Every Wednesday, I hope to find a new ‘weed’ to investigate. My only criterion will be that I will not have deliberately planted the subject of our inquiry. Who knows what we will find…..

Dear Readers, I have always been fascinated by the flowers of the fuchsia. They remind me of dancing ladies with twirly skirts. There are the hardier, shrubbier ones like the ‘Hawkshead’ variety in the picture above. Then there are the more delicate ones, some with enormous flowers. There are several fine fuchsia hedges in the County Roads in East Finchley, all in full flower at this time of year.

Yet, these plants are a very long way from home. Most fuchsias come from Central and South America, with a small contingent in New Zealand, Hispaniola and Tahiti. In their native countries the flowers are mostly bird-pollinated, which explains why they are usually red – birds are attracted by the colour, bees not so much.However, some of our native birds, particularly starlings and sparrows, have learned to take advantage of the nectar, and so have bumblebees, those Einsteins of the insect world.

The fuchsias from Oceania are extremely exotic-looking plants, not the kind of things that you would see in your average hanging basket. Here, for example, is the New Zealand fuchsia, Fuchsia procumbens, a creeping plant rather than the more familiar bushy one.

And here is another New Zealand fuchsia, Fuchsia excortica, or the fuchsia tree. It grows up to 50 feet tall and is the largest of all the fuchsia species. I am particularly taken with the blue pollen.

The Pacific fuchsias are said to have diverged from the rest of the family over 30 million years ago.

However, the plants that we grow in our gardens are largely from the South/Central American side of the family. There are an extraordinary number of varieties, as you will find at any garden centre (or in the photo below from the 2011 BBC Gardeners’ World Show). Most of these pretty plants will not survive the winter, but they do grow very well from cuttings.

Fuchsias are named after the eminent German physician and botanist Leonhart Fuchs (1501 -1566). We should probably therefore be pronouncing the flower as ‘fooks-ya’ rather than ‘fyusha’, although I can see that misunderstandings might arise from the first way of saying the name. Furthermore, the Latin pronounciation would be ‘fook-see-a’ which might be even more problematic. Better to stick with ‘fyusha’, on balance, incorrect or not.

You might think that such a tender plant would not naturalise easily in the UK. However, Fuchsia magellanica, or the hardy fuchsia, is very at home in places such as the west of Ireland with its damp, mild climate, and can be seen making a psychedelic display alongside the naturalised montbretia, 

Or, you might see the plant happily engulfing an abandoned tractor.

Whenever I see a fuchsia bush, I always have a good look to see if I can see any of these extraordinary creatures.

This is an elephant hawk moth caterpillar (Deilephila elpenor). Although its native food source is willowherb and bedstraw, it seems to have taken a liking to fuchsia. If you have some of the plant in the garden, it’s always worth checking out, though don’t be surprised if the three-inch long caterpillar rears up and takes on the appearance of a four-eyed snake. I should think that this would be enough to scare any inquisitive bird out of its wits.

The adult moth is an extraordinary  candy-coloured creature.

You might think that the flowers of the fuchsia would be a pretty addition to a cake or a summer drink, and you’d be right – unless they’ve been sprayed with something, the flowers of all fuchsia species are edible. What I didn’t realise was that the berries are consumed wherever the plant grows wild, from Costa Rica to Hispaniola. The taste varies from deliciously sweet to ‘meh’. For some fuchsia berry jam recipes, and an interesting guide to edible fuchsias, have a look at the ‘Fuchsias in the City’ blog here.

The berries were also used by the Maori in an aromatic post-childbirth bath, and the flowers can be used to produce a red dye.

You might expect such a handsome and exotic plant to feature in a few still-lives, and here it is, indeed.

But here it is attracting the attention of Egon Schiele, better known for his self-portraits and his explicitly sexual nudes ( one of the more ‘Safe For Work’ examples is shown below). Schiele painted very few still lives, and i wonder if the exotic form of the flowers was what fascinated him, as it does me. There was something of a hothouse atmosphere in Vienna when he was painting there, for sure.

