Hi there and welcome to The Daily Gardener, a podcast about gardening, botanical history and literature. I'm your host, Jennifer Eatling, and today is April 29th. Today we celebrate the botanical pastimes of two young women in Oklahoma back in 1850. We'll also learn about a female botanical pioneer who specialized in grasses.
We'll hear some thoughts on spring from a beloved American author, and we grow that garden library today with a book featuring the letters from a Texas pioneer botanist. And then we'll wrap things up with the story of an elite wedding and the last minute flower arranging that needed to be done for it. But first, here's today's curated news. Today's curated news comes from my friend Allison Brown.
She is releasing a brand new cocktail recipe book, and this is a post from her blog. It's called Spring's Splendor, and it's all about Forsythia. Forsythia is one of my favorite spring flowering shrubs, and it's Allison's as well. She writes, it's such a sight to see those joyful yellow flowers after a long spring.
And you know what? She is right. And that's why when I placed Forsythia on my property here in Maple Grove, I made sure to put it on the western side of the driveway where I would see it every day as I drive in and off the property for a little mood boost in the spring. This is such a happy shrub, and it's definitely one that new neighbors or dog walkers are sure to comment on.
Now, in Allison's post, she's harvested the blossoms of the Forsythia. In fact, Forsythia is one of the 63 flowers that she uses in her flower-infused cocktail recipe book. And in this post, she gives us a taste for one of her recipes. This is for a Forsythia honey liqueur.
She writes, the secret to coaxing out the sweet fragrance of Forsythia flowers is allowing them to wilt slightly. So whether you do that just for a few hours or even overnight, it's the perfect amount of time for them to release their beautiful scent. Now, if you would like to check out this wonderful recipe for Allison's Forsythia honey liqueur, all you need to do is, the next time you're in the Facebook group for the show, just head on up to the little magnifying glass up near the header and search for the word Forsythia, and Allison's post will pop right up. Now, if you're not in the group, don't worry about it.
You have a standing invitation. You can join at any time. All you need to do is head on up to the search bar where you'd search for a friend and type in the words Daily Gardner Community and then request to join. I'd love to meet you in the group.
It's time for today's Botanical History. Here's Botanical History for today, April 29th. We'll kick things off with a post today from Hunter's Home, which is the only remaining pre-Civil War plantation home in Oklahoma. This is a post that they shared for April 29th in 1850.
It starts out this way. Emily and Amanda stayed at Araminta's for much of the day. They had a sweet potato roasting and then gathered flowers for pressing. Emily kept a herbarium into which she pressed a variety of flowers from her travels.
Botany was considered a suitable science for women to learn in the 19th century, and women were expected to understand the nature of the plant as well as classification. Women published botanical textbooks and used their knowledge to improve their herbal remedies. Like Emily, women also carried their herbarium with them while traveling to better collect new species. And today's the birthday of a botanist who was a petite, fearless, and indefatigable person, Agnes Chase, who was born on this day, April 29th in 1869.
Agnes was an agristologist, a studier of grass. A self-taught botanist, her first position was as an illustrator at the USDA's Bureau of Plant Industry in Washington, D.C. In this position, Agnes worked as an assistant to the botanist Albert Speer Hitchcock. When it came time to apply for funding for expeditions, only Albert received approval, not Agnes.
The justification was always that the job belonged to, quote, real research men. Undeterred, Alice raised her own funding to go on the expeditions. She cleverly partnered with missionaries in Latin America and arranged for accommodations with host families. She shrewdly observed, the missionaries travel everywhere and, like botanists, do it on as little money as possible.
They gave me information that saved me much time and trouble. During a climb of one of the highest mountains in Brazil, Agnes returned to camp with a skirt filled with plant specimens. One of her major works, The First Book of Grasses, was translated into Spanish and Portuguese. Her book taught generations of Latin American botanists who recognized Agnes' contributions long before their American counterparts.
After Albert retired, Agnes became his backfill. And when Agnes reached the age of retirement, she ignored the rite of passage altogether, and she refused to be put out to pasture. She kept going to work six days a week, overseeing the largest collection of grasses in the world from her office under the Red Towers at her beloved Smithsonian Institution. When Agnes was 89, she became the eighth person to become an honorary fellow of the Smithsonian.
