tytoert *7he .Hcuue'i Jieft Coaster Tracy Eifling N.D. Victoria Stoppiello Naturopathic Physician * Treating Women Leading by example * & Their Families 1010 Duane • Astoria, Oregon 97103 PO ACHED EGG, OR IS IT OVER S U N N Y SIDE UP? Dunne July my garden is at its peak performance, and filled with color, as the wide variety o f perennials and annuals come into full bloom. M ost leading garden plants we now grow originally were collected from the wilds. The plants we use today have been cultivated for so long that many o f the original species are unknown. They nave been greatly changed by domestication, by hybridizing and selection which has improved their form, size, color and garden value. One o f the plants that grows in my garden and has performed for years in its original state is a low- growing annual. During May and June this plant’s bright yellow flowers seem to nil the garden with rays o f sunshine during spring’s cloudy overcast days. I first saw these flowers growing in Dorothy Lindsey’s garden in Cannon Beach. She gave me seeds from her plants that she called ‘Poached Egg,’ and told me that her seeds she had collected from tne hills near her home when she and her family lived in California. She said they were growing wild along with the orange California poppy. Dorothy died many years ago and I have carried on her legacy by sharing seeds o f ‘Poached Egg,’ Latin name Limnatnes douglasii, with people from allover the U.S., and labeling them ‘Dorothy’s Poached Egg Plant.’ Two ladies from England visited my garden in 1996 during the time when this plant was in bloom and commented that they also grew this flower and that it was commonly used in English gardens. I was surprised, as the first time I’d seen it was in Dorothy’s garden and most visitors I’ve shared the seeds with also were unfamiliar with this plant. I’ve continued to correspond with one o f the English ladies, Jacqueline Giles, who lives in Bolton Percy, York, England. Giles is a well-known primula (primrose) grower in England. She writes articles and lectures about primulas throughout England. Her garden was featured last spring in “The English Garden” magazine that showed the wide variety o f Elizabethan primroses she specializes in growing. Giles recently sent me articles taken from the journals o f David Douglas, telling about this famous lant collector, collecting seeds in 1829 o f a buttercup- ke yellow/white flower, an annual growing in California. H e sent the seeds back to England and at that time this plant was identified as Limnathes douglasii. David Douglas was bom in Scone, Scotland on June 25,1799. H e was more interested in nature than in schooling, and at the age o f 11 became an apprentice in the gardens at Scone Palace. Because o f his interest, he was encouraged and guided by his succession o f employers and supervisors. H e quickly rose from a garden lad to an expert plantsman. In 1823, under the employment o f William Hooker in Glasgow, Scotland, he was recommended to become a plant collector for the Horticultural Society o f London, now called the Royal Horticultural Society. For the next 11 years, until his untimely death caused Gy an accident in Hawaii in 1834, he sent back to England to be cultivated and identified 20,000 herbarium specimens and introduced more than 240 plants new to cultivation to Britain. Many o f these plants he introduced were collected here along the north coast: salal, spruce, vine maple, huckleberry, flowering current, and snowbeny, to name a few. Sometimes the Latin name o f a plant will identify its origin, such as Eschscholzia California (California poppy) or Papaver orientale, the large orange flowering poppy that blooms in June and is from Asia. However, many Latin names identify the color or the collector - such as Limnathes douglesii, named after D . Douglas. The origin o f my L. douglasii came from Dorothy. I’ll continue to call it, ‘Dorothy’s Poached Egg Plant.’ In May and June when this plant is in bloom, I always think o f Dorothy and how, when she brought this lant from California, she brought a bit o f sunshine to lighten our gardens here on the North Coast’s overcast spring days. Phone: 503-325-9194 • Email: erflingnd0hotmail.com k i Ì e l a ù B o o k ' s -¿ P E L C IA L ORDERS i 50