The Lelacke, Or Pipe Tree

The Lelacke, or Pipe Tree In Le Mans, France, there is a statue of a man with long curly hair, seated, reading a book. It is a statue of Pierre Belon, a French naturalist born about 1517, and, as far as we know, the first European to describe the lilac. As a young man Pierre Belon studied medicine in Paris, and after receiving his doctor’s degree he became a pupil of the German botanist, Euricius (or Valerius) Cordus, and travelled with him throughout Germany. He returned to France when he was about 29 years old, and his ability and knowledge attracted the attention of two Cardinals, Tournon and Chastillon, who became his patrons. Financed by them the intrepid young man set out on an extensive journey of scientific discovery to Greece, Asia Minor, Egypt, Turkey, Arabia, and Palestine. After his return Belon published in 1553 a full account of his travels. Writing of the Turkish people’s fondness for flowers, he described a bush with flowering branches the length of an arm, of violet color, which the Turks called Foxtail, the bush which we now call lilac. It was only two years later, in 1555, that a Flemish scholar, Augier de Busbecq, went to Constantinople, sent by the Emperor Ferdinand I, as Ambassador to Suleiman II, Sultan of Turkey. Busbecq lived in Constantinople for eight years. When he returned to his home in Vienna he brought with him many plants from Turkey including the lilac which he grew in his garden. The Viennese gave it the name Turhisher Holunder (Turkish Elderberry). Word of the new plant soon reached Italy. A physician of Siena, Pietro Andrea Mattioli, was publishing a series of commentaries on the first-century writings of Dioscorides (who was still, in the 16th century, an authority on medicine) and in the 1565 edition of his Commentaries he published a woodcut of a plant he called "lilac," and stated that the plant was brought from Constantinople by Busbecq. The picture, although inac- curate in showing flowers and fruits on the same branch, was the first published picture of the lilac. In a later edition of the Commentaries, in 1598, Mattioli published a more accurate il- 114 115 116 lustration, after he had received flowering and fruiting branches from Giacomo Cortusi, head of the Botanic Garden at Padua. There is no doubt that the new bush proved popular. In 1597 John Gerard, surgeon and gardener (and author of Gerard’s Herball) reported it in his garden in England "in very great plenty," and by 1601 it was well established in western European gardens and had escaped and become naturalized. The white lilac must have appeared about this time; it was first mentioned by Basil Besler, a German botanist, in 1613, and its origin is unknown. In 1629 John Parkinson, a writer and gardener in England, referred to a "Pipe tree ... of a milke or silver colour, which is a kind of white ... coming some- what neare unto an ash-color." Lord Bacon, in an essay on gardening written in 1625 referred to the Lelacke tree. It was also called Laylock, Lilach, and Pipe-tree. The name lilac may have come from lilaj, the Turkish name for the indigo plant, or from lilak, meaning bluish. The Latin name for the lilac, syringa, was used by a French botanist, Mathieu de l’Obel (Lobelius), in 1576. Alfred Rehder, an American authority on trees and shrubs, suggested that the name came from the Greek word syrinx, meaning "pipe," referring to the hollow stems of Philadelphus (mock orange) which were used by the Turks to make pipes. Both the lilac and the mock orange were originally placed in the genus syringa and the name pipe tree was used indiscriminately for both. It is reasonable to believe that the lilac appeared early in Spain, as 1’Obel wrote of a lilac, Syringa caerula Lusitanica, Lusitanica referring to the part of the Iberian peninsula now known as Portugal. It is quite possible that the lilac came to Spain with the Moors, in fact an Arab botanist, Serapio, mentioned Jasminum caeruleum (Blue Jasmine) in the eleventh century. Later, in the 16th century the name of ]eser~zinum caerulium Arabum appeared as a synonym for the common lilac, Syringa vulgaris. Many of the features of Moorish gardens in Spain had their origins in Persia, coming by way of Egypt. Egypt was conquered by the Persians in 525 B.C. and remained under Persian domination for about two centuries, during which time there was a continuous interchange of ideas between the two cultures. When the Moors went to Spain from north Africa in the eighth century they took their art and architecture with them, and it is conceivable that the Blue Jasmine mentioned by Serapio was brought to Spain at an early date. The Moors, in their almost eight centuries in the Iberian peninsula, penetrated Top. Syringa chinensis in the Arboretum. Bottom: Syringa persica. 