Since we have received appreciations from so many thistle lovers, I thought I would finish out the series with the carline thistles, the last thistles in our medieval plant collection to bloom.  Unlike other thistles, their flowers have a daisy form consisting of a disk with rayed petals. They are dry flowers of the “ever-lasting” type, sometimes described as straw flowers. The carline thistles are plants of poor, dry soils.  The USDA lists the common carline thistle, Carlina vulgaris, as an invasive weed reported in New York and New Jersey, but no other state, although I have never observed them in either. Has anyone seen it in their locale? (The USDA site notes that it is not necessarily the case that a plant is established only in the states indicated by shading on their map.  It may well grow elsewhere, but its presence has not been reported to the USDA.)

The perennial stemless species, Carlina acaulis, native to Europe, strongly resembles the closely related Eurasian biennial Carlina vulgaris, except that the rosette of spiny leaves lies close to the ground, while the common carline thistle has a short stem. The leaves of C. acaulis are also longer than those of C. vulgaris.

The generic name derives from the Emperor Charlemagne.  It is said that a dreadful plague decimated his army, and he prayed that the rest of his soldiery be delivered from the pestilence.  In a dream, an angel instructed him to shoot an arrow into the air, and mark where it struck the ground.  The herb that it pierced would provide the cure he sought.  (Maude Grieve, A Modern Herbal, 1931.)

I haven’t found the medieval source for this story, but it is wonderfully depicted in a 15th century German herbal known as the Auslasser Herbal, illustrated by Brother Vitus Ausslasser, a monk at the monastery of St. Sebastian in Eberberg.  The herbal is in the collection of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich. Brother Auslasser shows the emperor kneeling before a carline thistle, stem and all. The plant is larger than he is and appears to hover in the air above him.  An angel appears above and to the right of the thistle, and points to it with his left hand. I haven’t been able to find the image online, but it is beautifully reproduced in The Illustrated Herbal, WIlfred Blunt and Sandra Raphael, 1979.

ShareThis

Left: Anagallis arvensis, a weed that produces an advanced root system to ensure its survival; Right: Datura stramonium, a vigorous weed that relies primarily on seed for reproduction.

A weed is defined in the most simple manner as a plant growing in an area where it is unwanted. This could apply to a garden, a farm, or any possible landscape where a plant may appear. Plants may be considered unwanted based on ornamental value or their competitiveness with desired plants. Plants within the same community often compete for water, nutrients, and physical space. Unfortunately, it is the weed that most often wins, followed by a reduction in crop yields and garden aesthetics. It is in these situations, that weed control is most often practiced.

Before we make an attempt at weed control, it is important for us to understand why the weed is so often victorious over the plants that we originally intend to grow. An ecological definition of the weed will bring us closer to an understanding: “Weeds are plants that are especially successful at colonizing disturbed, but potentially productive sites, and at maintaining their abundance under conditions of repeated disturbance” (Liebman, Mohler, and Staver, Ecological Management of Agricultural Weeds, 2001). Unlike the cultivated plants of the farm or garden, weeds have biologically adapted to these conditions over several generations to ensure survival. An example of this biological adaptation could be the size and structure of the seed or the the length of a tap root.  Weeds with an annual or biennial life cycle primarily rely on seeding to spread. However, perennial weeds have highly developed root systems, in addition to seeding, that give them an advantage in spreading and creating new plants asexually. Knowing these characteristics helps us develop strategies for control.

In the past the gardeners at The Cloisters have relied primarily on the mechanical removal of weeds—hand weeding. Although this technique is effective, it is obviously the most time-consuming and labor intensive. This season we have been experimenting with steam as a means of weed control. We use a simple steam cleaner, which is the size of a vacuum. The results have been wonderful. If applied at the right time, the steam addresses both seed dispersal and the vigorous root systems of weeds. Not only is it effective, it has its roots in the Middle Ages, as mentioned in the earlier post, “Another Thistle”.

