Go to Home Page
Intro Mary Garden
Galega Officinalis: An Adventure in
Plant Naturalization
John S. Stokes, Jr.
Morris Arboretum Bulletin, Vol 15, 1964
The article, "Galega Officinalis: A Weed New to the Arboretum",
by Dr. John M. Fogg, Jr., in the Morris Arboretum Bulletin for March,
1964, was read by the writer with the keenest interest. I knew
this plant well, having grown it experimentally from seed in 1953
through 1955. Then came a moment of startled recollection. In the
late fall of 1954 I had made a broadcast sowing of excess experimental
seed of this species and some fifty others in an attempt to naturalize
some of them as roadside plants along the east side of Stenton Avenue,
just north of Erdenheim Avenue (identified as location (1) in the
accompanying map). This was within 100 ft. of the second colony of
Galega officinalis discovered in July of 1963 by Dr. Fogg along the
west ditch of Stenton Avenue (3). The original colony discovered by
him on July 9, 1963 was on low wet ground along the stream in the
north meadow of the Arboretum (2).
I wrote Dr. Fogg about this immediately. The next day, March
26, I inspected the site of the original sowing (1). There I
found the first spring foliage of three or four plants of G.
officinalis. These, however, could hardly have been described as a
colony and appeared just barely to be surviving, as contrasted to
the colony on the west side of Stenton Avenue (3), which was dense
and vigorous in growth. In the early summer of 1964 Dr. Fogg made
a thorough survey of the east side of Stenton Avenue and
discovered an almost continuous colony of G. officinalis along the
banks of the rivulet (4) which drains the north side of the meadow
on the grounds of St. Joseph's Academy (Fig. 82). This rivulet
empties through a culvert under Stenton Avenue and then is
diverted south along the west ditch of Stenton Avenue (3) until it
empties into the stream entering the Arboretum north meadow.
Observed in the rivulet colony were some plants with bluish-purple
flowers and others with white flowers, indicating the presence of
both G. officinalis and G. officinalis var. albiflora, whereas the
original two colonies discovered (2) and (3) contained only the
white fiowered var. albiflora.
In July the blooming plants formed a long purple and white
ribbon of color winding up the rivulet from Stenton Avenue towards
the buildings of St. Joseph's Academy (Fig. 83). Subsequently,
Mrs. Barbara Emerson found colonies at the upper end of the
rivulet (5) reaching almost to Bethlehem Pike, three quarters of a
mile to the east of Stenton Avenue. No specimens have been
observed so far on the east side of Bethlehem Pike.
Meadow Photo
Dr. Fogg suggested that the additional facts brought to light
since the appearance of his article warranted a further report for
the record. With this in view, he, Mrs. Emmerson and I inspected
the various colonies on September 25, 1964 and discussed various
Possible ways in which they might have spread. The most plausible
theory appeared to be that some of the original seed scattered in
the fall of 1954 (approximately 1 oz., or 3600 seeds) had been
transported to the banks of the rivulet in St. Joseph's meadow,
perhaps by washing flooding, for example during the flooding of
the meadows by the torrential rains accompanying the passing of
Hurricane Diane in August of 1955 (Fig. 84). After the
establishment of the plant or plants in the rivulet, the observed
colonies could then have spread up and down its course through the
normal cycles of fruition and subsequent distribution of seed by
gravity, wind, water, birds, animals, etc. Drier soil conditions
and/or periodic mowings could have prevented colonies from
spreading out from the sides of the rivulet into the meadow.
The relatively late appearance of the colonies on the west
side of Stenton Avenue (3) and (2) could be explained by the
barrier of Stenton Avenue itself. Then, apparently, within the
last several years some seed was transported from the banks of the
rivulet across Stenton and into its west ditch, some lodging there
and some at the same time or subsequently washing down the ditch
into the stream and thence down the stream to the site of the
original colony discovered by Dr. Fogg (2). This theory would
account for the simultaneous first appearance of both Arboretum
colonies in 1963. This view is supported by the observed vigorous
spread of the colony in the west ditch of Stenton Avenue (3), an
estimated additional 50 ft., from 1963 to 1964, indicating,
projecting backwards, that there was little or no establishment in
this area prior to 1963.
