NEWSLETTER ARCHIVE
A NEWSLETTER from LUCRETIA WEEMS
STORIES: Nur Jahan~ Light of the World
On my website you will find this woman, Nur Jahan, Light of the World. A serious plantswoman, she would also astonishingly come to rule the mighty Mughal empire singlehanded in the 1600s.
Learn more about her and the spectacular plant she found in Kashmir and took home to naturalize in India. It would come to fame when her stepson planted it en masse at his creation, the Taj Mahal. READ MORE
THE TIGER OF MYSORE
Tipu Sultan, TheTiger of Mysore, played a large role in the life of one of the heroines in This Wild Life, Henrietta Clive, who would travel across India by elephant for eleven months in 1801.
The toy above was one of the Sultan's favorite objects in his vast collections. It now lives at the Victoria and Albert Museum and is occasionally "played".via a keyboard inside the tiger which emits a moaning sound as the soldier's arm moves up and down.
LOOT by Tania James
Coming across this new publication recently I marveled at the way ideas percolate. James' historical novel chronicles the imagined life of a teenage boy in Tipu Sultan's court who is charged with creating the toy,Tipu's Tiger, for the Sultan!
STACHYS HUMMELO
I added this fantastic plant to my garden last year. It is in the Stachys family but it is bears no resemblance to the more familiar Stachys byzantina, or Lamb's Ear, a fuzzy, grey plant—rough, tough and happy to spread. This plant is Stachys Hummelo, Hummelo being the Netherlands home garden of the wonderful Piet Ouldorf, father of the New Perennial Design Movement.
THIS WILD LIFE
Heroines in the History of Botany 1650-1850
The women in these pages led amazing lives. Some encountered pirates, some witnessed historic earthquakes, some received visits from the Queen.
Each was a true heroine who contributed dramatically to our knowledge of plants before the term botany even existed.
They explored, collected and propagated plants alongside men. Courage, determination and intelligence underscored their work yet their historic endeavors were too often barely acknowledged.
Hundreds of years have passed, and their names have been largely forgotten. Here are the remarkable stories of their lives and work, that we may know them and that their stature be reclaimed and celebrated anew.
