The Nerine and Amaryllid Society is the fortunate recipient of a copy of a recently published work on the historical background to the introduction of Nerines. Our member, Dr. John David, wrote a review of this publication for the NAAS Journal and, with his permission, the article is reproduced here (with additional photographs).
James Douglas’s A Description of the Guernsey
Lilly with a modern Commentary and bibliography by Dr Helen Brock.
The arrival of Nerine sarniensis in Europe is shrouded
in mystery, illuminated by a few facts, but mired in a welter of myth and
speculation. We are fortunate that at an early stage the distinguished doctor
and Fellow of the Royal Society, James Douglas, published a monograph on the
Guernsey Lily (as ‘Guernsay Lilly’ in the 1725 edition) that not only included
a botanical description of the plant but also the results of his enquiries in
Guernsey as to its occurrence there. This work was first published in 1725,
with a second edition in 1729, the latter being reprinted in 1737. The first
edition appeared some 90 years after the first definite report of N.
sarniensis
in Europe, and therefore is important as a record of what was known at a time
much closer to when the plant was introduced than our own.
The present publication comprises two volumes:
one being a facsimile reproduction of the 1737 reprint of the second edition,
the other being a recent memoir written by Dr Helen Brock in the early 1990s. I
will not discuss the facsimile of the Douglas monograph in this review, as it
does not require further comment. While 185 copies of the facsimile and
commentary were printed at the time, the work was never published, and was
rescued by the present publisher some 20 years later. Those who attended this
year’s NAAS AGM will have been able to admire the beautiful presentation of the
volumes. The facsimile is half bound in dark (described by the publisher as
‘chocolate’) leather, with leather corners front and back and subtle blind
tooling on the leather, and bands on the spine to give an eighteenth century
feel. The binding is completed by marbled paper in pink and cream with speckles
of gold. The quality of the binding is evident from the way the book remains
open at each page. The Commentary is a modern binding covered in a vibrant pink
cloth reminiscent of the flowers of Nerine, with a Nerine embossed in white on
the front. Printed on almost foolscap sized paper, both volumes are rather
slim, the first being 80 pages with three fold-out illustrations as in the
original, the second is 88 pages, with 18 pages of introduction to the
facsimile. The volumes are contained in a cloth-covered slipcase also,
according to the publisher in chocolate.
As noted above, the principal interest of
Douglas’s monograph is his investigations into the original introduction of N.
sarniensis
into Europe. This account is given in pages 10 – 19 of the facsimile. It was
Robert Morison, Professor of Botany at Oxford who, in 1680, recorded the story
of the Nerine
“roots” being cast ashore following the stranding (or shipwreck) of a boat
carrying the plant from Japan. In Morison’s and Douglas’s time, both of which
pre-date Linnaeus’s ordering of plant nomenclature in 1753, the Guernsey lily
was generally known as Lilio-Narcissus or Narcissus. Indeed when Jacob Cornut
first described the plant in 1735 he named it Narcissus japonicus. Linnaeus,
however, named it Amaryllis sarniensis, taking the species name from Douglas’s
earlier name of Lilio-Narcissus Sarniensis Autumno florens[1].
It was not until Herbert in 1820 that the generic name Nerine was introduced for it.
Herbert, drawing on the poetry of the renaissance, and being aware of the myth
first reported by Morison, chose the name to allude to the sea nymph that
rescued Vasco da Gama’s ship in Camoens’s epic poem, Os Lusiades. Dr Brock was
unaware of this and chose in her introduction to reiterate the widely held view
that the name is derived from Greek mythology, but compounds the error by
suggesting the word nerine is Greek, when no such word is to be found in any
Greek dictionary.
Brock’s Commentary echoes Douglas’s monograph
in taking the five chapter headings from it. Each chapter provides additional
information and context for understanding Douglas’s account. Some of this is
supported from Brock’s study of Douglas’s papers which are held in the
Hunterian Museum in Glasgow. However, while she was obviously a diligent
researcher and has brought together much useful information there are a number
of errors, mainly taxonomic, that the reader should be aware of[2].
This is particularly evident in Appendix 6, where the author has updated
Douglas’s original list of synonyms and added further names from the account by
Traub (1967). Notwithstanding this, the author does uncover some useful
additional information about the early cultivation of N. sarniensis from contemporaneous literature. The Commentary
includes, in addition, James Knowlton’s account of his visit to Guernsey on
Douglas’s behalf to enquire into the origin of the Guernsey lily. This is followed
by seven Appendixes, four of which are poems relating to the lily and the final
Appendix is a facsimile of the first few pages of the 1729 edition where they
vary from the 1737 reprint. There are notes and references at the end, but no
index.
[1]In the 1725 Edition Douglas gives it the name
Narcisso-Lirion Sarniense but in the second edition fell into line with the
nomenclature then current on the continent for this group of plants. In both
editions he also cites the name ‘Lilium Sarniense’ to which he adds “vulgo”,
meaning that this is its common name, i.e. the Guernsey lily. This should not
be taken to be a botanical name.
