Sunday, April 6, 2014

My Faux Nuts...Traditional Pottery from Yixing Zisha


Taking a break from weirdly named garden plants, I turned up these ceramic seeds on Ebay when I was cruising for seed ephemera. I had to buy them!!

There was no information with it that was correct and it took me awhile to turn up its source.  I finally did it as I matched the color of the clay to a teapot I found online that was from a region in China.  Then I found a teapot with applied nuts!

Using the source of the teapot as a more focusing search these came up quickly.

Yixing pottery history search.

They are naturalistic objects for the scholar's desk.  Small items to focus thought?  To bring luck?

My set is a revival of the original traditon, a relatively modern recreation from the same area as the originals.

 The water caltrop (the water buffalo head or bat shaped one) is a propitious reference as the the character  , 福,  meaning "good fortune" or "happiness" is represented both as a Chinese ideograph, but also at times pictorially, in one of its homophonous forms, most popularly as a bat.  I teach kids to fold little red origami bats around the New Year for this reason. A red bat is especially lucky because red 红, has the same sound as vast, 宏. So a red bat means “vast fortune”.  

"The art of using objects of nature and incorporating them into Yixing wares was perfected by the great master potter of the 18 century Chen Mingyuan. His works of art was widely collected by the art connoisseurs of his time and examples of his Yixing wares can be seen in Chinese collections of museums worldwide. Copying the works of Chen Mingyuan continued after his death and into the 20 century. Jiang Rong, of the famous Rong family of potters of Yixing, was instrumental in reviving the art of making Yixing teapots after objects of nature. Under her guidance, young Yixing potters strive to perfect this art form. This set of 9 natural fruits, seeds and nuts is a fine example of the work done during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960's. The black bat like looking fruit is the water caltrop, a rhizome of the water lily family. The fruit with a long stem is also a water plant as is the water chestnut. The walnut, chestnut and gingko nut grow on trees, and the peanut on land. The pumpkin seed and gourd seed round up the presentation which carries all sorts of auspicious meanings of which fertility and good luck are the most important."  (This description was on a similar set for sale at Far East Asian Art. A photo is at the end of this page.)


 In the studio the scholar isolated himself from others, finding the calm necessary for study and contemplation. It was in the studio that he studied Confucian classics, wrote poetry, played music, practiced calligraphy, and perhaps painted. Objects important in the pursuit of these activities included writing utensils and desk accessories. There were also objects used for making and serving tea, a beverage thought to stimulate intellectual and social discourse. And there were decorative objects for the scholar as well. While these pieces appear to have either a utilitarian or decorative purpose, they also provided philosophical and moral inspiration through their symbolic content.  from McClure Museum Treasures of the Chinese Scholar show notes

The sunflower seed is nice.   Remember the contemporary art sunflower seeds?

This bat nut is an invasive weed in the United States according to a Washington State bulletin..  It fills the waterways with vegetation.

I always think of biofuel when I hear this.  Like the water hyacinth in Florida.  You could have your little methane plant like a farmer if you lived near enough to harvest the stuff.
The Chinese name is língjiǎo (菱角), líng meaning "caltrop" and jiǎo meaning "horn." This is often rendered as ling nut by English-speakers.
This is a typical book and box fastening.  They work very well.
 I have no clue what this says...but I assume it was made within the last 40 years.

Here is the real thing...by Chen Mingyuan at the Victoria and Albert.





The following pieces are in a wonderful box.  The starting bid at this auction was to be $1400.  
"The group includes a fruit basket filled with seventeen Zisha stoneware imitation nuts and vegetables, such as water chestnut, peanuts, lychee, eggplant, chestnut, walnut, and Cigu, molded with naturalistic forms and colors, some with artist mark "Ming Yuan"."

Now I know there were more species made than I have :-)  Look carefully at the peanut and notice the quality shown compared to my recent "revival" wares.





Here is another from Bonham's.
An Yixing stoneware 'fruit and nuts' group
Late Qing dynasty
Naturalistically modelled in the form of bat-fruit, walnut, peanut, chestnut, water chestnut and arrowhead, the clay of beige, brown and some tinted colours.

