Five Minutes to Moonflower
Ooh....just the idea, of telling time, by observing the flowers blooming in your garden, sends chills thru my body. What a fun, fresh way to stay grounded in nature and connected to the cosmos. All while enjoying the sequential passage of the day! How's that for going 'off the grid'!
Gardeners and nature lovers, get your hands dirty with this one!
The article connects floral beauty with time, but it also takes the gardener a step closer into the realm of knowledge the Egyptian priest healers employed, regarding the proper time to harvest and use the different parts of a plant for medicine. Plants are so awesome in their capabilities and sensitivities. In fact, let me stop here, and just encourage you to pick up one of my favorite books, The Secret Teachings of Plants - The Intelligence of the Heart in the Direct Perception of Nature. The author is Stephen Harrod Buhner.
lovu,
Kendke
Five Minutes to Moonflower
The
professionals said it could not be done. They had never tried it, and
they didn’t know any public garden that had tried it, and they wouldn’t
recommend anyone else give it a try.
This
was not the response I expected when I called a few plant people and
asked how to design a type of flower bed that has been around since the
mid-18th century. It’s called a Horologium Florae: a flower clock. (No
relation to the Apple Watch.)
“Please
don’t show this to my bosses,” said Marc Hachadourian, the director of
the Nolen Greenhouses, a 43,000-square-foot grow facility at the New
York Botanical Garden in the Bronx. What Mr. Hachadourian, 41, meant
was, Don’t give management any ideas.
He
was joking. Mostly. Because once you hear it, the idea behind the
flower clock is irresistible. First, identify a selection of a few dozen
flowers that open and close at regular hours. They can be old friends
like lilies, marigolds and primroses. Next, plant them in an organized
fashion — perhaps in the segmented shape of a dial or clock face.
At
this point, clock-watchers may want to skip ahead to the useful
flowering timetable in the second half of this article. The seeds and
plants for growing a flower clock may already be tick-tick-ticking in
the stack of garden catalogs on the mail table.
Here’s
how the timepiece works. During a stroll in the summer garden, you
notice that the sow thistle petals are open while the adjacent pumpkin
blossoms remain shut. The first plant, according to your records, blooms
reliably at 5 a.m.; the second at 6 a.m.
Who needs a watch when the flowers know the time?
Like
so many botanical concepts, the flower clock originated with the
Swedish ur-taxonomist Carl Linnaeus, in his 1751 treatise “Philosophia
Botanica.” Based on field observations, he divided flowers into three
categories. The meteorici open and close with the weather. The tropici
follow the changing hours of daylight. And the aequinoctales, Linnaeus
wrote, “open precisely at a certain hour of the day and generally shut
up every day at a determinate hour.”
From
this third category, the aequinoctales, Linnaeus compiled a list of a
few dozen plants to open and close with the hours: hawkweed, garden
lettuce, marigold, day lily. Horticulture meets horology.
It
seems unlikely that he ever planted one himself, said Gina Douglas, the
honorary archivist at the Linnean Society of London. (Is there a
dishonorable archivist — the equivalent of a naughty librarian?) It
would be better, Ms. Douglas wrote in an email, to think of the flower
clock as a method for using the flora in the local landscape to estimate
the time.
Over
the years, the Linnean Society has received regular inquiries about the
flower clock and how to make one. For the most part, Ms. Douglas said,
nothing seemed to come of it. In 2008, a public art group in Vancouver,
British Columbia, started a wiki to collect flowering observations. But
to date, the Vancouver Flower Clock Project hasn’t produced a bumper
crop of data.
The
challenges of urban botanizing can be gleaned from a 9 p.m. post about
the dandelion (Taraxacum officinale): “Looked out bus window, Petals
closed. Warm evening after a clear warm summer day. There is a group of
teenage girls trying to set the seeding blooms on fire with their
lighter.”
Or
maybe the problem with the flower clock is that it doesn’t work.
Linnaeus, for a start, made many of his observations in the endless
summer daylight of Uppsala, at about 60 degrees north. At more
reasonable latitudes (New York lies around 40.5 degrees north), these
same flowers typically unfold later in the day.