Incidentally, for anyone wanting to see an exhibition of the drawings of Schiele and his contemporary, Klimt, there is a link to the Royal Academy’s 2018 show here.

Finally, I cannot here the word ‘fuchsia’ without thinking of Lady Fuchsia Groan from Mervyn Peake’s extraordinary Gormenghast trilogy. Lovely readers, you can keep your Lord of the Rings, just leave me in a quiet corner with Gormenghast and I’ll be happy for at least a week. If you love all things gothic and slightly twisted, if you enjoy a building that’s as much a character as the humans, you’re in for a treat. Ignore the TV series of a few years back -nothing can encapsulate this strange, rich world.

Fuchsia is the sister of our hero, Titus Groan. She is 15 when he is born, and, being a girl, she cannot inherit and is furious with her little brother for existing at all. She expresses great glee when he is dropped on his head during the naming ceremony, which involves him being wrapped in the pages of the book containing all the law of Gormenghast. Peake introduces her to us thus:

‘As his lord stared at the door another figure appeared, a girl of about fifteen with long, rather wild black hair. She was gauche in movement and in a sense, ugly of face, but with how small a twist might she not suddenly have become beautiful. Her sullen mouth was full and rich – her eyes smouldered.

A yellow scarf hung loosely around her neck. Her shapeless dress was a flaming red.

For all the straightness of her back she walked with a slouch. ‘Come here’, said Lord Groan as she was about to pass him and the doctor.

‘Yes father’, she said huskily.

‘Where have you been for the last fortnight, Fuchsia?’

‘Oh, here and there, father’ she said, staring at her shoes. She tossed her long hair and it flapped down her back like a pirate’s flag. She stood in about as awkward a manner as could be conceived. Utterly un-feminine – no man couldd have invented it.

“Here and there?” echoed her father in a weary voice. “What does ‘here and there’ mean? You’ve been hiding. Where, girl?”
“‘N the libr’y and ‘n the armoury, ‘n walking about a lot”, said Lady Fuchsia, and her sullen eyes narrowed. “I just heard silly rumours about mother. They said I’ve got a brother — idiots! idiots! I hate them. I havn’t, have I? Have I?”
“A little brother”, broke in Doctor Prunesquallor. “Yes, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, a minute, infinitesimal, microscopic addition to the famous line is now behind this bedroom door. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, he, he, he, he! Oh yes! Ha ha! Oh yes indeed! Very much so.”

“No!” said Fuchsia so loudly that the doctor coughed crisply and his lordship took a step forward with his eyes drawn together and a sad curl at the corner of his mouth.

“It’s not true!” shouted Fuchsia, turning from them and twirling a great lock of black hair round and round her wrist. “I don’t believe it! Let me go! Let me go!”

As no one was touching her, her cry was unnecessary and she turned and ran with strange bounds along the corridor that led from the landing. Before she was lost to view, Steerpike could hear her voice shouting from the distance, “Oh how I hate people!”.’

And how this exchange conjures up all the overheated arguments of the teenage years. Gormenghast is wild fantasy, but Peake’s characters are never less than human.

Credits

For more on the Gormenghast Trilogy and Mervyn Peake, have a look at the Gormenghast website here.

Photo One (New Zealand Fuchsia) by By Dominicus Johannes Bergsma – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44396021

Photo Two (Fuchsia Tree) by By I, Tony Wills, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3016263

Photo Three (cultivated fuchsias) by By Andy Mabbett – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15531853

Photo Four (tractor and fuchsia) by Sharon Loxton [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Photo Five (Elephant Hawk Moth Caterpillar) by By Richerman (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

Photo Six (Elephant Hawk Moth) by By jean pierre Hamon (14) – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2845396

 

Every Wednesday, I hope to find a new ‘weed’ to investigate. My only criterion will be that I will not have deliberately planted the subject of our inquiry. Who knows what we will find…..