118 into the central and northern areas, where lilacs at present do grow (such as in the Parque del Oeste, Madrid). In 1753 Linnaeus standardized the Latin name of the common blue lilac as Syringa vulgaris and gave its native land as the Orient, although there was a belief among some botanists of that day that it came from Persia. It was not until 1828 that the naturalist Anton Rochel found it growing wild in western Rumania, and within a few years it was reported growing wild along the Danube river and in Bulgaria. In spite of this, the belief that it was from Persia or China continued into the twentieth century. However in 1903 J. Lochot, who was in charge of the gardens of the Prince of Bulgaria, wrote of travel- ling through the Balkans and seeing it growing wild. Three of the plants collected by Rochel at that time were brought to the Arnold Arboretum. The lilac which is referred to as the Persian lilac was first described by John Bauhin, a Frenchman. He described it in 1619 as a lilac with cut leaves, which he received from a Vene- tian who grew it in his garden. He gave it the Latin name of Ligustrum foliis laciniatis. It appeared again in a book published in 1627 by an Italian botanist, Prosper Alpinus, who reported that it was sent to Venice by Jerome Capelli. Apparently Capelli was ambassador to the Sultan, so this lilac also appears to have been introduced by way of Constantinople. A Persian lilac with entire leaves was reported in 1660, listed in a catalog of the Jardin des Plantes, Paris, as Jasminum per- sicum seu ligustrum persic. (The Jardin des Plantes later became part of the Musee d’Histoire Naturelle.) No record has ever been found to indicate where this plant came from. Linnaeus in 1753 based his description of the Persian lilac, S. persica, on a specimen with entire leaves, and at the time many botanists included the cut-leaved form and the entire- leaved one in the same species, since it was recognized that certain of the plants had both kinds of leaves. Toward the end of the 1700’s one German writer suggested that the Persian lilac came from China, by way of Constantinople, later than S. vulgaris ; and in the early 1800’s the belief grew that it was not a native of Persia, as it was only found there as a cultivated plant. In 1770 Richard Weston referred to the Persian lilac with cut leaves as S. persica variety laciniata and finally it was accepted as such by most botanists. In 1922 a specimen of this plant was collected in Kansu, China, which had two branches, one with entire leaves, and one with both cut leaves and entire leaves. This specimen is preserved in the herbarium of the 119 Arnold Arboretum. Mrs. Susan Delano McKelvey in her monu- mental monograph of the lilac suggested that S. persica with entire leaves only, is a garden plant, not appearing in the wild. Many plants were carried from China to Persia: walnuts, grapes, peaches, and many others, and Mrs. McKelvey suggested that the cut-leaved type was brought along with them, and that the form with only entire leaves may have originated in a Persian garden as a seedling or sport, or was propagated from a branch or twig which bore only entire leaves. In the Botanic Garden of Rouen in the 1700’s both the Persian lilac and the common lilac bloomed simultaneously. In about 1777 a third lilac appeared there, which was later given the misleading name of S. chinensis. This plant has since proved to be a hybrid of S. persica and S. vulgaris. Jacques Varin, the di- rector of the Botanic Garden, for several years sowed the seed of the cut-leaved Persian lilac, and obtained what he considered a degenerate variety, unaware that what he really had was a hybrid. In America the common lilac was quickly adopted and became quite popular in the eighteenth century. Lilacs were grown in the garden of the mansion of Governor Wentworth in Portsmouth, N.H., which is believed to have been planted in 1750. The garden book of Thomas Jefferson written at Shadwell, Virginia, on April 2, 1767, mentioned planting lilacs and Spanish Broom, and even earlier Peter Collinson wrote on December 20, 1737, to his botanist friend in America, John Bartram, "I wonder that thou should be sorry to see such a bundle of white and blue lilacs ... But as your neighbours of Virginia, in particular Colonel Custis at Williamsburgh, who has undoubtedly the best collection in the country, desired some, I thought possibly you might want them ..

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