The Lisiteners

Diana Resting With Her Nymphs,
Giovanni Battista Franco, engraver Italian, 1498 - 1561
Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts

. . . . . . There was one
Marble contrast smiling lone,
Sweet Pindaric Ode in Stone :
A glistening white Carrrara group,
Where fair Diana deigns to stoop
On a bank of forest flowers
Her languid limbs. With toil opprest,
The virgin Huntress calm doth rest,
While speed the noontide's fervent hours,
And a beauteous Nymph doth share
Her quiet time --- and couchant there
At their feet, a favourite hound ;
His ear attentive, some sweet sound
Hath softly smitten, and the three
List far-wafted harmony
From Apollo's lyre divine,
As seated with the Muses nine,
One some bright peak Thessalaian near,
He doth enchant the atmosphere,
Rolling on Dian's startled ear
Such strains she cannot choose but hear !



Music Room, Monserrate. "The Listeners"

Sculptural group in Carrara marble. Described in Fairy Life in Fairyland and also reported in 1890. The group seems to have been removed by 1929.

" ... a music room of fine acoustic proportions, and beautifully decorated. It is circular in shape ; and around the walls are niches filled with statues, between which are marble pillars supporting a tastefully decorated ceiling tapering up to a dome of white and gold, and having at its base for each arch a head of the muses in marble. A grand piano from the Austrian Exposition, a marble group of " The Listeners," carved Indian furniture, dainty jardinières of teak-wood from Goa, and rare vases complete the outfit of the room."

"The Listeners". The sculpture was deliberately placed in the Music Room. And the poem tells us just to whom Diana and the nymph (and even the dog!) were listening to.

"And the three list far wafted harmony ..."

Strains of music from Apollo's lyre. Apollo, floats above them in the celestial dome, surrounded by his muses, St. Cecelia, and the poet Sappho: the sixteen busts in the spandrels.

Fairies ! now direct your sight
To that high circle glowing bright
With every Muse that haunts the streams
Of Arcady in poet's dreams,
And the bewitching Graces three,
who ever their companions be,
And Dryads coy of dale and grove,
Nymphs who soft seclusion love ! --
Each Gothic archéd Spandril wide,
Hollowed express, is occupied
By a wondrous effigy,
Snowy white reality,
Most speaking work of glowing art,
Stealing softly to the heart :
Medallioned, large, they stately show
And standing out in classic row
Expressive, far they stretch around
All our dome's symmetric bound,
And Cecilia, type of song, well doth close their glittering throng.

The poem then goes on to describe the arched niches between the columns and windows. These were as yet empty but:

"... each recess will soon receive

Such gem as sculptor's art can weave."

Take a look at the photograph of "The Listeners" again. The niche behind the Indian carved round table contains a marble figure (perhaps a little short for the niche - suggesting a purchased item rather than a comissioned piece). The use of classical statuary in niches was a favourite device of James Knowles, repeated over and again in his projects.

Silverton Park, Devon (Earl of Egremont)

Long section for hall

J. T. Knowles Sr. c. 1839-40

(From Priscilla Metcalf's biography)

Friday Grove, Clapham Park

Knowles' own house, built 1845

At Clapham Park the sculptures fill the niches suggesting that Knowles had them manufactured for his project. Francis Cook enjoyed hunting down Classical sculpture and probably would have waited until he found something suitable to fit (more or less).

Here in a detail from Knowles original architectural section of the Music Room (1858) the statues of both corridor and salon are clearly visible. Too bad that Knowles' painting exhibited at the 1862 London Exhibition has not yet come to light.

Rosa Maréchal Niel

Ill. Hort. 1866 Nº 477

Rosa Maréchal Niel Pradel, 1864

(Tea) Noisette Rose

Grown at Monserrate and mentioned on various occasions. In 1890 it was described on an archway amongst camellias growing over the steps that lead down from the Chapel path to Mexico.

'Maréchal Niel' was raised from a seedling of another yellow noisette 'Isabella Gray' sown in 1858 by M. Pradel. It was named after a hero of Sebastapol and later Minister of War, Adolphe Niel. One of the first truly deep yellow repeat flowering roses. It needs a greenhouse or southern climate to thrive, slow to establish, resents hard pruning. Grown as a cut flowercrop underglass. (Paul Barden). Quest Ritson says that Tea Roses grown as cut flowers in New York were worth up to One Dollar a bud in 1871.

