Parsons Sweet Peas

An Essential Guide - 2nd Edition
1. Auflage 2019
ISBN: 978-1-78500-534-3
Verlag: Crowood
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 192 Seiten

Sweet peas were first documented in Sicily in the late seventeenth century and, with their delightful scent and diverse range of beautiful colours, have established themselves as annual favourites across the world. This essential guide looks at the genus in detail and explains how the novice gardener or the seasoned grower can get the very most from their sweet peas. This revised edition gives an introduction to the history and types of sweet pea; instruction on growing and caring; advice on producing flowers for exhibition and crop production; understanding and introducing new varieties and finally, growing sweet peas around the world. There is a final chapter introducing other Lathyrus species, closely related to the sweet pea.

Roger Parsons has been a professional horticulturist since 1970 and started growing sweet peas as a hobby in 1984; in 2005 he set up a seed business, Roger Parsons Sweet Peas. Roger maintains the UK National Collection of Sweet Peas and is well-known as a chairman of NSPS. He was formerly chairman of the RHS Sweet Pea Trials Committee. He has successfully raised and introduced new, award-winning varieties.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Parsons, Roger

Leseproben

CHAPTER 1

The early history of the Sweet Pea

Most readers will have picked up this book because they want to know how to grow better Sweet Peas. Some may think that the last thing they want is a ‘boring old history lesson’. But in order to understand the plants that we grow today, it is helpful to have an understanding of how they originated and how they have developed. For many people, this will help them to decide the varieties that they want to grow, and such understanding adds to the satisfaction of growing Sweet Peas by placing them in a context.

Nuper Detectarum from Carters’ 1936 Catalogue.

For such a popular and well-known flower, it is surprising what nonsense has been written about the origins and early history of the Sweet Pea. These arose in the past from authors who have either failed to research the matter or did not have the benefit of modern science. Once speculation is presented in print as if it were fact, it appears to have some authority and the errors are perpetuated by later writers. The record was put right by the National Sweet Pea Society (NSPS) in its Centenary Celebration booklet, published in 2000. This included a fully referenced article on the history of the Sweet Pea, which is focused purely on historical evidence and follows considerable research. The article concludes that ‘it is beyond doubt that the Sweet Pea originates in Sicily.’

ORIGINS OF THE SWEET PEA

The first reference to the Sweet Pea is by Franciscus Cupani in 1695 in his Sillabus Plantarum Sicillae. This was simply a list of names of plants newly discovered in Sicily. He first describes it in 1696 in his Hortus Catholicus. Plant names in those days were long descriptions in Latin and the name given by Cupani, to what in modern English we call the Sweet Pea, was Lathyrus distoplatyphylos, hirsutus, mollis, magno et peramoeno, flore odoro. Franciscus Cupani was born in 1657 and became a monk in 1681 at Palermo in Sicily. He had a broad interest in natural history and published several works before his death in 1711.

Sweet Pea ‘Hawlmark Pink’, introduced in 1920.

Sweet Pea illustration by Jan Mominckx in 1701.

The earliest illustration of a Sweet Pea is in Casper Commelin’s Horti-Medici Amstelodamensis, published in 1701 in the Netherlands, which he states was prepared from plants grown from seeds sent to him by Cupani in 1699. The artist is Jan Mominckx. It is believed that the Sweet Pea was introduced into England in 1699 when Cupani also sent seeds to Dr Robert Uvedale, a schoolmaster at Enfield, but there is no contemporary evidence for this. The original Sweet Pea was a ‘purple’ bicolour and is described by Leonard Plukenet in his Almagesti Botanici Mantissa of 1700. Dried specimens of Sweet Peas from Plukenet’s herbarium are stored at the Natural History Museum in London. Plukenet died in 1706, but in 1713 James Petiver describes the plants and says:

This elegant sweet-flowered plant I first observed with Dr Plukenet in Dr Uvedale’s most curious garden at Enfield, and since at Chelsea and elsewhere.

Those who placed the origin of the Sweet Pea elsewhere often cited as evidence the fact that the Sweet Pea cannot be found growing in Sicily. This is remarkable since the collection of wild Sweet Peas from parts of Sicily and Southern Italy has been well documented over a long period. The first historian of the NSPS, S.B. Dicks, described how in 1896 he asked G. Sprenger, who was living in Naples, to visit Sicily and try to find the wild Sweet Pea. Sprenger found it in many parts and also in Sardinia. E.R. Janes noted in 1953 wild Sweet Peas having been seen in many of the Mediterranean islands, including Sicily. I maintain a stock of wild Sweet Peas sent by Dr Keith Hammett that were first collected from Sicily in 1974.

Wild Sweet Pea collected from Sicily in 1974 (M. Thornhill).

