Lynn, regarding history, me too. Just one bulb of Lilium regale wafted its perfume for an incredible distance in my garden before it up and left. Lovely in moonlight, but the milky way galaxy wasn't visible at night thanks to urban/suburban light pollution at night. But reading Wilson's description of that meadow was like encountering that lily's native habitat for myself, and his history, in his own words, of his encounter evoked a mental picture of moonlit fragrance under the stars.
Where are so many habitats of now? We have to go to history in many cases to find them and hopefully bring them or their approximations back.
Off topic, but still relating to Lilium regale, my garden and history. One spring, when this lily sprouted, instead of its stalk being a round stem, it was like a flat, corrugated board, and it looked just like a cultivar of Ipomoea nil bred perhaps in the early to mid 1800s by possibly some samurai in Edo Japan. Picture of that is attached.
The phenomenum is called fasciation, and it occurs in many different genera including snapdragons (I've also seen it in blackberry stems on local trails). It is thought to be caused by a genetic mutation that can be triggered by many things, including virus, bacteria, pesticides, herbicides, chemicals. The Japanese stabilized many cultivars of Ipomoea nil that may have come from various kinds of mutations similarly induced.
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Ut oh - I see I have a partner in off-topic perambulation - Lynn, I look forward to more ot ramblings with you and I promise to always involve fragrant plants if this forum comes into existence.
Thanks everyone for posting in favor of this forum. I'll be back later tonight.
Karen
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fasciation -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...
fasciated Ipomoea nil -
source: Asagao sanjū-rokka sen (朝顔三十六花撰) auf Deutsch 36 ausgewählte Prunkwinden (Ipomoea nil)
http://commons.wikimedia.org/w... #15