Comme tous ses congénères, ce Thé, peut-étre cultivé dans le nord, à l'air libre, à la condition d'ètre protegé, seulement contre les grandes gelées, au moyen d'un peu de mousse ou de foin, qu'on assujétit à l'entour avec un morceau de toile grossière.

L'établissement A. Verschaffelt le tient à la disposition de ses honorables clients. (Ill. Hort., 1866)

Fragrant, golden-yellow flowers emerging from shapely, pointed buds, highly scented. Needs a greenhouse or a warm sheltered position to thrive. (Peter Beale)

The Amateur Gardener's Rose Book, 1905

Illustration by Hermann Friese

Algernon: "Might I have a buttonhole?"

Cecily: "A Marechal Niel?" [picks up scissors]

Algernon: "No, I'd sooner have a pink rose."

Cecily: "Why?" [cuts a flower]

Algernon: "Because you are like a pink rose ... "

Oscar Wilde The Importance of being Earnest 1893

Some Buttonhole!

Fashionable Conservatory Rose.. the largest Tea-scented Rose in existence ; perfectly double ; finest pure chrome yellow, very fragrant ; excellent for the conservatory and desirable for the garden but requiring very careful culture when young ; the buds are of immense size.

Home Florist 1888

Marechal Niel rose is the latest and most magnificent of all the yellow roses. It was produced by M. Pradel of Montauban, France, and was introduced last year. It is vigorous in habit, well branched ; the leaves are of good size, and the flowers, which are of very large size, and quite full, double, are of a beautiful yellow. It has attracted great attention at the late London exhibitions, and is pronounced the finest, in all respects, of the yellow Tea roses.

The Magazine of Horticulture, Botany and all useful discoveries and improvements in Rural Affairs, 1866

Tea Roses are still the best roses for hot climates, including California, Argentina, and Australia. Francis E. Lester (1942) maintained that "under average conditions they require no spraying. They rather resent pruning and, indeed , are at their best when left unpruned. The Tea roses and their near relatives the Noisettes, formerly called Tea-Noisettes, were the backbone of the rose gardens of the Pacific coast and the South a few generations agoi. So easy to grow, so readily started from slips, they were passed on from one garden lover to another. And when you note these old rose treasures, so indifferent to neglect, you find yourself asking whether any mosern Hybrid Tea rose possesses the same keen will to live."

More from Charles Quest Ritson, Climbing Roses of the World, 2003, p. 73.

'Maréchal Niel' [Pradel jeune; distributed by Eugène Verdier, 1863]. Seedling of 'Chromatella' (either selfed or crossed with 'Isabella Gray'). This rose was immediately recognised as something quite exceptional and the most yellow of all Tea roses. It was extremely strongly scented (of tea, but some said of raspberries), floriferous, and vigourous, with large pale green leaves. A plant of 'Maréchal Niel' planted at Whitby in Yorkshire in 1865 carried more than three thousand blooms in 1885. The colour is variable, paler in warm climates, richest in cool ones like England, where its huge, elegant, pendulous flowers tend to ball. Two white forms of 'Maréchal Niel' appeared during the 1890s, one from Hungary called 'Franz Degen Junior' and the other from Russia, still grown at Sangerhausen, named 'Alupka'.

Urceolina grandiflora

Flore des serres et des jardins de l’Europe
1854, volume 9, p.255, plate 957
Gand, Louis van Houtte.

Urceolina grandiflora (Planch. & Linden) Traub
Plant Life 27: 58. 1971
Amaryllidaceae
Genus Urceolina Rchb. Conspectus Regni Vegetabilis 61. 1828. Two subgenera: Caliphruria & Eucharis, again since Traub in 1971.

Well that was a surprise. I've never heard anyone call Eucharis by that name. Still must keep up to date I suppose, only 38 years behind! Never heard of the genus Urceolina either - and that was coined in 1828. Described at Monserrate 1890.

C'est de la province de Choco, dans la Nouvelle Grenade. Introduite par Triana, dans les serres de M. Linden (Colombia). 1854

Sols riches humides, parfois temporairement innondables, en sous-bois sombre des forêts tropicales primaires. (That should be easy to arrange!)


Curtis's Botanical Magazine 4971 vol. 83 (1857) Hooker had it from Veitch and Son, on King's Road under the name of Eucharis amazonica which he immediately dismissed in favour of E. grandiflora of Planch & Linden. Blossoms in the stove in the winter months, the "truly noble pure white flowers" are highly fragrant.

