Early.American.Indoor.Plants.Breckinridge.HISTORY-OtherFrom: KyArchives 
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Subject: Early.American.Indoor.Plants.Breckinridge.HISTORY-Other


Early American Indoor Plants  
Breckinridge County KyArchives History Other 
Book Title: A Glimpse Of The Past 
 In his practical and popular "English Gardener" - 1682, Leonard Meager 
provided "A catalogue of flowers" suitable not only for the garden and 
nosegays, but also "fit to furnish a flower pot".  Among annuals he listed 
African and French Marigolds, lupines, tock, double poppies, Melancholy 
Gentleman, Venus Looking Glass, and twenty-three more.  Among perennials and 
biennials, there were Canterbury bells, columbines, carnations, wallflowers, 
hollyhocks, sweet John and sweet Williams, our native Crimson Cardinals and 
many others.  Among the bulbous and tuberous rooted were anemones, crown 
imperial, iris, lilies, tulips, peonies, six and seven varieties and Indian 
Juca, our spectacular native Adam's needle yucca.  Other pretty flowers include 
affron, ranunculus, and passion flower. 
   The chimney bellflower, Capanula pyramidalis, was fashonable for two hundred 
years as an adornment for fireless grates in summer.  A tall biennial, its 
flower spikes covered with numerous large blue blossoms form a pyramid four to 
five feet high. 
   From around 1730 to 1744 Westover, Colonel William Byrd II's plantation in 
Virginia probably had the first green house.  In 1745, a Charleston nursery was 
advertising lime and orange trees and lemon trees with lemons on them, in boxes 
and several curious plants in pots. 
   A methodical gardener listed her houseplants as: limes, lemons, oranges, 
oleander, dward myrtle, rose geranium, chrysanthemum indicum, the spotted and 
striped flowered Alstoemeria - Natives of Peru - the latter very sweet scented, 
here they would be house plants and Prickly Lantana, a very brilliant, seldom 
without flowers. 
   By 1806, plants the world over were being brought into cultivation, The 
American Gardener's Calendar, included thirteen kinds of citrus, almost fifty 
geraniums (most semmingly grown for their fancy leaves or scent), and all other 
plants cherished by Lady Skipwith. 
   Greenhouse plants included, cypress, Daphne, camellias, crape myrtle, 
fuchsia coccinea, gardenia, magnolias, pistachio, plus many succulents, aloe, 
euphorbias, crassulas, mesembryans, sempervivums and stapelia.  The tigridia 
was also mentioned, this was a beautiful tiger flower from Mexico and the 
dragon tree from the Canary Islands named for its red sap. 
   Since 1652, when the Dutch East India Company established the first European 
settlement at Cape of Good Hope, bulbs and plants from that flora rich area had 
trickled back to Holland and were dispersed to European and American 
gardeners.  Some of these were the amaryllis, gladiolus, iris, ixia, and 
lochenalia, Star of Bethlehem, scilla and watsonia. 
   First and foremost among hothouse plants are the pines or pineapple, that 
favorite early American symbol of hospitality. 
   Many tropical plants are happy here such as the cashew, coffee, several 
figs, palms, mahogany and the chocolate nut trees.  The China rose-hibiscus, 
many passion flowers, plumaria or red Jasmine from the West Indies (now the 
Hawaiian lei flower), the sensitive plant, as well as the Jacobean lily, 
ginger, tuberose, the bird of paradise and many cacti. 
   Inside the Victorian parlor the middle classes indulged in indoor gardening 
in a big way.  First invited into these cool and dark, sledom used rooms were 
the shade loving palms, fern and the aptly names the cast-iron plant. 


Submitted by: Dana Brown 
http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00005.html#0001067 



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