Grape

It is impossible to discuss in a few paragraphs knowledge accumulated over millenia about grapes and vines; I can only tell what I know. Back when I was small I did not know that I lived in the heartland of the grape. The climate of Turkey is ideal for growing grapes of all kinds. From the Aegean region, where my family lived, come the white seedless grapes for the best raisins. Sultaniye is the name of a village near Manisa and this is where the renowned Sultana raisins get their name from. These grapes are eaten fresh also.

In Thrace and Anatolia (the European and Asian regions of Turkey), the art of maintaining vineyards goes way back in time. The Hittites, an Anatolian people (c.1600 BC-c. 1180BC) grew grapes. When I was little everyone who had a garden even if it be handkerchief size, owned a grape vine. Vines (family Vitaceae) grew in the gardens, over the streets or above al fresco coffee houses. The vines simply grew and were used as parasols. People still grow grape vines in Turkey every opportunity they have.

                                    

“A grape is the fruit of the deciduous woody vines of the botanical genus Vitis. Most grapes come from cultivars of Vitis vinifera (common grape vine), a species of Vitis, native to the Mediterranean region, central Europe, and southwestern Asia, from Morocco and Portugal north to southern Germany and east to northern Iran. There are currently between 5000 and 10,000 varieties of Vitis vinifera grapes though only a few are of commercial significance for wine and table grape production”. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grape)

                                     

Tendrils

Grapes native to Anatolia number over 1200. Fifty to sixty of these are grown commercially.

There used to be a variety of delicious grapes; tiny white ones, big round ones, long white ones called finger grapes, reddish grapes or dark purplish ones. They all had distinct tastes. Grapes all seem to taste the same these days. I hear words like blanched, hormone treated or sprayed and they don’t sound good.

                   

                                                                                         Koruk                                            New shoots

Turkish cuisine uses unripe grapes called ‘koruk’ for a lemony flavor in dishes. As youngsters we used to eat the sour koruk and the new shoots off the vines.

Dolma-stuffed vine leaves dish comes from Ottoman times. The Turkish name dolma(k) – ‘filled’ (stuffed) is still used by all the peoples in the region formerly under Ottoman rule. Sarma(k)-‘wrapped’ is another name for the same dish.

Here is a recipe for red lentil soup with koruk:
Ingredients:
1 c red lentils, 1 small onion diced, 2 cloves of garlic pressed, 2 Tbsp. vegetable oil, or olive oil, 1 Tbsp. tomato paste, ½ cup water added, Salt and pepper to taste, 5 c water or 3 c water and 2 c broth, 1 c koruk
Description: Place lentils, water and broth, onion and garlic, olive oil, tomato paste, salt and pepper in a pot and cook on medium heat until the lentils are well cooked about 45 minutes. If you have a pressure cooker cook for 20 minutes. Beat the soup with a hand held processor and place back in the pot. If too thick add another cup of water and add the koruk, bring to boil and serve hot with baguette type bread.

Commercially grown vines raised off the ground can withstand frost more easily

              

                                                                                                Look who has acquired a taste for grapes

Montreal’s flower planters

Montreal is a city of flowers and greenery.

The Montreal Botanical Garden founded in 1931 is considered to be one of the most important botanical gardens in the world due to the extent of its collections and facilities. It comprises 75 hectares of thematic gardens and greenhouses. We are told that 200 different bird species and a fox family live on the grounds. There are 22,000 types of plants, flowers and trees. With annual events such as Butterflies Go Free the garden is a popular year-round attraction for the people of Montreal. It was designated a national Historic Site of Canada in 2008.

The city of Montreal has created 76 community gardens with 6,400 allotments since 1975. These serve some 10,000 people a year, which makes the program one of the most significant in North America.