Synonyms:
Eucharis grandiflora Planch. & Linden
Eucharis amazonica Linden ex Planch

Eucharis candida grandiflora Hort.

du grec eu, vrai, et kharis, grâce. Prénom grec
Nymph Eucharis, Lord Frederic Leighton, 1863

Just for curiosity here is Urceolina urceolata, syn. U. pendula
Collected by Pearce for Veitch in Peru. Flowered June 1864.


Curtis's Botanical Magazine, Vol.90 Ser.3 n.20: Tab.5464 (1864).

Cordyline terminalis

ILLUSTRATION HORTICOLE
Vol. 20, 1873 p. 85

PL CXXV— CXXVI. CORDYLINE (DRACAENA) GLORIOSA, Linden et André.
DRACÉNA GLORIEUX.
ASPARAGINÉES.
ËTYMOLOGIE et CARACTÈRES GÉNÉRIQUES : Voir Illustr. hortic. 1860, VII, p. 361.
E Nova-Zelandia in Europam missa, 1871. — Ad vivum descripsi in horto Lindeniano. — Ed. A.

Cordyline (Dracaena) gloriosa, Linden et André (in Lind. Catal. Nº 90, 1873). Cord. Drac.) Shepherdi, Hort. Bull Lond.

Cette noble espèce, à grand feuillage strié de bandes d'un rouge acajou passant au rouge brique, a été introduite par M. Linden, en 1871, de la Nouvelle-Zélande. Son port est majestueux, sa tige robuste, élégante, gris rougeàtre entre les nœuds ; ses feuilles sont largement lancéolées, atténuées à la base en un pétiole brèvement invaginant cylindrique canaliculé en dessus, finement strié de vert, de jaune, de brun-pourpre-noir, etc. Les bandes si étrangement colorées, qui se détachent sur le fond vert des feuilles, sont larges, obliques, d'une disposition nouvelle dans ce beau genre. La plante, qui a eu les honneurs d'une grande nouveauté à l'Exposition dernière de Gand, a été également exposée sous le nom de D. Shepherdi. L'intensité du coloris varie beaucoup suivant la culture et l'état plus ou moins avancé de la végétation. Le D. gloriosa restera l'une des plus belles introductions récentes pour la serre tempérée. Il rentre sans doute dans la tribu horticole où prend place le D. robusta, par son port, la forme de son feuillage et même la coloration de ses pétioles. Mais il s'en distingue toto cœlo par ses étranges et larges bandes longitudinales et obliques, qui lui prêtent une si grande originalité. A l'Exposition de Gand, dans le grand concours, si vivement disputé, des 25 Dracœna, un magnifique exemplaire figurait dans le lot de M. Linden, qui remporta le premier prix.

Ed. André. (Eduoard André)

This plant was recorded at Monserrate in 1890, growing in the open air, in the part known as Mexico. It was listed under the name of Dracaena sheppherdii, but is in fact a cultivar of Cordyline terminalis. Generally considered tender, there are no plants of this species growing outdoors in present day Sintra gardens. However the illustration shown above (from L'Illustration Horticole - digitised by Missouri Botanical Garden) resembles a clone that is widely grown in Madeira gardens today that is noticeably hardier and more robust than other types. Should be worth reintroducing to Sintra.

Cordyline terminalis (L.) Kunth
Abhandlungen der Königlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften in Berlin 30. 1820.

Synonyms:
Dracaena terminalis L. Systema Naturae, ed. 12 12: 246. 1767.

The name Cordyline shepherdi is given as a synonym for Cordyline gloriosa by Nicholson in his Dictionary of Gardening, 1888. At Monserrate the use of Dracaena shepherdi is an example of a long-running confusion - and in some Portuguese nurseries still running today! - between Cordyline and Dracaena.

Tillandsia fasiculata

Vriesea glaucophylla Hook.
Botanical Magazine 74: t. 4415. 1848.
Collected from the interior of Santa Martha, New Grenada. Sent by Purdie a collector for Kew. Flowered in the Orchideous Stove in August 1848. Hooker referred this plant to the genus Vriesea, but with misgivings.


Recorded Monserrate 1890.





Tillandsia fasiculata Sw.
Nova Genera et Species Plantarum seu Prodromus 56. 1788.
Jamaica

Synonyms:
Vriesea glaucophylla
Tillandsia glaucophylla (Hook.) Baker Journal of Botany, British and Foreign 25: 243. 1887.
Platystachys glaucophylla (Hook.) Beer Die Familie der Bromeliaceen 82.