The very few plants found in March of 1964 in the original
location of the seed scattering (I) indicate that this higher,
drier and perhaps otherwise culturally different location was less
favorable to colonization and spreading, although it is possible
that second generation seed from plants originally established
here could have been distributed to start the progression of the
other colonies observed.
No colonies have been found along the banks of the stream in
the vicinity of the original sowing (1) either to the east or to
the west of Stenton Avenue, and in September the few plants
observed at the original location in March were not in evidence
above the ground. Perhaps this remnant of the colony at the point
of the original sowing was killed by the extreme dryness of the
summer of 1964 (the upper parts of some plants along the rivulet
(4) were observed to be dead in September, but new growth was
coming up at their bases). This, then, brings up to date our
knowledge of the physical introduction and spread of the G.
officinalis colonies in the meadows of the Arboretum and St.
Joseph's Academy, now estimated to contain some 2,000 plants.
Reasons For The Sowing
But why would anyone want to sow seed of G. officinalis in
this area in the first place? In the answer to this lies another
adventure: an adventure in research. The following, for the
complete record, is an accounting of the circumstances which led to
the original scattering of seed in 1954. The story begins in l951
when another Philadelphian, Edward A. G. McTague, and I founded a
spare-time research and educational project in the field of the
religious symbolism and use of plants. The project was undertaken
on the premise that the old religious names of plants reported by
herbalist and folklorists were not just idle curiosities but often
had significant doctrinal and cultural content which warrant
investigation today, just as medicinal herbs of folk medicine have
been found to merit careful scientific scrutiny today as possible
sources of important drugs. It was and is our hope that this work
will contribute to reawakened and heightened appreciation of
nature and of the religious sense of nature by any who have become
isolated from nature by cities, books, classrooms, television,
etc.
In January of 1953 one of our correspondents, Daniel J.
Foley, then Editor of Horticulture magazine, sent us a copy of the
manuscript of his article, "Mary Gardens", which subsequently was
published in The Herbarist for 1953. In the list of plants at the
end of this manuscript was the item: "Galega lutea - Our Lady's
Cowslip". As part of our continuing program of corroborating the
identification, availability, culture, symbolical form and
intelligibility of plants reported to have religious names, we
made a routine screening of G. lutea. We were unable to verify
the existence of the species lutea, but we did note the existence
of G. officinalis, or "Goat's Rue", an European forage plant which
also had some use as an ornamental. In view of previous
experience with questionable specific names from old folklore
studies which later were found to have been superseded by
equivalent present-day nomenclature, we undertook to check on the
culture of G. officinalis in our area, while continuing our
screening of the reference, G. lutea. In the meantime Mr. Foley
had eliminated G. lutea entirely from his final article as
published, but this escaped our notice at the time.
We found G. officinalis in the medieval herb Garden of The
Cloisters, and in the course of our regular checking of rare seed
catalogs, we noted the listing on page 41 of the Pearce Seed
Company 1953 Catalog: "G. officinalis, mixed, long-lived
perennials with multitudes of tiny 'sweet-pea' blossoms in white,
purple or blue-and-white", and immediately procured a packet. We
found that Pearce obtained the G. officinalis seed in their
mixture from German growers and the G. officinalis var. albiflora
from English growers. According to our records we sowed
approximately 300 seeds in an outdoor flat filled with
loam-sand-leafmold mixture on April 4, 1953 at my then residence,
9503 Meadowbrook Lane, across from the Arboretum. By April 25,
three weeks later, two seeds had germinated and by May 2 the total
reached 5. Except for one seedling which damped off, on May 16,
the plants were transplanted to nursery beds and raised to
maturity. They first flowered in mid-June of the following year.