Mosaïcultures Internationales de Montréal (MIM), a non-profit organization was created in 1998. In association with the city’s Parks, Gardens and Green Spaces Department, its mission is to promote gardening and horticulture as both an expression of new millennium values and a vital component of the urban landscape. Mosaïcultures Internationales is an international mosaiculture competition, an exhibition of horticultural art and a chance for the representatives from parks, gardens and green spaces around the world to exchange ideas.

                          A replica of a mosaic from the museum of Gaziantep, Turkey titled Gaia was presented by Turkey in 2013

Come spring, planters with exquisite flower displays are placed all around the city. The City of Westmount in Montreal where I live is a very green place. The city promotes horticultural and environmental protection and activities. Among its 13 parks the main park (started in 1892) is beautifully landscaped and has ancient trees. A perennial plant exchange is held by the city in the spring. There is a conservatory and its greenhouses which put on shows and grow plants for exchange.

As proposed in 2010 by a member of the Horticultural Association, Westmount has replaced its traditional flower displays around the commercial district with edible herb and vegetable arrangements. What began as a pilot project with 8 street planters and 3 raised large planters has now expanded to cover 44 street planters as well as the 3 original hanging planters.

                                                   Photograph: Howcheng-Howard Cheng, flat leaved parsley flower
                                              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsley#/media/File:Petroselinum_neapolitanum_flower.jpg

Parsley is one of the herbs that have been planted in Westmount planters. Parsley or Garden Parsley (Petroselinum crispum) is a species of Petroselinum in the family Apiaceae, native to the central Mediterranean region (southern Italy, Algeria and Tunisia), naturalized elsewhere in Europe, and widely cultivated as a herb, a spice, and a vegetable.

Parsley attracts several species of wildlife. Some swallowtail butterflies use parsley as a host plant for their larvae; their caterpillars are black and green striped with yellow dots, and will feed on parsley for two weeks before turning into butterflies. Bees and other nectar-feeding insects also visit the flowers. Birds such as the goldfinch feed on the seeds.

Parsley grows best in moist, well-drained soil, with full sun. It grows best between 22–30 °C, and usually is grown from seed.

In many countries dishes are served with fresh green chopped parsley sprinkled on top.

Flat leaf parsley

The two main groups of leaf parsley used as herbs are: The curly leaf (P. crispumcrispum group; syn. P. crispum var.crispum) and Italian, or flat leaf (P. crispum neapolitanum group; syn. P.crispum var. neapolitanum). Flat-leaved parsley has a stronger flavor.

Parsley is a source of flavonoid and antioxidants (especially luteolin), apigenin, folic acid, vitamin K, vitamin C, and vitamin A. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsley)

                      

Snowball

One of the greatest joys of writing about my familiar plants has been finding them again after many years and then learning interesting facts about them.

                                                           A snowball bush at Heybeliada, Istanbul, summer of 2014

With the common name snowball there is some confusion for there are other plants, some that are members of the genus Viburnum, also called snowball bush. Viburnum is a genus of about 150-175 species of shrubs and small trees in the family Adoxaceae. Most species are native throughout the temperate Northern Hemisphere, with a few species extending into tropical regions of the world.

Viburnum opulus is an ornamental plant with white flowers that later produce red berries for which it has been misleadingly named European cranberry bush. This is not a cranberry plant.

I got to know and admire the cultivar Roseum, Viburnum opulus Roseum with its big white globular flower heads as a child. V. opulus Roseum is an old cultivar created in the 16th century in Europe, and it has been a cherished flower of gardeners ever since. The deciduous bush will grow up to 4m in height and in spread. It has an open structure and the outer branches hang slightly in maturity. The light green leaves are 3lobed. The shrub will turn orange-red in the fall.

The pompom-like flowers appear in profusion. They are green in color at first and in a couple of weeks turn pure white. At the season’s end they acquire a light rosy color as they fade. This gives the name of ‘Roseum’ to the bush. There is no etymological information on either viburnum or opulus.