OTHER SPECULATION ON ORIGINS

Sri Lanka versus Sicily

The place having most claim to rival Sicily as the original source of the Sweet Pea is Sri Lanka, formerly known as Ceylon. This claim relied on a belief that the Sweet Pea was described from Ceylon earlier than Sicily, in part due to Johann Burmann’s Thesaurus Zeylanicus, published in Amsterdam in 1737. Zeylana was an alternative form of Ceylon in use at the time. Burmann cites Hartog’s herbarium as the source for Lathyrus zeylanicus, hirsutus, flore angoate, odorato. The word ‘angoate’, meaning variegated, was used in the eighteenth century to describe pink and white bicoloured flowers while today it is most commonly associated with bicoloured foliage. From the Latin, Burmann says:

Hartog or Hertog is a herbarium which I keep and which it is certain contains very many most elegant Zeylanian plants, and was sent once by him from Zeylana to Cornelius Voss the gardener at Leyden.

We do not have dates for Hartog’s specimens and little is known about him. According to Linnaeus:

John Hartog was born and trained for the service of Flora at the gardens of Leyden, at the time when the loss of Hermanus was being deplored by the whole world. William Sherard, who afterwards directed the Sceptre of Flora, was solicitous day and night regarding procuring the plants of Ceylon and publishing a brief description of them, and he frequently consulted a sincere friend, one celebrated by his learning, the well-known H. Boerhave…. Hartog was the only one willing to undertake a journey into Ceylon.

Plukenet’s pressed specimen, photographed around 1908.

Paul Hermann or Hermanus lived from 1646 to 1695. William Sherard lived 1659–1728 and Herman Boerhave 1668–1739. The latter would not have had time to become celebrated much before 1700. In his Index Plantarum of 1710, Boerhave includes Lathyrus siculus, flore odorato, ango but there is no mention of a pink and white sweet pea, nor one from Ceylon. A later edition of 1720 lists:

Lathyrus distoplatyphyllos, hirsutus, mollis, ango et peramoeno, flore odoro Cupani Hort. Cath. H.A.2:159

Lathyrus siculus, flore odorato, ango Ind. 159.

There is again no reference to a pink and white Sweet Pea, nor one from Ceylon. The comprehensive lists of references in both editions make no mention of Hartog’s collection.

Hartog did not return from Ceylon and, although he sent a herbarium, there is no evidence that he sent living seeds or plants from Ceylon. Burmann’s description of L. zeylanicus appears to be based on an assumption that all the specimens in Hartog’s herbarium, which he had received indirectly, came from Ceylon. An attempt in 1921 by S.B. Dicks to revisit the specimens in Hartog’s herbarium found them no longer in existence. The only specimen in the Leyden herbarium labelled as L. zeylanicus proved to be another Lathyrus species, not L. odoratus.

Turning to more modern authors, the validity of Burmann’s reference was challenged in the Gardener’s Chronicle in 1900 and by Alvin Beal of Cornell University in 1912. There are several references which all confirm that botanists have been unable to find any wild Sweet Pea in Sri Lanka (Ceylon). Yet among later writers, E.R. Janes and Bernard Jones, the view that the Sweet Pea may have originated in Ceylon prevailed because of another reference suggesting the pink and white form pre-dates reference to the purple wild type.

ORIGIN OF THE NAME LATHYRUS ODORATUS

When Linnaeus wrote his Flora Zeylanica of 1747, which is based on Hermann’s herbarium, he made no reference to L. zeylanicus. However, in writing his comprehensive Species Plantarum of 1753, he could not ignore the existence in cultivation of the pink and white Sweet Pea. This work established the current binomial system of botanical names and for the first time gave the Sweet Pea the name we know today of Lathyrus odoratus. He describes two varieties of Sweet Pea: the purple form he named as Lathyrus siculus, which means from Sicily, and the pink and white bicolour he called Lathyrus zeylanicus, citing Burmann as the reference.

S.B. Dicks, who first researched the history of the Sweet Pea for the bicentenary celebration in 1900.

Both James Justice and the great Victorian seedsman, Henry Eckford, thought the pink and white form was the original Sweet Pea, and the purple form was a variety of it. In 1754, James Justice says Bauhin listed the pink and white Sweet Pea as Lathyrus angustifolius, flore ex albo et rubro variegate, odorato in his Historiae Plantarum of 1650–1, written long before Hartog thought of going to Ceylon. This reference by Justice has been cited by authors ever since. However, my own direct reference to Bauhin’s work, which contains extensive descriptions and references, shows no evidence of the name quoted by Justice. Bauhin describes a Lathyrus flore rubro et alius albo but nowhere is the key word odorato mentioned and there exist other Lathyrus species with pink and white bicoloured flowers e.g. L. clymenum var. articulatus (Arcangeli 1882); L. vernus var. variegatus (Bassler 1973). These observations are supported by Boerhave who listed Bauhin’s work as one of his references, yet the plant is not included in his Index Plantarum. Inclusion by Justice of the...