ShareThis

Left: Silybum marianum, the Marian thistle, is also known as milk thistle, because of the milky-white streaks on the spiny leaves. Right: The thistle appears outside and below the enclosure of the captive Unicorn, near the Madonna lily (Lilium candidum), another plant associated with the Virgin. Visit the Collection Database to see the detail in context and learn more about The Unicorn in Captivity.

While thistles were a thorn in the farmer’s side, then as now, virtually all plants were accorded medicinal value in the Middle Ages. Milk thistle (Silybum marianum ) was eaten as a vegetable, and is grown in a bed devoted to pottage plants here at The Cloisters, but it has a rightful place in the medicinal collection as well. According to the Grand Herbier, this thistle was believed to increase the flow of mother’s milk, and help women to nourish their children. (Margaret Freeman,The Unicorn Tapestries, 1976.) The Hortus Sanitatis gives a long list of medicinal virtues, including the capacity to relieve the thirst of infants bitten by venomous creatures. (Frank Anderson, German Herbals to 1500, 1984.) Many if not most of us have seen milk thistle capsules on the shelves of drugstores or of healthfood stores; modern research indicates that the plant can help to repair damaged liver tissue.

I have seen milk thistle grown as an ornamental in England, and it does make an attractive foliage plant, but it is necessary to cut back the flowering stems as they emerge. Once the milk thistle blooms, it will no longer produce leaves, but will quickly go to seed. The purplish-pink flowerhead is attractive, but as with all thistles, the head should be removed before the seed disperses. (The flower of the milk thistle in the detail from The Unicorn in Captivity appears to be white, but when seen from the reverse side of the tapestry, the flower shows pink. Exposure to light has faded some of the original colors.)

As with other medieval European species once prized as healing plants, the milk thistle is considered to be an agricultural weed in the United States. Despite the medicinal virtues of thistles, medieval agriculturalists liked them no better than today’s farmers, and they equipped themselves with a thick leather mitt when dealing with these plants. Many ingenious methods of weed control were devised in the Middle Ages, including the use of two weed hooks that could be used in tandem as the weeder systematically worked his or her way between furrows, pulling weeds free of the soil and laying them down to mulch the roots of the crop. (Dorothy Hartley, Lost Country Life, 1979.) Weeds were troublesome in lawns and gardens as well as in the fields. The great medieval theologian and scientist Albertus Magnus recommended pouring boiling water over the site where a lawn was to be laid, in order to kill the weed seeds.

In the Middle Ages, the symbolic connotations of thistles were altogether negative. They were inextricably bound up with the Fall of Man and the cursed ground mentioned in Genesis 3:18. There were no weeds in Paradise.

ShareThis

The most imposing of the several thistles we cultivate at The Cloisters, the stately cotton thistle has a presence that appeals to modern sensibilities. The silvery-white leaves are deeply cut and very handsome: the species name acanthium denotes their resemblance to the foliage of the acanthus. Some value cotton thistle as an ornamental in contemporary gardens, although others consider Onorpordum acanthium to be a weed. (A weed is a plant you don’t want, while an herb is a plant with a use. Many of the plants we grow in the gardens of The Cloisters are considered weeds in our time and place, but were herbs in the Middle Ages.) Once the purplish-pink flowers of the cotton thistle have withered, it is important to remove the heads so that the many seeds do not disperse to the four winds and colonize the world.

It would be difficult to credit the use made of the cotton thistle in the past if we didn’t have the authoritative testimony of the great sixteenth-century herbalist John Gerard: the down was collected from the spiny leaves and used by the poor to stuff mattresses and pillows. (Those who were better off had bedding stuffed with feathers, but Gerard cautions that some upholsterers cheated and mixed the down gathered from thistles in with the pricier goose down.)

Onopordon acanthium was and is a heraldic plant: also known as Scotch thistle, it is the national emblem of Scotland. A hanging embroidered with thistles was included in the inventory of royal property made at the death of James III in 1458, and the Scots poet William Dunbar’s poetic allegory “The Thrisell and the Rose” celebrated the marriage of James IV of Scotland and Princess Margaret of England in 1503. (Maude Grieve, A Modern Herbal, 1931.)

