LEGENDS AND INTERESTING HISTORICAL FACTS ABOUT FLOWERS

One of the ancient Greek legends is dedicated to the mysterious origin of violet flowers. The beautiful Apollo – the sun god – entertained himself by chasing a pretty young nymph – the daughter of Atlas with the hot rays of the sun.
The poor thing, exhausted by the mercilessly scorching sun, prayed for help to the most formidable and powerful of the gods Zeus. Feeling sympathy, Zeus turned it into a violet and hid it from the sun in his possessions – in the shade of shrubs in the middle of the forest. Hid from the eyes of others, left only to admire himself. Until one day, the daughter of Zeus Proserpine went for a walk in the forest. Finding lovely flowers, Proserpina plucked a bouquet, and on her way back she was stolen by the crafty Pluto. With fear, Proserpine dropped the bouquet, and violets scattered from divine heaven on sinful human earth.

The story of the opening of the senpole, so similar to the legend: it all began in 1892, when the governor of East Africa, Baron Adalbert Emil Walter Radcliffe la Tannoix von Saint Paul and his bride, escaping the heat in the shade of trees during a walk, discovered completely unfamiliar purple flowers. As you may have guessed, “senpolii” received in honor of the name of the discoverer. The flowers found were sent to Germany by a passionate gardener and orchid collector Walter Saint Paul, Ulrich von Saint Paul. To determine the flowers, they were sent by Ultrich Saint-Paul to the Director of the Botanical Garden Herman Wendland in Hanover, who assigned them to the Gesnerius family. 1893 is considered the year of “birth” of violets: this year they were shown at international flower shows, were first described in the Gartenflora magazine and aroused great interest.

I will add: there is such a legend that says that this flower arose from the tears of gratitude to Adam when, when he was on the island of Ceylon, the archangel Gabriel brought him the good news of the Lord’s forgiveness of his sins.

In Roman mythology, violet is called the flower of Jupiter. The legend tells that one day on a hot day, Venus decided to swim and suddenly saw several mortals looking at her. Angry, the goddess appealed to Jupiter, demanding the death of the guilty. But Jupiter decided to turn them into a flower, which would personify the surprise and curiosity that killed the unfortunates.

For the ancient Greeks, violet was an indispensable attribute of the holidays, as well as decoration of their own homes and statues of the gods. The Gauls revered the flower as a symbol of innocence, modesty and virginity and sprinkled it on the bed of the bride and groom. The French competed in Toulouse poetry tournaments, where one of the highest awards was golden violet.

Orchid

Once Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty, returned with Adonis from the hunt, when they were overtaken by a terrible thunderstorm. Venus and her lover found shelter and quite naturally indulged in love, where Venus lost her slipper. When the thunderstorm ended, the shoe was found by a man who wanted to pick it up immediately. But before he could touch the Venus shoe, he turned into a flower, whose central petal, labellum or lip in a different way, not only took the form of a shoe, but also retained the color of gold, from which precious goddess shoes were made.

Sometimes ancient myths come to light in modern science. In search of the scientific name for the orchid Venus Bashmachek, the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus recalled the story of Venus and its lost shoe.
The name Cypripedium comes from Cyprus (Cyprus) – the birthplace of the sacred goddess Aphrodite (Venus) and pedilon – a slipper. The epithet of the original name calceolus, comes from the Latin calceus and means “little shoe”. Repeating this idea after more than a hundred years, Ernst Hugo Heinrich Pfitzer placed Southeast Asian orchid shoes in the genus Paphiopedilum, the name is combined from two words – Paphos – the city in Cyprus where the temple dedicated to Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and beauty, is located , and
Balsam

This beautiful legend of a flower called “light”, which is also called touchy.
It happened a long time ago. The girl of her fiance led the battle with the enemies. The guy promised to return and asked the girl to light a red light in the window so that he would call and beckon the tired warrior home. But the light in the girl’s window did not help him – the warrior did not return home, he fell in a bloody battle. The girl did not want to believe in it, she was waiting for her beloved, and in her window the red light was still burning. Time passed, the girl grew old and died, and the light turned into a beautiful plant with luminous flowers that seem to call and attract someone home …

The scientific name of Balzamin is impacence, of Latin origin and means impatient, indicates that in some species, with the slightest touch of ripe fruit, they crack and seeds fly apart over a long distance. Also, this plant for its abundant and prolonged flowering received the English name “Busy Lizzie” – “zealous Lisa.”