Dear Readers, I found a tree pit full of nasturtiums in Muswell Hill today, and it occurred to me that I know next to nothing about this popular plant, except that it is often used as a peppery addition to salads, and that it is a favourite food of greenfly. As usual, the common name causes some confusion: Nasturtium is actually the generic name for watercress, and I assume that ‘our’ nasturtium got the name because of those tasty leaves. The actual genus name for this plant, Tropaeolum, was given because it reminded Linnaeus of an ancient Roman custom, where the armour and weapons of defeated enemies would hung from a pole called a tropaeum. The leaves reminded Linnaeus of shields, and the flowers of bloody helmets.

‘Our’ nasturtium is actually a hybrid of three wild species, all of which come from South America. It grows here as an annual, and seems to prefer full sun and poor soil – in rich soil, it produces lots of leaves but few flowers. It is much more of a scrambler than a vine, though it can overwhelm smaller, more delicate plants. I rather like the tumble of leaves above, and the variety of colours.

As mentioned above, the leaves of nasturtium can be eaten raw, but the flowers are also edible, and often show up in the dishes of high-end restaurants. In fact, there is a whole section of delicious recipes on the BBC Good Food website here, including one for caramel sticky toffee cake. It seems to me that the nasturtium flowers are not integral to the bake, but then anything with the words ‘caramel’ and ‘toffee’ in the title must be worth a look, regardless.

I have mentioned that nasturtiums attract a lot of aphids, and one reason for planting this exotic-looking interloper is as a companion plant,  as the aphids attract ladybirds, lacewings and other predatory insects. Some gardeners also plant them as a ‘trap crop’ , in the belief that  cabbage white butterfly caterpillars prefer nasturtiums to the broccoli and cavolo nero that has been planted for human consumption. I would love to hear what experience you intrepid vegetable gardeners have had.

Medicinally, nasturtium has been used to make cough medicine, and it is also said to have some antibiotic properties. In Germany there is a herbal antibiotic made solely from nasturtium leaves and horseradish root, for use in sinusitis, bronchitis and urinary tract infections. In a study it was comparable with ‘normal’ antibiotics, but had fewer side-effects. We will certainly need new antibiotics as bacteria continue to increase in resistance to our existing drugs, so this sounds most promising. On the other hand, as the article has been translated from the German, I do wonder if the ‘nasturtium’ is actually watercress. Such are the confusions of common names.

Nasturtiums were also caught up in a scientific debate over a mystery that became known ‘Elizabeth Linnaus phenomenon’ in the eighteenth century. Elizabeth was the daughter of the famed taxonomist Linnaeus. One evening in the family garden in Uppsala, Sweden, she noticed that, at dusk, the flowers of yellow and orange nasturtium appeared to ‘flash’. Although she was only 19 and had no formal education,  she wrote a scientific paper about this strange sight, published in 1762. It was long believed that the ‘flashes’ were a result of some kind of electrical activity in the plant itself – it was a time when everyone was getting very excited about electricity, and were inclined to credit it for causing more or less everything.  The idea influenced the poetry of Wordsworth, among others: think of his famous poem ‘Daffodils’:

‘They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude.’

Do daffodils ‘flash’? I’m not sure, and never have been, but the idea of flowers putting out little sparks of electricity was certainly on Wordsworth’s mind. And here is a quote from Coleridge’s poem ‘Lines Written at Shurton Bars’:

′Flashes the golden-coloured flower

 A fair electric flame′

However, in 1914 the idea was finally debunked by Professor F.A.W Thomas of Germany, who revealed that the effect was an optical illusion, caused by the eye’s reaction to the contrast of the orange/yellow flowers and the green leaves at dusk. What a shame. I rather like the idea of flowers producing their own lightning.

I am frequently surprised by the places that this blog takes me, and so it is again today. I found this picture of nasturtiums by the Romanian painter Octav Bancila, and immediately assumed that he was a painter of still-lives.

Bancila was, in fact, mostly a painter of people: the poor, the dispossessed, peasants and the Roma people, who were much despised (and still are today, and not just in Romania). Following the Romanian Peasants’ Revolt of 1907 he painted a series of pictures showing the conflict, including his most famous painting ‘1907’ showing a peasant running into gunfire.