Cotton thistle is a biennial; a plant grown from seed produces a rosette of leaves in the first year and sends up flowering stalks in the second year. Once it flowers and sets seed, the plant dies. Onopordum is an easy plant to cultivate, but it is a plant of stony ground, and it does have a tendency to fall over when grown in a soft bed in a garden, especially when the heavy flower heads form. Next year, I’m going to try putting a goodly amount of pea gravel into the planting hole to give the roots something to hold on to, in the hope that the tall and top-heavy thistle won’t have to be staked when it matures.

More thistles on Monday.

ShareThis

Above: A rainy Garden Day at The Cloisters, 2003. Visitors to Bonnefont Herb Garden were undaunted by the downpour.

Today, July 15, is the feast of St. Swithun, or Swithin; of all the saints’ days traditionally used as weather prognosticators, St. Swithun’s is the most famous and the most long-lived:

St. Swithin’s day if thou dost rain,
for forty days it will remain;
St. Swithin’s day if thou be fair,
for forty days ’twill rain nae mair.

Swithun was consecrated bishop of Winchester in 852 and died in 862. His feast is celebrated not on the the day of his death on July 2, but on the anniversary of the translation of his relics from the churchyard outside the Old Minster at Winchester, where he had asked to be buried, into the church itself. Circa 1125, William of Malmesbury recorded that Swithun, renowned for his charity and humility, had requested that his body be interred where passers-by would tread on him, and where water from the eaves would fall on his grave. This allusion indicates that the saint’s reputation as a weather-prophet was already established by the twelfth century. (Blackburn & Holford-Stevens, The Oxford Companion to the Calendar Year, 1999.) The relics of the saint were translated yet again from the Old Minster to a shrine in the new cathedral church on July 15, 1093.

The Weather Channel’s National and Local Weather website predicts a sunny day in the Northeast and Midwest for St. Swithun’s feast, with only a ten percent chance of precipitation in New York City. Storms and showers are predicted for the South. And in Winchester? The Weather Channel’s U.K. website forecasts clouds, but only a twenty percent chance of rain.

ShareThis

Above: Lavandula angustifolia in Bonnefont Cloister Herb Garden

The scent of lavender has always represented the quintessential fragrance of the herb garden to me. This sweet, full-bodied aroma has the magical ability to conjure up special memories and associations with the past and present. Although this fragrance may seem magical, it also serves a very important biological function for the plant and the ecosystem in which it exists. The aroma of the flower attracts insects that share a symbiotic relationship with the plant. Bees—the most important of these insects—are integral in the pollination of lavender. They serve as pollen vectors between male and female flower parts.

The complex fragrance of lavender is created by the merging of roughly 180 chemical constituents. These chemicals vary greatly among different members of this genus and contribute to the commercial value of a particular species. The essential oil of lavender is the most commercially important product of this plant. It is used in cosmetics, insect repellents, and an assortment of aromatherapy products. Additionally, it has been proved that lavender oil has powerful properties as an antiseptic. Lavandula angustifolia produces the most valuable oil and is used in expensive perfumes and cosmetics. The oil of Lavandula X intermedia is often used as an affordable replacement for L. angustifolia. (Tim Upson and Susyn Andrews, The Genus Lavandula, 2004)

ShareThis

Above: Lavandin (Lavandula x intermedia) flowering in Cuxa Garden.

Lavenders in The Middle Ages

Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia ssp. angustifolia) was used to scent linen and to keep moths and insects from woolens, as it still is. According to the fifteenth-century herbal Hortus Sanitatis, or the Garden of Health, this virtue of protecting clothing from vermin endeared lavender to the Mother of God, who also loved the herb as a preserver of chastity: “If the head is sprinkled with lavender water it will make that person chaste so long as he bears it upon him.” (Margaret Freeman, Herbs for the Medieval Household, 1943.)

