Professor Hedgehog's Journal

Plant of the Month: June 2020

Posted on 29/06/2020 by carolinemmurray

I never cease to be amazed that garden centres and nurseries actually sell seeds and plants of the Mexican fleabane, Erigeron karvinskianus. In my garden, nothing (except perhaps the dreaded pellitory) flourishes and reproduces better, and it grows best in no soil at all. (I am not one of those who like their paving clean and unencumbered by plants in the cracks.) Continue reading →

Posted in Biography, Botany, Exploration, Gardens, Natural history | Tagged Erigeron karvinskianus, fleabane, garden plants, Joseph Gerhard Zuccarini, Mexico, Wilhelm Friedrich Karwinski von Karwin | 3 Comments

Ruskin Relics

Posted on 24/06/2020 by carolinemmurray

I came across a reference to this 1903 book last week, and was fortunate enough to find a copy (on Abebooks), which arrived a few days ago. It was presented by ‘Miss Hutchinson’ to Alexandra Hall in 1905. Alexandra Hall (of which the bookplate is in English and Welsh) was the first hall of residence for female students at the University College of Aberystwyth, and was founded in 1896; by 1911, it housed 168 students. Many pages of the book, and all the plates, are stamped as a sign of possession: what worries me slightly is that there is no de-accession mark. Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Bibliography, Biography, History, Italy, Literature, Museums and Galleries, Printing and Publishing | Tagged Brantwood, Duomo di San Martino, Ilaria del Carretto, John Ruskin, Lucca, W.G. Collingwood | 4 Comments

SPAB

Posted on 29/05/2020 by carolinemmurray

Anyone with even a transient acquaintance with the life and works of William Morris will probably know that, inter multa alia, he founded the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings in 1877, saying that ‘We are only the trustees for those who come after us.’ I have had the pleasure of visiting their present headquarters at 37 Spital Square more than once on the occasion of the annual (though sadly not this year!) Open Gardens of Spitalfields, but it occurred to me only quite recently that I ought to join. Continue reading →

Posted in History, London, Museums and Galleries | Tagged conservation, historic buildings, John Ruskin, Norton Folgate, Spitalfields, St Mark's Venice, The Gentle Author, The SPAB, Whitechapel Bell Foundry, William Morris | 3 Comments

The Pliny of Switzerland

Posted on 09/05/2020 by carolinemmurray

I vaguely knew of Conrad Gessner (often spelled Gesner) as a botanist, but it wasn’t until I was tracing the taxonomy of the bluetit a few days ago that I became aware of his wide-ranging work across the fields of natural history, medicine, bibliography and philology. Reading more about him has made me realise what a polymath he was, but also how much the development of his talents depended on the good will of a remarkable number of people. Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Bibliography, Biography, Botany, History, Natural history, Printing and Publishing | Tagged Bibliography, botany, Conrad Gessner, natural history, Protestant Reformation, Zürich, Zwingli | 2 Comments

The Bluetit

Posted on 28/04/2020 by carolinemmurray

One of the upsides of the lockdown (from my own purely selfish point of view) is that I have been able to spend much more time watching the birds in my garden, at a time of year when they are of course at their most active. Many people have commented on the joy of hearing birdsong without the constant background rumble of traffic: at the moment, a local blackbird sits in a tree overhanging the garden and kicks off at about 4 a.m. (or so I am told by Him Indoors, who says he wakes him up) continuing on and off throughout the day and even after dusk. Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Gardens, Natural history | Tagged bluetit, feeding birds, garden birds, Ladybird books, RSPB, tit family | 5 Comments

Plant of the Month: April 2020

Posted on 19/04/2020 by carolinemmurray

Greifswald, now in the province of Vorpommern-Mecklenburg in Germany, is one of those coastal cities in the Baltic which have always been part of the Debatable Land of north-central Europe. It is closer to Malmö and Copenhagen than to Berlin, and only 50 miles from the (now) Polish border, and to have an understanding of its long and complicated history you need at least a glancing acquaintance with the equally complicated history of the Griffin Dukes of Pomerania and of Bolesław III Wrymouth of Poland, who blinded his brother in one of those family wrangles that were so common in the middle ages. Continue reading →

Posted in Biography, Botany, Gardens, History, Natural history, Printing and Publishing | Tagged Christian Ehrenfried Weigel, gardening, Greifswald, plants, Pomerania, Thunberg, Weigela | 4 Comments

Jonas Webb, the Southdown Man

Posted on 03/04/2020 by carolinemmurray

I imagine that most people these days, if they have heard of Babraham at all, know it for the Babraham Institute, a research campus at which the nineteenth-century Babraham Hall (it had several antecedents) sits in the centre, and which, most tragically, has just lost its Director, Professor Michael Wakelam, to COVID-19. Continue reading →

Posted in Biography, Botany, Cambridge, London, Natural history | Tagged Adeane family, Babraham, John Ellman, Jonas Webb, sheep breeding, Southdown sheep | 4 Comments

W.P. Milner

Posted on 31/03/2020 by carolinemmurray

Last autumn, I wanted some new/different narcissi for my pots. (Tulips were already organised via the annual terrifying over-spend at Chelsea: many thanks, Mr Blom, they are looking wonderful!) So I went off to the local garden centre, where I found very few bulbs indeed – a general shortage resulting from the dry spring and summer last year? But they did have bags of N. ‘W.P. Milner’, so I got one. Continue reading →

Posted in Biography, Botany, Gardens, History, Natural history, Printing and Publishing | Tagged Backhouse family, Bloms Bulbs, G.H. Engleheart, narcissi, Peter Barr, The Gardens Trust, Veitch family, W.P. Milner | 4 Comments

Naturalists of the Three Counties

Posted on 23/03/2020 by carolinemmurray

It is an article of (my) faith that the ‘Three Choirs Counties’ – Worcestershire, Herefordshire and Gloucestershire – are the most beautiful and amazing part of England. Imagine my delight, therefore, when I discovered quite by chance all sorts of things connected to each other in that area (and beyond) of which I had no idea … Continue reading →

Posted in Biography, Botany, Gardens, History, Museums and Galleries, Natural history, Printing and Publishing | Tagged Gloucestershire, Hereford, Hereforshire, Joseph Hooker, Lord Brougham, William Huskisson, William Samuel Symonds, Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club, Worcestershire, Worthington G. Smith | 5 Comments

Quinquennium

Posted on 20/03/2020 by carolinemmurray

Well, the plan was to be writing from lovely Lucca to mark the fifth anniversary of La Vita Nuova, but fate has decreed otherwise. Instead, I sit contemplating the garden, and will shortly be going with Him Indoors on a bracing – though of course socially isolated – walk through @CUBotanicGarden . Some sunshine would be nice … Continue reading →

Posted in Botany, Cambridge, Gardens, Italy, Natural history | Tagged @CUBotanicGarden, anniversary, magnolias, retirement, spring, tulips | 2 Comments