Cardinal Flower
Common Name: Cardinal Flower[1]
Scientific Name: Lobelia cardinalis
Thomas Jefferson recorded planting the Cardinal Flower in one of the oval flower beds near the house at Monticello in 1807.[2] This native perennial was introduced to Britain in 1626.[3] It was recommended for garden use by Jefferson's nurseryman friend, Bernard McMahon, in The American Gardener's Calendar, 1806.[4], and the earliest American reference comes from John Bartram in 1783.[5] At one time this flower was used by Native American Indians as a root tea for treating stomach aches, typhoid and other diseases.
The Cardinal Flower is a hardy, North American summer-flowering perennial which has brilliant scarlet flower spikes above deep, blue green basal rosette of foliage.
Footnotes
- ↑ This article is based on a Center for Historic Plants Information Sheet.
- ↑ Betts, Garden Book, 335. See also Edwin M. Betts, Hazlehurst Bolton Perkins, and Peter J. Hatch,Thomas Jefferson's Flower Garden at Monticello, 3rd ed. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1986),67-68.
- ↑ Alice M. Coates, Flowers and their Histories. (London: Black, 1968), 152.
- ↑ McMahon, 72, 151, 292, 345, and 461.
- ↑ Denise Wiles Adams, Restoring American Gardens: An Encyclopedia of Heirloom Ornamental Plants, 1640-1940 (Portland, Oregon: Timber Press, Inc., 2004), 192.
Further Sources
- Dutton, Joan Parry. Plants of Colonial Williamsburg Williamsburg: Colonial Williamsburg, 1979
- Leighton, Ann. American Gardens in the Eighteenth Century Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1986
- Notes, ed. Peden, 38
- Seeds available for purchase at Monticello Museum Shop
- Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants
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