The 8 cm diameter inflorencences of Roseum are sterile. They do not have fertile florets and the shrub does not produce berries in the fall. Roseum is sometimes sold as V. opulus Sterile.

The snowball flowers bloom around May.

Campanula tomentosa

Many different campanula are endemic to Turkey.

                     Campanula tomentosa (as syn. Campanula ephesia) plate 6715 in: Curtis's Bot. Magazine, vol. 143, (1917)

“In the year 2000 about 9300 species of vascular plants were known for the area of the Turkish Republic. The significance of this number becomes evident if we compare it with Europe as a whole, containing about 24% more species (about 11500), distributed over a thirteen times larger area.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flora_and_Vegetation_of_Turkey)

I was aware that the area of the Turkish Republic was rich in endemic flora. I did not know about Peter Hadland Davis (1918-1992), the British botanist and his life’s work, The Flora of Turkey and the East Aegean Islands. In 1950 he began the research project. In 1952 he received his PhD on taxonomy of Middle East flora from the University of Edinburgh. In 1961 he intensified his efforts to complete The Flora of Turkey, which was finally completed in 1985. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Hadland_Davis)

One web site about the book explains: “This monumental series presents the richness and diversity of Turkish flora in nine volumes (1966-85), plus two supplements (1988; 2001). It is a major contribution to the floristic study of South West Asia and the eastern Mediterranean region.”

The work was later co-authored. I believe there is a Volume 10 now.

The most important reasons for Turkey’s high plant biodiversity are relatively high proportion of endemics and a high climatic and edaphic (soil) variety.

“DAVIS & al. (1988) calculated that nearly one third of Turkish plant species (30.6%) is endemic to Turkey and the nearby Aegean Islands. For Austria the respective value is meagre 1.56% and for the British Isles it is still lower. Moreover, none of the endemic British species is taxonomically remote from a non-endemic species. One might unite all the endemic species with none-endemic ones, thus concluding endemism to be 0 % on the British Isles. On the other hand, rates of endemism are also highly dependent on the surfaces of compared areas and their delimitations. In order to achieve better comparable data one might unite the surfaces of Germany and France, thus obtaining an even larger area than Turkey. But the estimated proportion of endemics still would remain much lower, with Germany alone having about the same low proportion as Austria.

One reason for this relative importance of endemism in the Turkish flora is the mountainous and at the same time rather strongly fragmented surface of Anatolia. Since Darwin we know that geographic isolation between islands or separated mountains is an important means of speciation, leading to high spatial diversity. For Anatolia this assumption is confirmed by concentrations of endemism on highly isolated and relatively old massifs as Uludağ or Ilgaz Dağ, whereas very young volcanic cones as Erciyes Dağ or Hasan Dağ are surprisingly poor in endemics.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flora_and_vegetation_of_Turkey)

Campanula is one of several genera in the family Campanulaceae with the common name bellflower. It takes both its common and its scientific name from its bell-shaped flowers. Campanula is Latin for ‘little bell’.

The genus includes over 500 species and several subspecies, distributed across the temperate and subtropical regions of the Northern Hemisphere, with the highest diversity in the Mediterranean region east to the Caucasus.

The species include annual, biennial and perennial plants, and vary in habit from dwarf arctic and alpine species under 5 cm high, to large temperate grassland and woodland species growing to 2 meters tall.

The flowers are mostly blue to purple, sometimes white or pink. The fruit is a capsule containing numerous small seeds.

Campanula tomentosa is one of many pretty campanula species endemic to Turkey. C. tomentosa is almost a mounding looking campanula with shorter stems and bigger robust flowers of a lovely pastel blue color. Tomentosa is derived from the Latin meaning ‘covered in hairs’.

                                                     Photograph: http://www.agaclar.net/galeri/files/3951-1146135703.jpg

I don’t get the chance these days to go where C. tomentosa grows. It is found mostly on the Dilek Peninsula National Park jutting to the Aegean Sea. This place is right by the delta of the Meander River. The ancient city of Ephesus where the plant has been seen is not too far away either. A synonymous name for C. tomentosa is C. ephesia which means a native or inhabitant of ancient Ephesus.

