marriage, Beatrix wrote to an American friend quoting (roughly) Shakespeare, "Spring came to you at the farthest, in the latter end of the harvest."  By all indications, theirs was a happy marriage.  Perhaps partly because Willie did not interfere with her gardening projects.  The National Trust recorded oral histories from those who remembered Beatrix and Willie.  Harry and Ethel Byers, who had worked for Heelises, remembered Willie helping out with planting seeds, but only in the vegetable garden.

It does seem better, as a wise gardener once told me, if married couples who garden do so in separate beds.

Packrats of the World Unite!

My sisters and I come from a long line of packrats.  Our mother kept programs, ticket stubs, newspaper clippings, letters, tiny little notebooks with all of her expenditures -- the list goes on.  And these apples did not fall far from that tree. Yesterday a card arrived in the mail from my sister Kay.  She sent me a bookmark from her days as a manager of B. Dalton Bookseller stores.

A souvenir of the late 1980s, this bookmark tells a story of its own.  Beatrix Potter's original publisher, Frederick Warne & Co., was acquired by Penguin Books in 1983.  As part of Penguin, Warne created new editions of Beatrix Potter's books with sumptuous new reproductions of her artwork.  The new editions hit the streets in 1987, according to the Penguin website:
http://www.us.penguingroup.com/static/pages/publishers/yr/frederickwarne.html

It seems likely that this bookmark was a promotional item that was part of the launch of the new editions of the little books.  Both companies, the publisher and the bookseller are shown.  Three registered trademark symbols are shown.  It was during these years that Penguin/Warne began to license the Beatrix Potter characters, a campaign that continues today.

I doubt Beatrix Potter would have approved the phrase "The Original Peter Rabbit Books" leading the list of her titles.  She got tired of the "bunny books" (her phrase).  Her favorite biij was The Tailor of Gloucester which has mice and a cat, as well as a tailor, but narry a bunny.  Still, she was a savvy businesswoman and no doubt would have appreciated the marketing push.

Beatrix Potter was a packrat too, thank goodness for those of us who are interested in her interests.  So that this bookmark survived several decades and several moves, and that my sibling could put her hands on it (I salute you, sis) is a special gift for me.

My sister's note read, "I knew there was a reason I was holding onto this little souvenir all these years -- little did I know my little sister was writing the perfect book for this bookmark to belong in!  Love you kid -- Kay."

Sisters are precious things.  Let's keep them.

The Joy of Old Books

I learned from Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature that her Potter grandparents gave her Sowerby’s British Wildflowers, published 1882.  Her copy, inscribed and dated 12 October 1884 is in the Beatrix Potter Collection at Daito Bunka University in Tokyo.  The problem, or joy, of Internet surfdom is that one can indulge one’s desires at the speed of the keyboard.   On to the Antiquarian Book Exchange, ABE.com, where bookseller Neil Summersgil from Lancashire posted the following:

Book Description: Imperial octavo, L, 186pp, 90 fine engraved plates, mostly hand coloured, illustrating 1780 flowers. Original green cloth, rebacked with the original attractive gilt spine laid down, sl spotting endpapers, minor toning to margins. Overall a Good solid copy.

Beatrix Potter's inscribed copy of Sowerby's at the Daito Bunka Reference Library

When the postman, well, postwoman, delivered it – thrilling.  I love opening book boxes, especially from England. So how did I use this book.  In her journal on Friday September 30, 1892 Beatrix sees a man by the roadside in Birnam and writes, "He was gathering a handful of purple devil’s-bit scabious in the ditch, and being already overladen with bundles, I thought him an enthusiast or intelligent herbalist according to the idiosyncracy of peripatetic natives."

Devil's Bit Scabious courtesy of WikiCommons

From Sowerby's Index of English names I learned that Devil’s bit is Scabiosa succisa with regular blue flowers (both male and female parts).  A common wildflower, about a foot tall, it blooms from August to October, matching the date of the Journal entry.  There is an engraved, colored plate that includes the illustration of the plant.

Sowerby was John Edward Sowerby, who lived from 1825-1878.  He was third generation of a dynasty of London botanical artists, starting with grandfather, James, original author of English Botany, and father Charles, a founding member of the Royal Botanic Society.   BTW English Botany -  a sort of family business - was first put out by his grandfather in 1790 and then in a new edition by his father, Charles.

