Asphodelus

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Asphodelus
White asphodel (Asphodelus albus)
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Monocots
Order: Asparagales
Family: Asphodelaceae
Subfamily: Asphodeloideae
Genus: Asphodelus
L.
Synonyms[1]
  • Asphodeloides
     Moench
  • Clausonia
     Pomel
  • Verinea
     Pomel
  • Gethosyne Salisb.
  • Ophioprason
     Salisb.
  • Glyphosperma
     S.Watson
Asphodelus ramosus

Asphodelus is a genus of mainly

Indian Subcontinent, and some species have been introduced to, and are now naturalized in, other places such as New Zealand, Australia, Mexico and southwestern United States.[1][4] Many asphodels are popular garden plants, which grow in well-drained soils
with abundant natural light.

Character

The plants are hardy herbaceous perennials with narrow tufted radical leaves and an elongated stem bearing a handsome spike of white or yellow flowers. Asphodelus albus and A. fistulosus have white flowers and grow from 45 to 60 centimetres (1+1⁄2–2 ft) high; A. ramosus is a larger plant, the large white flowers of which have a reddish-brown line in the middle of each segment.

Etymology

The genus name is derived from the Greek ἀσφόδελος asphodelos.[5][6]

Species

There are 16 species in the genus.[7]

Species[1]
  1. Asphodelus acaulis Desf. – Branched asphodel – Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia
  2. Asphodelus aestivus Brot. – Summer asphodel, also known as Common asphodel and Silver rod – Western Mediterranean (mainly Portugal and Spain)
  3. Asphodelus albus Mill. – White asphodel, also known as Rimmed lichen – Mediterranean
  4. Asphodelus ayardii Jahand. & Maire – France, Spain, Italy, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Canary Islands
  5. Asphodelus bakeri Breistr. – Western Himalayas of northern India, northern Pakistan, etc.
  6. Asphodelus bento-rainhae P.Silva – Spain, Portugal
  7. Asphodelus cerasiferus J.Gay – France, Spain, Sardinia, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia
  8. Asphodelus fistulosus L. – Onion-leaved asphodel, also known as Onionweed – Mediterranean (naturalized in New Zealand, Mexico, southwestern United States, etc.)
  9. Asphodelus gracilis Braun-Blanq. & Maire – Morocco
  10. Asphodelus lusitanicus Cout. – Spain, Portugal
  11. Asphodelus macrocarpus Parl. – Mediterranean
  12. Asphodelus ramosus L. – Branched asphodel – southern Europe, northern Africa, the Middle East and Canary Islands
  13. Asphodelus refractus Boiss. – North Africa and Arabian Peninsula from Mauritania & Morocco to Saudi Arabia
  14. Asphodelus roseus Humbert & Maire – Spain, Morocco
  15. Asphodelus serotinus Wolley-Dod – Spain, Portugal
  16. Asphodelus tenuifolius Cav. – Southeast Europe and northern Africa from the Mediterranean south to Mali, Chad, Sudan, Somalia; south-central Asia from Caucasus to India
  17. Asphodelus viscidulus Boiss. – North Africa, Middle East, Arabian Peninsula
Formerly included

Uses

The leaves[clarification needed] are used to wrap burrata, an Italian cheese. The leaves and the cheese last about the same time, three or four days, and thus fresh leaves are a sign of a fresh cheese, while dried out leaves indicate that the cheese is past its prime.[8]

Mythology

See also: Asphodel Meadows

In

sorcery; it was fatal to mice, but preserved pigs from disease. The Libyan nomads made their huts of asphodel stalks.[citation needed
]

Poetry

The asphodel is mentioned by several poets in connection with the mythology of death, and by association, the afterlife - specifically the Isles of the Blessed and Elysium - part of the ancient Greek concept of the afterlife.

  • Conrad Aiken: "Snowflake on asphodel—how clear, how bright / Snow's death on dying flower, yet both immortal"
  • Elizabeth Barrett Browning: "As one who stands in dewless asphodel, Looks backward on the tedious time he had In the upper life."
  • Florence Earle Coates
    : "beauty wove a magic spell/ For him, and early, at his need,/ Upon a bed of asphodel/ He found a tuneful reed" in poem "Henry Wadsworth Longfellow"
  • Leonard Cohen: "But in his lapel, discreetly, he wore a sprig of asphodel."
  • William Faulkner: "There asphodels are scattered through the night, Like ghosts of young beseeching hands." ONE WHO WAS LEFT LIVING, CHANSONS AU PRINTEMPS, handwritten with drawings, 1919, W. Faulkner, RFC
  • Robert Frost: “And where they sought without the sword/ Wide fields of asphodel fore’er” The Trial by Existence, A Boy’s Will
  • Allen Ginsberg: "An Asphodel"
  • Hesiod: "Children! They know not how much more the half is than the whole, nor how great is the profit in mallow and asphodel."[9]
  • Homer: "So I said and off he went, the ghost of the great runner, Aeacus’ grandson loping with long strides across the fields of asphodel, triumphant in all I had told him of his son, his gallant, glorious son."[10]
  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: "He, who wore the crown of asphodels, Descending, at my door began to knock."[11]
  • John Milton: "To embathe In nectared lavers strewed with asphodel."
  • Edgar Allan Poe: "and when, one by one, the white daisies shrank away, there sprang up in place of them, ten by ten of the ruby-red asphodel"
  • Alexander Pope: "Happy Souls who dwell In Yellow Meads of Asphodel, Or Amaranthine Bowers."
  • Ezra Pound, "Canto XXI": "Danced there Athame, danced, and there Phaethusa/ With colour in the vein,/ Strong as with blood drink, once,/ With colour in the vein/ Red in the smoke-faint throat. Dis caught her up./ And the old man went on there/ beating his mule with an asphodel."
  • Alfred Tennyson: "Others in Elysian valleys dwell, Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel."
  • Orville E. Watson: "see a river like Kokosing, in meadows sweet with asphodel"
  • William Carlos Williams: "Asphodel, that greeny flower"
  • Marie Laforêt: "Je t'ai donné mes bouquets d'asphodèles
  • Oscar Wilde: "The heavy fields of scentless Asphodel, the loveless lips with which men kiss in hell"; "they sleep, they sleep, beneath the rocking trees where asphodel and yellow lotus twine"
  • Dani Filth: "When the Sun goes out our powers/ Will extend throughout Heaven like Asphodel"
  • Virginia Woolf: " But some were early infected by a germ said to be bred of the pollen of the asphodel" (describing the love of literature in Orlando)

Notes

  1. ^ a b c Kew Plants of the World Online
  2. doi:10.1111/boj.12385
    .
  3. ^ Bailey, L.H. & E.Z. Bailey. 1976. Hortus Third i–xiv, 1–1290. MacMillan, New York.
  4. ^ Altervista Flora Italiana, genere Asphodelus includes photos plus European distribution maps
  5. ^ Harper, Douglas. "asphodel". Online Etymology Dictionary.
  6. Perseus Project
    .
  7. doi:10.1080/00173139609430497
    .
  8. ^ Roberts, Genevieve (2 March 2011). "Burrata: Britain's new Big cheese". The Independent. Retrieved 7 September 2013.
  9. ^ Hes.Works and Days.40-41.
  10. ^ The Odyssey, translated by Robert Fagels
  11. ISBN 978-0199206872
    .

References

External links

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