Some
of Linnaeus’s choices can be seen growing at the Brooklyn Botanic
Garden, said Melanie Sifton, 39, the garden’s vice president for
horticulture. But they’re not prize specimens in the collection; they’re
roadside weeds and volunteers. “Some Northern European wildflowers are
our weeds,” Ms. Sifton said.
European
bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis), for example, may open like the chiming
of a clock at 5 a.m. But, Ms. Sifton said: “No gardener wants that
weed. It has roots that go down to hell.”
An
even greater barrier to creating a floral clock is conceptual: The
aequinoctales, those fixed-hour blooms, do not exist. Or not precisely
as Linnaeus described them, anyway. We are wandering here from the
Nordic wildflower meadow to the university laboratory and the study of
photoperiodism. This is the relationship between day length and plant
behavior.
More
than a century of research suggests that a flower’s circadian clock is
filled with complications. Light is a dominant factor in opening and
closing. These cues include the changing length of dark and light
periods, the intensity of light, even the wavelength.
Temperature
is another influence, and to a lesser extent so is humidity. Electric
fields may play a role in flowering. Apparently a blossom carries a
negative charge, while an insect in flight holds a positive charge.
It’s hard to put one over on a dandelion.
All
that said, some plants do show endogenous rhythms, or an internal
clock. Selenicereus grandiflorus, a night-blooming cactus, will continue
to open at the same hour, even after you’ve brought it inside and
exposed it to darkness during the daytime and light at night.
(Correction: it will for a while, at least.) A field marigold moved from
the garden to a dark room will still open its flowers on a 24-hour
cycle. (Again, for a spell.)
A
plant seems to practice a form of federalism: the flower obeys its own
governor. A light shined on just the leaves apparently will not change
the rhythm of the flower buds.
These
mystifying habits have something to do with pollination. The white
petals on a night-blooming cactus, Ms. Sifton said, attract not the
morning bee but a night flyer, the sphinx moth. At daybreak, the flowers
shut to protect pollen and husband resources.
Tracing
the flower’s genetic pathways will get you only so far. A thorough 2003
review of floral research, published in the “Journal of Experimental
Botany,” includes the following thought: “It may be noted, in this
scientific context, that flower opening has inspired many artists and
seems of special emotional value to people.”
Hey,
it’s a working hypothesis. Support for this claim rests in the
sentimental British garden journals of the early 19th century, where the
flower clock inspired some marvelously bad poetry:
Broad o’er its imbricated cup,
The goat’s-beard spreads its golden rays,
But shuts its cautious petals up,
Retreating from the noontide blaze.
The
verse never does find a workable rhyme for Hieracium (a perennial in
the sunflower family). But the poetry of the flower clock continues to
grip the imagination. A few days ago, for instance, my partner texted me
an offhand reference to the flower clock in her latest book-club novel,
“Arcadia” (Voice, 2012), by Lauren Groff.
A
few weeks earlier, I’d stumbled upon a reference in the brand new novel
“Glow” (Knopf), by the literary prestidigitator Ned Beauman. The plot
involves pirate radio, a paid dog-walker with a nonconforming sleep
cycle, Burmese mining concessions and a poppylike psychoactive plant
called “glo,” which blooms under 24-hour lights. You can probably guess
how it all turns out.
When
I reached him by Skype in London, Mr. Beauman, 29, confessed to a
florid ignorance of practical gardening. “Actually, what I like about it
is it’s so impractical,” he said of Linnaeus’s invention. “One imagines
someone waking up in the middle of the night, putting on their dressing
gown and then bending over in the garden and smelling the nipplewort
and then saying, ‘Wow, it’s late.’ And then going back inside.”
Three
authors do not make a trend. But one of these, the science writer
Joshua Foer (“Moonwalking With Einstein”), did his best to cultivate
one. A few years ago, Mr. Foer, 32, assembled a collection of seeds and
sold out some 200 kits through Quarterly Co., a purveyor of curated
packages.
Mr.
Foer discovered the Horologium Florae while compiling an article for
the magazine Cabinet, titled “A Minor History of Time Without Clocks.”
He cited, for example, a “German woodsman’s” plan for an “ornithological
clock,” following the hourly birdsong of the green chaffinch (1 to 2
a.m.), the black cap (2 to 3:30 a.m.), the hedge sparrow (2:30 to 3
a.m.), etc.