John continued to update and reissue the family book, English Botany, in monthly installments from his shop in Lambeth, and illustrate many books with Charles Johnson:  The Ferns of Great Britain, British Poisonous Plant, The Grasses of Great Britain, The Useful Plants of Great Britain   But my favorite title with Sowerby illustrations is M. C. Cooke’s Rust, smut, mildew & mould; an introduction to microscopic fungi.

If you would like to see these books, but don’t have room on your bookshelves, you can use the internet archive of the Biodiversity Heritage Library.  It has page-by-page scans that you can view online or download.   But there is something about holding the book itself.

Keeping Mum

I have lots of flowers, I am very fond of my garden, it is a regular old fashioned farm garden, with a box hedge round the flower bed, and moss roses and pansies and black currants & strawberries and peas – and big sage bushes for Jemima, but onions always do badly. I have tall white bell flowers I am fond of, they are just going over, next there will be phlox; and last come the michaelmas daisies & chrysanthemums. Then soon after Christmas we have snowdrops, they grow wild and come up all over the garden & orchard, and in some of the woods. 

When Beatrix Potter wrote to a little girl named Dulcie in 1924, she listed chrysanthemums as the last flowers of the year to bloom in her garden. The last seems sometimes dearest.  She had many associations with this plant, and over the years, she wove associations – with people, with places – into the fabric of her garden. 

      Beatrix’s paternal grandparents grew chrysanthemums of many different varieties.  In a sale catalogue for their home, Gorse Hall, in 1885 (after their deaths) Henry Heap & Son touted, “A large number of ‘choice named’ chrysanthemums and auriculas, greenhouse plants including ferns, and rose trees were auctioned, as well as six fish troughs, a watchman’s rattle, and five dozen bottles of White’s sherry.” 

            Knowing my interests in all things horticultural, a Beatrix Potter Society friend sent me information about Beatrix’s uncle, Crompton Potter, winning for his chrysanthemums in the Manchester’s Autumnal Exhibition of the Botanical and Horticultural Society.  The show opened on Tuesday, November 23, 1880 in Town Hall, the impressive Gothic revival building completed in 1877 in Albert Square. The Journal of Horticulture and Cottage Gardener of December 2,1880 reported, “The display of Chrysanthemums was the main feature of the Exhibition, as, owing to the inclemency of the weather, many delicate plants, which would otherwise have been sent to add to the beauty of the Show, were kept in the greenhouses.”  The Botanical Gardens’ display alone had nearly 250 plants, so it must have been a lovely sight, especially as an escape from the aforementioned elements on that November day. Mr. Crompton Potter of Rusholme received a certificate of commendation for his display of cut blooms of chrysanthemums.

In her journal, November 1896, Beatrix noted being on the train to London with her uncle, Henry Roscoe.  Their many parcels included, “a goose in a hamper and a bunch of chrysanthemums as large as cauliflowers. He was so proud of the latter that he would not let me carry them.”  They were coming back from Woodcote Lodge, the Roscoe’s country home in Surrey, where Uncle Harry and Aunt Lucy took great delight in their garden.  

In his autobiography, The Life & Experiences of Sir Henry Enfield Roscoe, Roscoe waxed poetic:

 The pathetic sadness of a garden in autumn, when the glories of youth and of the maturity of the year have passed away, is fortunately relieved by the blooms of the chrysanthemum, a flower which we owe to our wonderful friends the Japanese. Here the skill of the horticulturist is perhaps more visible than in any other floral display, as shown by the extraordinary variety of colour, form of petal, and size of bloom in this singular flower of Eastern origin. 

            From Roscoe’s enthusiastic description, it is easy to see why the plant became so popular. Chrysanthemum culture in England began in the early 1800s and took off mid-19^th century thanks to the efforts of plant hunters and nurserymen.  Robert Fortune, the noted Scottish plant collector, brought back key species from China in 1846 and large-flowered varieties like Uncle Harry’s cauliflower-sized specimens from Japan in 1862. By 1901, the Veitch nursery, arguably the most famous nursery in Victorian England, listed 686 varieties of chrysanthemums in its catalog. (See www.caradocdoy.co.uk for facsmiles of the Veitch catalog.)

            Her uncles and grandparents grew their large showy chrysanthemums under glass, no doubt with the help of their horticultural staff.  Those varieties will not withstand normal garden conditions due to the weight of their blooms and, in some cases, lack of hardiness.  Beatrix grew smaller types such as the pompoms, suitable, as the Veitch catalog noted “to the open ground,” enlivening her Sawrey garden in autumn.