And another that sold for $3000 +-  
An Yixing stoneware 'fruit and nuts' group
Late Qing dynasty
The finely potted group naturalistically modelled in the form of bat-fruit, walnut, peanut, chestnut, water chestnut, sun-flower and watermelon seeds, arrowhead and nut, the clay of beige, brown and some pigmented colours, fitted box.



This lotus pod with froggie is new and available on Amazon.


Chinese Yixing Zisha Decoration Frog on Lotus Seed Head Delicate Mini Tea Pet


What the heck is a tea pet?

Far East Asian Art's set (sold)


The real water caltrop nut -

Many books quote a version of this sentence when describing the use of the water caltrop in India - "The Sinhara ( Trapa bicornis ) or water-chestnut, is of immeasurable benefit, such as food for the poor, that the Brahmins represent it to have been transplanted into the valley by Lakschimi, the wife of the god Vishnu."

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Saturday, April 5, 2014

The Plant Called "Bottles of All Colors"


If you enjoy A Natural History of Selbourne, then go here to read a delightful journal of natural history that was kept from June 11th to July 13th in the year 1819 by Dr. T. Forster.  Dr. Forster was visiting near Tunbridge Wells at the time.

It came to my notice because, in June he notes -
(June) "20th. — Fine warm weather has at length succeeded the cool. The hay is down, and in some places stacked. The Yellow Lily is in full flower; as are likewise the Pike Geranium, the White and also the Blue Fraxinella, and numerous Roses. Peony is already casting its petals to decay. A variety of Centaurea Cyanus, almost white, is common here." 

From Encyclopaedia Londinensis, Volume 4 comes the words that identify the Centaurea cyanus as our Bottle of All Colors...(a larger version of the plate to the right where you can read the small script is below).


"Perennial blue-bottle is now become a common plant in large gardens, from the facility with which it is increased. The roots indeed creep so much, that it is apt to become troublesome. It will grow in any soil and situation.
There are great varieties of colours in the flowers of the common annual blue-bottle, and some of them are finely variegated. The seeds are sold under the name of bottles of all colours. They will rise in any common border, and require no other care but to be kept clean from weeds, and thinned where they are too close, for they do not thrive well when they are transplanted. If the seeds be sown in autumn, they will succeed better, and the plants will flower stronger than those which are sown in spring.
 Centaurea cyanus, or corn centaury, annual bluebottle: calyxes serrate; leaves linear, quite entire, the lowest toothed. Stem one to two feet high, angular, slightly tomentose, branched at top. It is a common weed among corn, flowering from June to August; the wild flower is usually blue, but sometimes white or purple.
Our old English writers, besides Blue-bottle, which has commonly obtained, have the names of blue-ball, blue-blow, corn-flower, and hart-fickle. In the Booke of Husbandrye ascribed to Fitzherbert, it seems to be called hadods or haudad. 
Some modern agriculturists speak of it under the name of huddle, which is evidently nothing more than a corruption of bottle. Dr. Stokes informs us, that it is called batchelor's buttons in Yorkshire and Derbyshire; but this is a name given to many other flowers. In Scotland it is called blue bonnets; in German, Dutch, Swedish, and Danish,korn-blume; in French, bluet; in Italian and Portuguese, ciano; in Spanish, aciano, azulejo. 

The expressed juice of the central florets makes a good lake; it also stains linen of a beautiful blue, but the colour is not permanent in any mode hitherto used. Mr. Boyle says, that the juice of the central florets, with the addition of a very small quantity of alum, makes a lasting transparent blue, not inferior to ultramarine." 


It is always fun to find notes hand written in books...



This later edition of Mrs. Loudon's book was clear enough to read the fine engraved script. 


And isn't the cover of this book wonderful?!

Below is something I did not expect to find.  The questioning mind...what fun! 

Friday, April 4, 2014

Horns...Dolichos bicontorta?


I am not 100% sure this is THE "Horns" offered for sale in early flower seed list from 1726...but it sure deserves to be!  What a bizarre symmetrical pod arrangement this is!  Very nice...add a blob of wool under the horns and you have a ram puppet that would keep the kiddies amused and happily running around like a little crazy flock of sheep for the rest of the day.  Definitely worth growing in the days before TV and books for all.

