KI recently returned to Stuttgart, the big city of my youth. I had to pick something up there, otherwise I would have given up in the morning when the booked train connection was canceled due to repairs, later trains were affected by signal disruptions or emergency medical calls and local transport suffered painfully from a lack of staff.
The usual chaos, then, which is best overcome with a lot of humour, flexibility and composure, as the train attendant proved to us with every announcement in the most beautiful dialect. To everyone’s delight, even if only hours later, in the EC on the return journey.
When I finally walked through downtown Stuttgart, admiring the then undecorated Christmas tree at the town hall, I came across a plant next to the market hall that I would envy in any front yard: an extremely beautiful, vigorous Christmas rose with greenish-burgundy flowers; with a proud price of 98 euros, however, I didn’t even have to think about it.
In addition, I had enough to carry and apart from a bread and “souls”, classic with salt and caraway, no other capacities. It stayed with the pretty thought – and the memory of an earlier story: years ago I had visited a breeder in Münsterland who specialized in the most diverse types and varieties of Christmas roses.
After a drive through the dark of winter, the illuminated greenhouses with their blooms seemed magical and from another world. I learned so much about Helleborus nigerthe Christmas or snow rose native to the southern and eastern Alps, and its colorful relatives from the buttercup family.
What we see on the market are mostly hybrid cultivars that have been selected based on the shape and color of their flowers and leaves and sometimes have descriptive names such as Cinnamon Snow, Pink Frost, Ice Breaker or Goldmarie, which really shines.
I found the old research material again while clearing out my office, including articles from magazines called Plant Biology, Plant Systematics and Evolution, Flora or Science of Horticulture and the Journal of Phytopathology.
I had also consulted a “Monographia” by the botanist Victor Félix Schiffner, once a private lecturer in Prague, from 1890, because he had all “forms known so far” of the genus hellebore and an introductory description of what the powder of the root, “which is collected during various celebrations and prayers”, was used in antiquity.
It arouses sneezing and sleep, cures paralysis, madness and dropsy. In the appendix, Schiffner devoted himself to the crossing experiments, which is amusing to read, before delving into the “life story” that was written in 1994 at the University of Halle, or in the taxonomic analysis from 2011 at the University of Hanover.
Each specialist publication brings new details to light, confirming or rejecting previous studies. In this way, you can find out so much more about plants that are best known for blooming in winter than just their suitability for being bestsellers. Or would you have known that in Mallorca with H. bruised a species restricted to the Balearic Islands grows? And up to an altitude of 1400 meters.
I love digging up information about plants like this, but now the boxes are packed: the editorial team has moved and I’m retiring after fifteen years F.A.S. to other worlds. Finally, it only remains for me to wish everyone happy holidays and a happy new year. And don’t forget: water – even cacti need water, if only rarely.