Another species in the genus Campanula, Campanula rotundifolia is a perennial flowering plant in the Campanulaceae family native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Common names for it are harebell and bluebell.

I took these photographs at the Geneva Botanical Garden in the summer of 2014. Campanula rotundifolia is a perennial species of flowering plant spreading by seed and rhizomes. The flowers usually have five pale to mid violet-blue petals fused together into a bell shape about 12-30 mm long with pointed green sepals at the base. The petal lobes are triangular and curve outwards. The seeds are produced in a capsule about 3-4 mm diameter and are released by pores at the base of the capsule. As with many other Campanulas, all parts of the plant exude white latex when injured or broken.

                                    From Thomé, Prof. Dr. Otto Wilhelm, Flora von Deutschland Österreich und der Schweiz, 1885

The flowering period is long, and varies by location. The flowers are pollinated by bees, but can self-pollinate.

The photographs below are from a visit to Ephesus, Turkey in the summer of 1986. I never came across C. tomentosa myself.

                       

Honeysuckle

“Every honey bee fills with jealousy
When they see you out with me
I don't blame them
Goodness knows
Honeysuckle rose…..”

Honeysuckle Rose composed by Fats Waller in 1929, lyrics by Andy Razaf for the show Load of Coal.

Honeysuckle is a flower that is featured in song, poetry and film. There are girls (Honeysuckle Weeks, British film star) and streets named after the honeysuckle.

                                                      Honeysuckle flowers are sweet smelling especially during the night.

“Many of the species have sweetly-scented tubular, two-lipped flowers that are creamy white or yellowish. They produce a sweet, edible nectar and most flowers are borne in clusters. There are shrubby and vining sorts of honeysuckle.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeysuckle)

A flowering plant in the family Caprifoliaceae, the species Lonicera periclymenum is native to much of Europe. The name Lonicera comes from Adam Lonicer, a Renaissance botanist. “Growing to 7 m or more in height, it is a vigorous evergreen twining climber. It is found as far north as southern Norway and Sweden. It is often found in woodland or in hedgerows or scrubland. The plant is usually pollinated by moths or long-tongued bees.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonicera_periclymenum)

“I know a bank where the wild thyme blows
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine’’

William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream (woodbine is another common name for the plant)

The fruit is usually a red, blue or black spherical berry containing several seeds; in most species the berries are mildly poisonous. Most honeysuckle berries attract wildlife which leads to invasive spreading outside of their home ranges. The leaves are opposite, simple oval, 1–10 cm long.

My own name is not a flowery name but a musical one. Beste means the melody as opposed to the lyrics of a piece of musical work.  I may have been the first Beste in Turkey. I have not heard of anyone else named Beste in my generation, whereas there are many Bestes now all younger than me. My father came up with the name after reading the poem Ses (sound, voice in Turkish) by Yahya Kemal Beyatlı (1884-1958). In a part of the poem, the poet describes hearing a ‘beste’ rising from the Bosphorus in Istanbul.

Bir lâhzada bir pancur açılmış gibi yazdan
 Bir bestenin engin sesi yükseldi Boğaz’dan.
 Coşmuş gene bir aşkın uzak hatırasiyle,
 Aksetti uyanmış tepelerden sırasiyle,
 Dağ dağ o güzel ses bütün etrafı gezindi;
 Görmüş ve geçirmiş denizin kalbine sindi.

Told in my own words that will not do justice to what the poet expressed:
As if a summer shutter opened, the exalted sound of a ‘beste’ rose from the Bosphorus. Elated yet again with the old memory of a love, it reflected back from the awakened hills one by one. That lovely sound hung about each mountain. It permeated to the all-knowing heart of the sea.

