Friday, October 28, 2011
Potted plants too tender to spend the winter in Bonnefont garden are trucked inside and brought up to Cuxa cloister, which is??glazed in mid-October. Mediterranean plants such as bitter orange, myrtle, and bay laurel spend the cold season in the sunny arcades and??are brought back out to the herb garden when the glass comes down in mid-April. Left:??A wagonload of maidenhair fern in the arcade of Bonnefont garden. Right:??oranges and pomegranates en route to Cuxa cloister.?? Photographs by Carly Still
While the medieval plant collection at The Cloisters includes a good number of northern European species, a great many of the plants grown in the Bonnefont Cloister herb garden are Mediterranean in origin. Not all of these southern European plants are hardy for us here in New York City. The garden is a sheltered U.S.D.A. Hardiness Zone 7, and the fig tree (Ficus carica), poet’s jasmine (Jasminum officinale), and lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) do just fine outdoors, but more tender species like bitter orange (Citrus aurantium), rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis), bay laurel (Laurus nobilis), and dittany of Crete (Origanum dictamnus) must be brought inside and protected from the cold. Read more »
Tags: Albertus Magnus, bay, Citrus aurantium, cucumber, cucurbit, dittany, fern, ficus carica, fig, jasmine, Jasminum officinale, laurel, Laurus nobilis, Lavandula angustifolia, Lavender, maidenhair, myrtle, orange, Origanum dictamnus, rosemary, Rosmarinus officinalis, santolina, winter
Posted in Food and Beverage Plants, Fragrant Plants, Gardening at The Cloisters, Introduction, Magical Plants, Medicinal Plants, Medieval Agriculture, Plants in Medieval Art | Comments (2)
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
The marvelous food??depicted in these two panels of Late Gothic German stained glass may have been of vegetable origin. Left: Gathering Manna. Moses, holding the staff received from God on Mount Sinai, presides over the gathering of a miraculous fall of quail and manna from heaven. Right: Storing up Manna. Two men bear a large wooden tub of manna into a tent; a third man carries a great basketful in his arms.
The identification of Biblical plants has occupied investigators for centuries; the identity of manna is??one of??the most intriguing and most debated of ethnobotanical mysteries, although some interpreters have suggested that the substance is of insect rather than vegetable origin. Read more »
Tags: Albertus Magnus, algae, Avicenna, Bible, Circa Instans, Coccus manniparus, Exodus, Fraxinus ornus, Hortus Sanitatis, Lecanora esculenta, lichen, manna, Nostoc commune, Platearius, tamarisk, Tamarix mannifera
Posted in Food and Beverage Plants, Medicinal Plants, Plants in Medieval Art | Comments (1)
Friday, April 1, 2011
The sweet-smelling, short-stemmed garden violet (Viola odorata) blooms from late March into April. Prized in medieval pleasure gardens for its color and scent, this violet was also at home in kitchen and physic gardens. Photograph by Corey Eilhardt
Native to woodland margins and damp and shady places throughout Europe, the early blooming Viola odorata was prized for its fragrance as well as its rich purple color. The sweet violet is included in Albertus Magnus’ list of desirable flowers for the pleasure garden, along with the lily and the rose. These three flowers are often linked symbolically as well as horticulturally in medieval sources, as flowers of Paradise and as emblems of the Virgin???the low-growing but beautiful and sweet-scented violet was equated with Mary’s humility. Read more »
Tags: Albertus Magnus, Gode cookery, Herbarius Latinus, Hildegard von Bingen, Hortus Sanitatis, Physica, Tacuinum Sanitatis, Viola odorata, violet
Posted in Fragrant Plants, Gardening at The Cloisters | Comments (1)