A seed list that identifies Dolichos bicontorta as the plant calls it Ram's Horns.  This book is from 1778, Beauties of Flora, by Swindon.  I can't find it online so far :-(
See review of Beauties of Flora just below this quoting of Swindon's book by Loudon in his 1824  An encyclopedia of gardeningcomprising the theory and practice of horticulture, floriculture, arboriculture, and landscape-gardening, including all the latest improvements. a general history of gardening in all countries, and a statistical view of its present state, with suggestions for its future progress in the British Isles.
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 By the way, check out his use of our other oddball plants from previous posts!
 I see another weird one to look up.


 Sowing hardy Annual Flowers
Any time this month (March) , that the ground is in good condition, you may sow in the borders and other flower compartments, a variety of hardy annuals, such as large and dwarf annual sunflowers, sweet pea of every kind, larkspur, flos-adonis, persicaria, Tangier peas,  Nigilla, Venus's looking-glass, Venus's navelwort, double dwarf poppy, Label's catchfly, dwarf-lychnis, snails, horns, hedgehogs, caterpillars, mignonette, china-aster, horse-shoes, belvidere, candytuft, honey-wort, convolvulus-minor, cyanus, china-hollyhock, lavatera, curled mallow, winged pea, china pink, ten weeks stock, and many other sorts, (see list of annualswhich will flower better if sown early, than if delayed to a late period; though every of the above will succeed very well if sown in the beginning of next month.   From The American Gardener's Calendar, 1806,  By Bernard M'Mahon



Another of my favorite, more normal, Dolichos is the Dolichis lablab.  I first saw it growing all over a picket fence on Statin Island.  It was lovely and lush.  Then I found out it could survive and thrive in a school...which isn't easy.  The flowers are nice and the purple pods are colorful and cheery.  It is sort of poisonous, so an elementary school maybe isn't quite the place to grow it, BUT it isn't that poisonous.  It would be nice in an office!









An encyclopedia of gardeningcomprising the theory and practice of horticulture, floriculture, arboriculture, and landscape-gardening, including all the latest improvements. a general history of gardening in all countries, and a statistical view of its present state, with suggestions for its future progress in the British Isles - John Claudius Loudon, 1824



Dolichos bicontorta  http://www.botanicus.org/page/1436892     Ram's Horn plate

Thursday, April 3, 2014

Hedgehog Plant



Another pair of plants sold for their amusement value is Horns and Hedgehogs!  (See this older post.)


This post is about the plant I decided might have been the Hedgehog. 
The Hedgehog Medick, Medicago intertexta, is it as far as I am concerned. 
I based my choice on the fact the common name of this plant includes the word Hedgehog and it is very cool looking! A child would love it.  

I also found this in a book from 1855, "M. mactilata (Spotted Medick)....
The Rev. C. A. Johns says that this plant, which is in Cornwall called spotted clover, is there considered very injurious to the pasturage. The coiled and prickly seed vessel is very curious, and many of the Medicks have seed vessels still more so.
The Snail-shell Medick of the South of Europe,  (Medicago scutellata),  has a large seed vessel formed of numerous coils; and the still more singular legume of the Hedgehog Medick, (Medicago intertexta),  has led to the frequent culture of this plant in our gardens. "                      From:  The flowering plants and ferns of Great Britain, Volume 2, By Anne Pratt


Above photo by Franz Neidl 

 By the way, it is a nitrogen fixing plant.
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This is one of the the Linnean herbarium images. 




Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Fun With Fake Worms

 Astragalus hamosus...the jokester's "worm" to drop in your salad!

















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The seeds are rectangular!
 

Hooker looks like a cool guy. He isn't really connected much with "worms" but his book had them illustrated and he is worth knowing.

The clincher that this is the plant called "Worms" is the last paragraph below :-)

Above: The Field and Garden Vegetables of America ... with Directions for Propagation, Culture and Use ... Illustrated , Fearing Burr


This is a plate from Hooker's botany book.


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