                   
                                                                                             Honeysuckle on my brother Aydın’s front lawn in Maryland, USA, winter of 2013

                                           This looks like a honeysuckle kind of street.

Philadelphus

Each time I see a Philadelphus shrub such as the one in the picture above I think of my dad, for he was the one who pointed out the plant and told me its name. This is one of those ‘summer-breeze, long sun-shiny days, tea-in-the-garden’ kind of plant for me.

In the family Hydrangaceae, Philadelphus is a genus of about 60 species of shrubs from 1 to 6 m tall, native to Southeast Europe, North America, Central America and Asia. Philadelphus coronarius is from Southern Europe. It is a deciduous shrub. The blooms are abundant and very fragrant. P. coronarius was the only species grown in gardens for a long time.

           
Philadelphus is named after an ancient Greek king of Egypt, Ptolemy II Philadelphus. The specific epithet coronarius means "used for garlands".

Sometimes misleadingly the name Syringa for Lilac (in the family Oleaceae) is used for Philadelphus. “The connection of the two shrubs lies in their introduction from Ottoman gardens to European ones, effected at the same time by the Holy Roman Emperor’s ambassador to the Sublime Porte (Ottoman government) Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, who returned to Vienna in 1562” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphus).

Indeed, Philadelphus was always in the company of people in high places.

Fuchsia

Fuchsias are a beautiful life form and beautiful manifestations of life make us happy no matter what the theoretical physicist Michio Kaku would have us think. In his book Parallel Worlds (Anchor Books, NY, 2006) he writes about the stages of existence in a universe. He tells the reader: “On this scale, we see that the blossoming of plants and animals on Earth will only last a mere billion years (and we are halfway through this golden era today)”. He quotes astronomer Donald Brownlee: “Mother Nature wasn’t designed to make us happy.” “Compared to the life span of the entire universe, the flowering of life lasts only the briefest instant of time.” (P.297)

Fuchsia flowers are like bejeweled pendants (pendulous) and they for sure are a cause for happiness, ergo evolution must have had a plan about it all. Fuchsias flower throughout the summer and autumn, and all year with tropical species. In many Fuchsia species the sepals are bright red and the petals are purple. These colors attract the hummingbirds that pollinate them. The pollinators of the plant are oligoleges.

Fuchsia blooms in May

Oligolecty means that the pollinators, usually bees, are specialized on a plant family and have the morphology that can effectively pollinate the flowers. Fuchsia is in the family Onagraceae that is characterised by flowers with usually four sepals and petals. Nearly all the bees that visit the flowers of Fuchsia are oligoleges specialized on plants in the family Onagraceae.

I don’t know if these bees exist where the plants are cultivated. Other means of propagation may be used.

Fuchsia is a genus of flowering plants that consists mostly of shrubs or small trees. The first, Fuchsia triphylla, was discovered on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola (present day Dominican Republic and Haiti) about 1696–1697 by the French Roman Catholic monk and botanist Charles Plumier during his third expedition to the Greater Antilles. He named the new genus after the renowned German botanist Leonhart Fuchs (1501–1566) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuchsia).

Fuchsia received its name officially around 1703 by Plumier who compiled his Nova Plantarum Americanum based on the results of his fourth plant-finding trip to America in search of new genera.

Most Fuchsia are native to South America with a few growing in north through Central America to Mexico and most are shrubs from 0.2-4 m tall. There are several that are native to New Zealand and Tahiti. A majority are tropical or subtropical.

The fruit of all fuchsia species and cultivars are edible. Fuchsias have become popular garden shrubs, and once planted they can live for years with a minimal amount of care.

There is a British Fuchsia Society that maintains a list of "hardy" fuchsias that are known to have survived a number of winters throughout Britain and to be back in flower each year by July.

In the United States, members of the American Fuchsia Society brought back approximately 50 plants to California from a trip to Europe in 1930.

This is a well-traveled plant.

  Photograph:Tülay Karayazgan