A reporter covering the event said, Dr. Chase looked impatient, as if she were muttering to herself, This may be well and good, but it isn't getting any grass classified, Sonny. While I was researching Agnes Chase, I came across a little article in the St. Louis Stardom Times.
Agnes had given one of her books on grass a biblical title, The Meek That Inherit the Earth. The article pointed out that Agnes began her study of grass by reading about it in the Bible. Agnes wrote, In the very first chapter of Genesis, the first living thing the Creator made was grass. In order to understand grass, one needs an outlook as broad as all creation, for grass is fundamental to life.
From Abraham the herdsman to Western cattlemen, from drought in Egypt to the Dust Bowl of Colorado, from corn, a grass given to Hiawatha, to the tall corn of Iowa. Agnes said, Grass is what holds the earth together. Grass made it possible for the human race to abandon his cave life and follow herds. Civilization was based on grass everywhere in the world.
It's time for today's Unearthed Words. Today's Unearthed Words come to us from the American novelist, essayist, book editor, and college professor, Toni Morrison, from her book, Jazz. This is a little excerpt about her thoughts on spring. What can beat bricks warming up to the sun?
The return of awnings. The removal of blankets from horses' backs. Tar softens under the heel. And the darkness under bridges changes from gloom to cooling shade.
After a light rain, when the leaves have come, tree limbs are like wet fingers playing in woolly green hair. It's time to grow that garden library with today's book, Life Among the Texas Flora, by Minetta Altgett-Goyne. This book came out in 1991, and the subtitle is Ferdinand Lindheimer's Letters to George Engelman. In this book, Minetta shares the treasure of these letters between two marvelous 19th century botanists.
In 1979, Minetta was asked to translate 32 letters between Ferdinand Lindheimer, the father of Texas botany, and George Engelman, the man who helped establish the Missouri Botanical Garden and specialized in the flora of the western half of the United States. The task of deciphering, organizing, and analyzing the Lindheimer-Engelman correspondence took Minetta over a decade. This book is 236 pages of a fascinating look at Texas frontier life and botany through the eyes of the German-American botanist Ferdinand Lindheimer. You can get a copy of Life Among the Texas Flora by Minetta Altgett-Goyne and support the show using the Amazon link in today's show notes for around $18.
Finally, here's something sweet to revive the little botanic spark in your heart. Today is the wedding day of Cornelia Vanderbilt, who was married on this day, April 29th in 1924. This year, 2021, marks her 95th wedding anniversary. When this young Vanderbilt heiress married British nobility, the diplomat John Cecil, the wedding flowers had been ordered from a florist in New York.
However, the train carrying the flowers to the Biltmore in Asheville, North Carolina, was delayed and would not arrive on time. Biltmore's Lizzie Borchers said that the Biltmore gardeners came to the rescue, clipping Forsythia, tulips, dogwood, quince, and other flowers, and then wiring them together. They were quite large compositions, twiggy, open, and very beautiful. And if you look up this lavish, classic, roaring 20s wedding on social media today, the pictures show that the bouquets that were held by the wedding party were indeed very large.
In fact, they look to be about two feet in diameter. I'm going to share images of this in the Facebook group for the show over in the Daily Gardener community. So if you're curious, just check them out there, because now that you know the backstory, you'll especially appreciate what you're looking at. Now, back in 2001, the Biltmore commemorated the 75th anniversary of this wedding with a month-long celebration among 2,500 blooming roses during the month of June.
So cheers to Cornelia and John. Happy heavenly 95th wedding anniversary today. Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener. And remember, for a happy, healthy life, garden every day.
The Daily Gardener is produced in lovely Maple Grove in Wyoming, Minnesota. If you want to read today's show notes, just head on over to thedailygardener.org. And while you're there, be sure to sign up for my free Friday newsletter. And don't forget that you have a standing invitation to join the free Facebook group for listeners of the show.
Just search for Daily Gardener Community the next time you're on Facebook and request to join. Last but not least, you can always get in touch by emailing me at jennifer at thedailygardener.org. I'm your host, Jennifer Ebeling. And as always, have a great day in the garden, and we'll see you tomorrow.
We'll see you tomorrow.