Seed
packets seemed easier to ship than songbirds. “I myself can’t speak to
whether this will work or not,” Mr. Foer said over the phone from his
new house in Brookline Village, Mass. “I don’t have a memory of anybody
writing me and saying they actually made this successfully.”
I
finally found the working innersprings for an American flower clock in a
place where I often go for personal guidance: the “Transactions of the
Annual Meetings of the Kansas Academy of Science.” (The publication is
still in print, if you’re looking for “Observations of the Nine-Banded
Armadillo in Northeastern and Central Kansas.”) There, in 1890, a
botanist named B. B. Smyth published a plant list based on
prairie-flower studies.
Was
it reliable chronometry or more doggerel? Smyth’s obituary recounts
that after a single year of college (“Michigan Normal at Ypsilanti”), he
became an authority on mathematics, geology and botany. This makes him
either a polymath or a prairie charlatan in the mold of the traveling
professor from “The Wizard of Oz.”
Ms.
Sifton, from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, liked the American tilt of
the professor’s list. “He’s got a lot of cacti here,” she said, which
she also grows in Brooklyn.
Then
I brought in a ringer: Claudia West, a landscape designer and ecologist
for the perennial plant company North Creek Nurseries. Ms. West, 31,
had the advantage of growing up on a family nursery in Germany, where
Linnaean flower clocks (Blumenuhrs) are something of a cultural
tradition, and occasionally pop up in parks.
You
probably wouldn’t want to use this flower clock to catch the 6:52 a.m.
Metro-North from Scarsdale. But then, Mr. Hachadourian said: “The way a
gardener looks at time is very different. You look at growing seasons:
spring and fall. How long it takes a vegetable to reach maturity.
Whether you have two more hours after dark to finish weeding. I don’t
think of horticulturists as clock-watchers.”
Put
another way, who stands outside for hours, gazing at a starflower
instead of a Samsung Galaxy? When you’re stalking a hawkweed at
daybreak, time is an afterthought.
The
flower clocks below follow Linnaeus’s original scheme and the
suggestions of modern horticulturists for Eastern Standard Time. For
Eastern Daylight Time, set the flowers forward one hour.
3 to 5 a.m.
Linnaean Time (opening):
Tragopogon pratensis (yellow goatsbeard or Jack-go-to-bed-at-noon).
This aster-family weed (or nonnative wildflower, if you prefer) looks
like a dandelion’s big brother. Marc Hachadourian, from the New York
Botanical Garden, said, “People see that on the side of the road and
they say, ‘Look at the size of that seed head!' ”
Eastern Standard Time (opening):
Ipomoea spp. (morning glory). Melanie Sifton, from the Brooklyn Botanic
Garden, favors a dark pink Japanese cultivar called Chocolate. (Note:
“The flowers are actually poisonous!” she said.)
Sources: Goatsbeard: look for it in a ditch along the interstate. Ipomoea nil Chocolate: Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, rareseeds.com.
6 to 8 a.m.
Linnaean Time (opening):
Hieracium umbellatum (Canadian hawkweed). Ms. Sifton described this 1-
to 4-foot-tall wildflower as “a little like a smaller, less dense
sunflower.”
Eastern Standard Time (opening):
Callirhoe involucrata (purple poppy mallow). The purple poppy mallow, a
native perennial, forms a kind of matting ground cover, said Claudia
West, of North Creek Nurseries. The flowers, she said, are “the hottest
pink you can imagine.”
Sources: Canadian hawkweed and purple poppy mallow: Prairie Moon Nursery, 866-417-8156, prairiemoon.com.
9 to 11 a.m.
Linnaean Time (closing):
Lactuca sativa (garden lettuce). Once lettuce bolts — that is, flowers —
the leaves become bitter. “How many people would even know or recognize
what a lettuce flower looks like?” Ms. Sifton said. For the leaves, at
least, the century-old children’s garden often chooses Black-Seeded
Simpson and Deer Tongue.
Eastern Standard Time (opening):
Hibiscus moscheutos (swamp rose mallow). The crenellated flowers of
this native open and wither in a single day. But at four inches across,
and bright white, they’re hard to miss. Ms. West sometimes spots the
head-high plants growing around brackish waters in Maryland.