In January of 1954 we obtained additional quantities of seed
from Pearce and were able to obtain somewhat better germination in
flats of vermiculite under controlled temperatures in the 50-55¡
F. range. Then in the fall of 1954, we made the broadcast sowing
of seed, including G. officinalis, mixed, along Stenton Avenue, as
mentioned previously.
Since the blooms of G. officinalis failed to resemble
"cowslips" (Primula veris), and we were unable to establish the
identity of G. lutea, we dropped this investigation from our
active list. Then, in June of 1956 I moved from my Meadowbrook
Lane home and gave no further thought to the Stenton Avenue
naturalization attempt until reading Dr. Fog's article in March of
1964. Subsequently, we discovered the listing: "Gagea lutea - Our
Lady's Cowslip" in Britten and Holland's A Dictionary of English
Plant Names at the University of Pennsylvania Biology Library
- indicating that Galega lutea was a typographical error to begin
with.
But then came the real surprise, the "happy ending". In the
course of writing this account I checked G. officinalis in
Marzell's Worterbuch der Deutschen Pflanzennamen and discovered
that it was one of the "Holy Hay" plants, along with sanfoin
(Onobrychis viciaefolia) and alfalfa (Medicago sativa). Thus, in
France it was known in some localities as sanfoin d'Espagne
(Spanish Holy Hay), in Gallo-Italic dialect as Sanfoin salvadegh
(Wild Holy Hay) and in Germany as Ewigen Klee (Everlasting
Clover). The legendary folk symbolism of forage plants bearing
such names is that they were present in the manger at Bethlehem
and burst into bloom when the Christ Child was laid on them - thus
miraculously signifying, like the Star of Bethlehem, his divinity
and his dominion over nature.
It seems fitting that, after our groping instrumentality, the
meadow rivulet of St. Joseph's Academy is now adorned each summer
with a ribbon of blooming "Holy Hay" as a tribute also to St.
Joseph who diligently prepared the hay of the manger to receive
the Holy Child for whom there was "no room at the inn".
And as G. officinalis works its way into the Arboretum
meadow, we suggest that it should be scientifically screened (if
it has not been already) as a possible candidate for the Medicinal
Garden, in view of Marzell's report that it was used as a treatment
for the plague and was known accordingly as "Pestilence Plant,
"Spot Plant" and "Pock Plant".
Plants by any other name may smell as sweet, but seen and
used according to these names they may provide added sustenance
for soul and body.
REFERENCES
Britten and Holland, A Dictionary of English Plant Names. London,
I878.
Foley, D. J., Mary Gardens, The Herbarist, Boston. 1953.
Marzell, H., Worterbuch der Deutschen Planzennamen, Liefrung 13,
Leipzig. 1954.
Reprinted with permission.
o O o
Note, 1995
On scanning this article digitally in the summer of 1995 for
website posting, a check was made of the Galega colony, after 31
years, in which it was discovered that for the establishment of a
soccer field in St. Joseph's Meadow, the lower portion of the
rivulet (4) had been filled in and a new channel dug to the
southeast, close to the St. Joseph's Academy buildings, and joining
with the other tributary to the stream to the east instead of at
Stenton Avenue; and also that in the re-grading for a new bridge
over the stream, the west ditch (3) of Stenton Avenue also had been
filled in - thus removing the two densest areas of naturalization,
such as shown in the meadow photo.
However, a number of plants continued to be mingled with others in
the upper portion of the rivulet - with some established in the
re-directed lower portion - as well as in the joined stream passing
through the Arboretum on the west side of Stenton Avenue; evidencing
the permanence of the colony's establishment.
In 1964 we received a letter from the St. Louis Botanical Garden
telling us that this documentation of the establishment of the
Galega was highly unique, in that while there are a multitude of
colonies of European plants which have been established in the United
States - presumably from escaped plants brought by settlers - there
is little actual documentation of how and when these occurred, or
from where the original plant materials came.