Lavender had a number of medicinal applications as well as household uses, and could be employed against pains in the heart, fainting spells, and sleeplessness; it was applied to the forehead for headache and included in antidotes, such as a plaster for scorpion bites. It was used internally as well as externally, and a decoction was drunk for epilepsy and kidney ailments and as a preventative for apoplexy. (Frank Anderson, German Book Illustration through 1500: Herbals through 1500, 1983-4.)

Lavenders at The Cloisters

One of the two species of lavender known and used in the Middle Ages, true or English lavender (Lavandula angustifolia ssp. angustifolia) is blooming in Bonnefont Herb Garden. The other medieval species, known as French lavender (Lavandula stoechas) is a tender species that must be grown in pots in our climate. This French lavender begins to flower for us as early as March, and flourishes until June, by which time it has exhausted itself. The English lavender comes into its own as the French lavender goes out of bloom.

We grow yet another lavender that isn’t medieval. The lavandin (Lavandula x intermedia ‘Grosso’) that flourishes in Cuxa Cloister Garden is a hybrid between English lavender and another species, L. latifolia. There are many variations of this cross in wild populations, but ‘Grosso’ is one of the most commonly cultivated forms and is much used in today’s fragrance industry.

The two large bushes of ‘Grosso’ that have grown in Cuxa for some years have blue-violet flowers, but we have just planted a variety sold as ‘Pink Lavandin.’ The nursery label identified this too as a form of ‘Grosso.’ I don’t think this can be correct, as the authoritative and very comprehensive monograph, The Genus Lavandula, doesn’t list such a form. Does anyone know more about pink-flowered lavandins?

ShareThis

We are out busily soaking the gardens on a very warm day, in anticipation of a long, hot, holiday weekend. We do not have drip watering at The Cloisters, for a number of reasons. They did have drip watering in the Middle Ages. More anon.

ShareThis

Welcome to The Medieval Garden Enclosed, a blog dedicated to the plants and gardens of The Cloisters, a branch of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Enter and explore the role of plants and gardens in medieval life and art, learn how to find and grow medieval herbs and flowers, discuss the long histories of many familiar garden plants, discover which roadside weeds were once valued medicinals, and encounter legendary plants like the mandrake (Mandragora officinarum.)

Medieval gardens were enclosed for practical purposes—to keep out animals and intruders, for one—but the enclosure might also have had a religious function or a symbolic significance. The literal meaning of the Latin term hortus conclusus is “garden enclosed.” It was both an epithet given to the Virgin Mary in the Middle Ages, and one of her most important attributes. The Virgin was often depicted and described in such a garden setting. Nowadays, the term is more loosely used to describe all small enclosed gardens of the Middle Ages, or is even applied to modern gardens of the medieval type.

The Gardens of The Cloisters

A cloister is a square or rectangular open-air courtyard surrounded by covered passageways. The word “cloister” derives from the Latin claustrum, “a closed, barred, or bolted place.” The yard enclosed within the arcades is known as a garth. “Garth” is a Middle English dialect word for the fenced ground around a dwelling. Thus “cloister garth” is a doubling of the sense of enclosure. In a medieval religious establishment, the cloister garth provided a sunny, sheltered space where the monks or nuns, who lived apart from the world, could enjoy nature without leaving the confines of the monastery or convent.

Each of the three gardens planted in the reconstructed Romanesque and Gothic cloisters of the Museum has its own character. Cuxa Cloister Garth Garden is the main ornamental garden at the Museum, and is planted with a combination of modern garden plants and medieval herbs. Bonnefont Cloister Herb Garden is the main teaching garden, and is home to the greater part of the medieval plant collection; the herbs growing there are assigned to their beds by use. Trie Cloister Garden is planted as a single field of herbs and flowers, and evokes the verdant grounds of medieval millefleurs tapestries.

The Medieval Gardens Blog

The gardens of the Middle Ages included both real and ideal gardens: the kitchen garden and the Garden of Love, the cloister garth and the Garden of Eden. We look forward to including discussions of both the practical and the allegorical here in The Medieval Garden Enclosed. We welcome your participation as a reader, commenter, and frequent visitor to this hortus conclusus.

ShareThis