Sources: Lettuce (Black Seeded Simpson, Deer Tongue and some 150 other varieties): Johnny’s Selected Seeds, 877-564-6697, johnnyseeds.com. Hibiscus moscheutos: J. L. Hudson, Seedsman, jlhudsonseeds.net.
Noon to 2 p.m.
Linnaean Time (closing): Sonchus palustris (marsh sow thistle). A weedy aster from north of the border that could pass for a dandelion.
Eastern Standard Time (opening):
Phemeranthus teretifolius (quill fameflower). This Appalachian native
takes its name, “phemeranthus,” from the ephemerality of its flower.
Each bloom lasts but a day. That said, a single succulent may open 100
flowers. An almost rootless rock-dweller in the wild, the quill
fameflower is a “fantastic plant for green roofs,” Ms. West said. The
very similar Phemeranthus calycinus is easier to find in nurseries.
Sources: Sonchus palustris: a ditch by the side of the road — in Ontario. Phemeranthus teretifolius: Alplains Seed Catalog, alplains.com.
3 to 5 p.m.
Linnaean Time (closing):
Leontodon hispidus (rough hawkbit) or L. autumnale (autumn hawkbit).
O.K., this one must be the classic dandelion, right? Wrong again. The
hawkbits (naturalized in New York) have small bracts on the stem!
Eastern Standard Time (opening):
Escobaria vivipara (spinystar). The obvious choice here is Mirabilis
jalapa, the common four-o’clock. But the Kansas botanist B. B. Smyth
also recommended a Great Plains and Western pincushion cactus for his
1890 flower clock. Like a lazy sales clerk, the magenta flower opens
sometime after 2 p.m. and closes up shop around 5 p.m. It reopens the
next afternoon.
Sources: Leontodon spp.: Jelitto Perennial Seeds, 502-895-0807, jelitto.com. Spinystar (in a 2.5-inch pot): High Country Gardens, 800-925-9387, highcountrygardens.com.
6 to 8 p.m.
Linnaean Time (closing):
Nymphaea alba (European white waterlily). It appears your flower clock
will need a pond, or at least a decent fountain. Linnaeus actually put
the closing time in the 5 o’clock hour. That’s fine. Though botanists
have long studied waterlilies for their daily flowering routine, Mr.
Hachadourian questioned whether they actually close like clockwork.
Eastern Standard Time (opening):
Oenothera fruticosa (sundrops or narrowleaf evening primrose). Ms. West
noted that this native “will grow on just about any soil,” including
dry urban sites. “The only concern is that it does like to spread from
seed.” You’ve been warned. The brilliant yellow flowers should wilt
before sunrise.
Sources: Waterlily (Nymphaea odorata, a more available native American relative): Shooting Star Nursery, 866-405-7979, shootingstarnursery.com. Oenothera fruticosa seed: Specialty Perennials, 952-432-8673, hardyplants.com. Or Oenothera fruticosa Fireworks plant: Plant Delights Nursery, 919-772-4794, plantdelights.com
9 to 11 p.m.
Linnaean Time:
Sleep. Linnaeus’s 1751 flower clock ends at 8 p.m. Ms. Sifton
commented: “He didn’t have any plants that would bloom in the afternoon
or evening. I suppose Northern European plants don’t really behave that
way.”
Eastern Standard Time (opening):
Ipomoea alba (moonflower). Professor Smyth, in Kansas, observed that
this moth-pollinated vine blooms at 9 p.m. Seems a little late. Whenever
it happens to occur, Ms. Sifton said, the five-inch-diameter moonflower
puts on a show. In less than a minute, “You can see it open right
before your eyes.”
Sources: Ipomoea alba: Swallowtail Garden Seeds, 877-489-7333, swallowtailgardenseeds.com.
Midnight to 2 a.m.
Eastern Standard Time (closing):
Selenicereus grandiflorus (queen of the night). This queen of the night
blooms just once a year (though over a series of days). The extravagant
white flower — up to a foot in diameter – opens at night. And then it
flops over before morning. As a tropical cactus, the queen of the night
is more of a houseplant in the north. But if you’re going to get up to
see the morning glories open at 4 a.m., you should be home in bed.
Source: Selenicereus grandiflorus: Trade Winds Fruit, tradewindsfruit.com.
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