Apr 26, 2010

Lavender not in our garden

Dirk informs us by email that our lavender picture represents the lavandula stoechas, which blossoms March - June. Sadly, he continues, it is often mistaken for the common lavender of the Mediterranean area, ie. the lavandula officinalis and the lavandula angustifolia, which blossom June - August.

lavandula stoechaslavandula officinalis
lavandula angustifoliaThe bard

While I am putting Dirk's helpful comments into this blogpost, Chang is looking over my shoulder. "you've got the wrong lavender," he says. "We could have had the official lavender. But we didn't. They f@#ed us again." (He means Rubinio, the local pépinieriste where we buy the wrong plants). "Ask our money back," he continues, "call them, they sold us frass." That's what he always says, but he has a point. The lavandula stoechas not only isthe wrong plant, it also sounds the wrong plant. Compare that with lavandula officinalis, which looks terrible, but surely enlivens the popal, I mean, papal gardens, and blossoms from June through August, while Benedictus naps in the sun and enjoys sweet lavender dreams. Didn't the bard already sing in his famous sonnets "Here's flowers for you: Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram." "Yes, he did," Chang intersperses, looking over my shoulder again, "but not in his sonnets, it's from A Winter's Tale."

I disagree, of course, so we have to google (in the past, you had marital disputes, but now you have googles; not you, not yet?...we provide marital google advice at competitive rates).

Google, Shakespeare, google, Shakespeare & lavender, google. And there it is. Chang is right. A Winter's Tale. But that's not all. The thing that jumps off the page is the lavendula spica. What is this? Shakespeare's lavender is not the angustifolia, not the officinalis, not the stoechas. Yet another lavender, the lavendula spica. What now?

Stay tuned.

No comments:

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...