Lily of the Valley
Common Name: Lily of the Valley or Lily-of-the-Valley[1]
Scientific Name: Convalaria majalis
Jefferson recorded lily-of-the-valley as early as 1771 in a list of hardy perennial flowers suitable for Monticello.[2] He also ordered roots from Bernard McMahon in 1809.[3] This well-known flower, native to Great Britain, is a universal favorite and has been in gardens since the 16th century.[4]. Williamsburg's John Custis first mentioned it around 1738, and by 1829, flowers in white, double white, and rose red were known.[5] In the late 19th century it became an important florist flower and was produced in immense quantities. Plant the growing tip of the rhizome just below soil level in a well-prepared bed. The foliage begins to go dormant by early fall, dying completely to the ground.
Lily of the Valley is a hardy, herbaceous, late-spring-flowering perennial with fragrant, nodding, white, bell-like flowers and large, dark green, lance-like foliage. The plant was used to help with headaches, hysteria, fainting, sprains, cholic, and love potions.[6]
Primary Source References[7]
1808 December 19. (Ann Cary Randolph Bankhead to Jefferson). "I would be much obliged to you if you will send me in a letter some of the ice plant seed a Lady here has Lost it & is to give me a few roots of the Lily of the valley..."[8]
Footnotes
- ↑ This section is based on a Center for Historic Plants Information Sheet.
- ↑ Betts, Garden Book, 24. Manuscript and transcription at the Massachusetts Historical Society.
- ↑ 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), 57.
- ↑ David Stuart and James Sutherland, Plants from the Past: Old Flowers for New Gardens (London: Penguin Books, 1989), 107.
- ↑ Ann Leighton, American Gardens in the Eighteenth Century (Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1986), 410.
- ↑ Stuart and Sutherland, 107, and Alice M. Coates, Flowers and their Histories (London: Black, 1968), 57.
- ↑ Please note that this list should not be considered comprehensive.
- ↑ Betts, Garden Book, 382.
Further Sources
- Adams, Denise Wiles. Restoring American Gardens: An Encyclopedia of Heirloom Ornamental Plants, 1640-1940. Portland, Oregon: Timber Press, Inc., 2004
- Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants
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