[2]These are given in an erratum list supplied with the
Commentary. The list does not cover the errors in Appendix 6, which are too
technical to be of use to the general reader.
One of the original fold-out illustrations reproduced in the Facsimile.
Perhaps the most important element of Dr Brock’s
Commentary is her analysis of the conflicting accounts of how the Guernsey lily
came to Guernsey. The shipwreck story, published by Morison was apparently
derived from one of his students who was the second son of Lord Hatton,
Governor of the Channel Islands after the Restoration in 1660. While it was
also said that the first roots had been presented to an inhabitant of Guernsey
by a grateful stranded sailor, this version of events rarely seems to have
received much exposure in later accounts – perhaps lacking the romance of the
shipwreck version. Douglas opted for a combination of the two stories. Brock
brings into this the complicating factor of the Commonwealth soldier, General
Lambert, who was imprisoned on the island during Lord Hatton’s governorship,
and whose daughter married Morison’s student, Charles Hatton. We know that
Lambert had at least one plant of Nerine sarniensis while he was living at
Wimbledon during the Commonwealth, since there is a painting of it in
Marshall’s Florilegium, now held in the Library at Windsor Castle. The
painting, reproduced as the frontispiece to Brock’s Commentary, dates from 1659,
just 25 years after it was first described from a plant grown by the Paris
nurseryman Jean Morin. This then leads to two further explanations: first, that
Lambert received the nerine from the loyal parliamentarians of Guernsey and
second, that Lambert brought the bulbs to the island and is the source of their
introduction. Such evidence as is available rules the second explanation
although the first remains possible, in that Lambert could have obtained his
plants either from Guernsey or from Paris.
To lay to rest the shipwreck story Brock has
examined the shipping records held by both the Dutch and English at the time
and established that no ship was lost on the Guernsey coastline. This seems
finally to nail what was always an inherently improbable tale, but one which
clearly captures the popular imagination as she points out in relation to the
Scarborough lily (Cyrtanthus elatus) which has a definite date and route of
introduction, but is said likewise to have arrived as the result of a
shipwreck. Not content with disproving the story, Brock goes on to explore how
the story came about. Her hypothesis is that the dangerous post-Restoration
politics and the Catholic conspiracies with which both Charles Hatton and
General Lambert were innocently involved, led to Hatton asking his mentor,
Morison, to cover up the true explanation for the source of the bulbs by giving
the shipwreck story in his book. Although not impossible, since it is not known
for definite how the bulbs reached Guernsey (or even how they reached Paris),
this elaborate saga seems rather unnecessary.
It is intriguing, though, that by Douglas’s
time, if not before, Guernsey was exporting the bulbs to England in significant
numbers. This would suggest that someone had quickly spotted the potential of Nerine and had managed to bulk
them up in sufficient numbers to support the trade. This, at a time when
cultivation under glass would have been rare or nonexistent: the earliest
greenhouse on Guernsey still in existence dates back to 1792. It is also widely
held on Guernsey that the original nerines continue to be grown and flower
outside at the foot of a sheltered house wall. This too is referred to by
Brock, but since then it has been found that these nerines closely resemble
those growing on Table Mountain. Thus it should not be doubted that the plant
arrived on Guernsey sometime in the first half of the seventeenth century:
whether it was then transmitted to Paris, or arrived at Paris independently it
does not now seem possible to determine. While the earliest explorations date
from the early 1500s and by 1600 a number of South African plants had been
brought back to Europe, it was not until 1652 that the Dutch established an outpost
at the Cape of Good Hope. It is curious that, given their horticultural
tradition they did not bring back the bulb themselves. Indeed in Douglas’s
monograph he states that the Dutch received it through a student from Guernsey
studying at Leiden during the time when Dr Hotton (Petrus Houttuyn, 1648-1709)
was Professor of Botany there.
The mystery of the
introduction of N. sarniensis to Europe has baffled all those that have studied the evidence
available at the time. In her Commentary Brock has brought to light further
information, mainly from unpublished sources, which does make a further step in
our understanding of the problem. She add some fascinating information from her
research, and provides a useful survey of the literature, as well as
illustrations of the time, including some hitherto unseen paintings such as the
one acquired by William Sherard, now held the Botany School at Oxford,
thankfully reproduced in colour.
Illustrations in the Commentary.
Without doubt we should be grateful to the
publishers for being willing to give this work a wider circulation and admire
their courage in producing such a fine edition. At £375, given the quality of
the binding and presentation and the limited number of copies, the book is
realistically priced. This is no consolation to many Nerine enthusiasts for
whom the price puts the book well beyond their means, while undoubtedly it will
appeal to the deeper-pocketed denizens of the Channel Islands. However, I understand
the publishers are generously donating a copy to the Nerine & Amaryllid
Society and I encourage those unable to afford this work, to consult the
Society’s copy.