Agave geminiflora

Bonapartea juncea from The Gardener's Magazine 1827

With the garbled name Bonapartea Funcea this plant was growing in "Mexico" Monserrate 1890.

The official version:
Botanists recognise this name as published by Ruiz in 1802. Bonapartea juncea Ruiz & Pav. Flora Peruviana 3: 38, pl. 262. 1802. This is a Bromeliad, now correctly known as Tillandsia juncea (Ruiz & Pav.) Poir.

Synonyms:

Misandra juncea (Ruiz & Pav.) F. Dietr. Nachtrag zum Vollständigen Lexicon der Gärtnerei und Botanik 5: 103. 1819. (Nachtr. Vollst. Lex. Gärtn.)
Acanthospora juncea (Ruiz & Pav.) Spreng. Systema Vegetabilium, editio decima sexta 2: 25. 1825. (Syst. Veg.)
Platystachys juncea (Ruiz & Pav.) Beer Die Familie der Bromeliaceen 86. 1856. (Fam. Bromel.)

Tillandsia quadrangularis M. Martens & Galeotti

Gardener's names (Hort.) - of gardens

Often in nurserymans' catalogues and other horticultural literature appear names that have no botanical value, but that for one reason or other have entered into current use amongst gardeners. These names are suffixed by the abbreviation Hort. This means "of gardens". This plant appears to belong to this category.

The name Bonapartea has had a complicated history. Philippe Faucon of Desert Tropicals gives this list of species belonging to this invalid genus :

Bonapartea flagelliformis synonym of Agave geminiflora

Bonapartea gracile synonym of Dasylirion acrotrichum (Green Desert Spoon)

Bonapartea juncea synonym of Agave geminiflora

All this leads us to suppose that the plant cited as growing in Monserrate's "Mexico", is most likely to be Agave geminiflora.

Agave geminiflora

Agave geminiflora (Tagl.) Ker-Gawl. J. Sci. Arts (London) 2: 88

Not known from natural habitat. Cultivated in Europe since early 19th century as Littaea geminiflora Tagl. Biblioteca italiana ossia giornale di letteratura scienze ed arti 1: 107-109, pl. 6. 1816.

Synonyms:

Dracaena boscii,

Bonapartea juncea,

Lyttaea geminiflora,

Yucca boscii,

Agave angustissima, (still used in some nurseries today)

Bonapartea flagelliformis

Here is an illuminating account from The Gardener's Magazine of 1827

Bonapartea juncea (of the Gardens.)— Dear Sir, "Agreeably to your request, I have much pleasure in offering you the following short account of the plant Bonapartea juncea, (fig. 30.) In July and August, 1814, I travelled through Holland and part of France to Paris, and visited by the way most of the gardens of importance, purchasing a variety of plants. The above is one of them, and might then, judging from its size, be between three and four years old. I have had it in various situations, but principally in the hot-house; it will also do well in the greenhouse, and in summer in the open air. It is a native of Peru, and was introduced to this country in 1800. The flower stem made its first appearance about the middle of August last, and for about six weeks it made the rapid growth of about four inches in the twenty-four hours, since which, with the decrease of the day, its growth has been more moderate; it is now about fourteen feet high, and has 846 flowers in various stages of progress. It appears to delight in an equal proportion of heath mould and loam. I understand this is not the oldest plant in England, and therefore I am led to think its flowering may have been promoted by the plant having been disrooted about eighteen months ago.

" I am, dear Sir, &c
" Josh. Knight. "

Exotic Nursery, King's Road, Chelsea, 11th Nov. 1826."

The flower is green without, and of a greenish yellow within, and by no means conspicuous; but the general effect of the plant, especially where it now stands in the centre of Mr. Knight's lofty curvilinear conservatory, is very imposing. This plant has had no fewer than seven names. By some considered an Agave; but it is now Lyttaea geminiflora. It seeds readily, and M. Soulange Bodin has in his garden upwards of 1000 plants so raised. — Cond. (Conductor = J. C. Loudon)

The Gardener's Magazine and Register of Rural and Domestic Improvement , 1827, edited by John Claudius Loudon: "

Weird Woods

The setting of the hillside picture is a sturdy cork-forest which reminds one of the weird woods in Doré's fantastic landscapes.

Monserrate 1890.

The similarity of Gustav Doré's landscapes and the Sintra Cork woodlands had already occurred to me at Regal eira. Certainly Dantesque.