Anemone coronaria
| Anemone coronaria | |
|---|---|
| |
Scientific classification 
| |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Clade: | Tracheophytes |
| Clade: | Angiosperms |
| Clade: | Eudicots |
| Order: | Ranunculales |
| Family: | Ranunculaceae |
| Genus: | Anemone |
| Species: | A. coronaria
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| Binomial name | |
| Anemone coronaria | |
Anemone coronaria, the poppy anemone,[1] Spanish marigold, or windflower, is a species of flowering plant in the buttercup family Ranunculaceae, native to the Mediterranean region.
Description
[edit]Anemone coronaria is a herbaceous perennial tuberous plant growing to 20–40 cm (7.9–15.7 in) tall, rarely to 60 cm (24 in), spreading to 15–23 cm (5.9–9.1 in), with a basal rosette of a few leaves, the leaves with three leaflets, each leaflet deeply lobed. The flowers which bloom from April to June are borne singly on a tall stem with a whorl of small leaves just below the flower; the flower is 3–8 cm in diameter, with 5–8 red (but may be white or blue) showy petal-like tepals and a black centre. The pollen is dry, has an unsculpted exine, is less than 40 nm in diameter, and is usually deposited within 1.5 m of its source. This central mound consists of tightly packed pistils in the centre, with a crown-like ring of stamens surrounding this, giving the species its specific epithet coronaria.[2] The flowers produce 200–300 seeds.[3] The plants form hard black tubers as storage organs.[4]
Aside from its flowers resembling poppies, the red single wild form flowers resemble the flowers of the red single wild form of Ranunculus asiaticus.
Etymology
[edit]Anemone coronaria means crown anemone, referring to the central crown of the flower, evoking regal associations. The Arabic name is shaqa'iq An-Nu'man translated literally as the wounds, or "pieces", of Nu'man.[5][6]
A possible source of the name is An-Nu'man III Bin Al-Munthir, the last Lakhmid king of Al-Hirah (582–c.609 AD) and a Christian Arab. An-Nu'man is known to have protected the flowers during his reign.[5] According to legend, the flower thrived on An-Nu'man's grave, after his death in the battle against the Sassanids, paralleling the death and rebirth of Adonis.
Another possible source of the name traces back to the Sumerian god of food and vegetation, Tammuz, whose Phoenician epithet was "Nea'man".[7] Tammuz is generally considered to have been drawn into the Greek pantheon as Adonis, who died of his wounds while hunting wild boar. The deity is transformed into a flower, stained by the blood of Adonis.[7] Tammuz's Phoenician epithet "Nea'man" is believed to be both the source of the Arabic "an-Nu'man" (النُعمان) which came through Syriac, and of "anemone" which came through Greek.[7]
There are different names Palestinians use to refer to the poppy in different regions: in the north it is called ḥanūn (حَنون 'passionate') and in the south it is called šaqīq (شَقيق 'brother').[8] In most written texts and in Standard Arabic, it is called šaqā'iq an-nuʿmān (شَقائِق النُعْمان 'brothers of Nu'man').[9][8]
In Hebrew, the anemone is kalanit metzuya. "Kalanit" comes from the Hebrew word "kala כלה" which means "bride", "metzuya" means "common." The kalanit earned its name because of its beauty and majesty, evoking a bride on her wedding day.[10] During the British Mandate for Palestine, some speakers of Hebrew nicknamed British paratroopers "kalaniyot" for their red berets.[11]
Taxonomy
[edit]Within the genus Anemone, A. coronaria is placed within subgenus Anemone, section Anemone, subsection Anemone and is one of five species making up series Anemone, together with A. hortensis L., A. palmata L., A. pavonina Lam. and A. somaliensis Hepper. Within the series A. coronaria is sister to A. somaliensis. This series is a clade of Mediterranean tuberous anemones. It is also the type species for the subgenus.[12]
Distribution and habitat
[edit]Mediterranean littoral, from Greece, Albania, southern Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Northern Arabia to the Sinai Peninsula with sporadic extension east to Iran and west along the Mediterranean shores of Italy, southern France and North Africa.[13][3][4]
Ecology
[edit]In the wild, A. coronaria is winter flowering and cross pollinated by bees, flies and beetles, which can carry pollen over long distances.[3]
Cultivation
[edit]Anemone coronaria was introduced into England prior to 1596, being described in Thomas Johnson's edition of John Gerard's Herball, first published in 1597 and was popular during the time of Queen Elizabeth I. By the beginning of the eighteenth century, breeders in France and Italy had already considerably improved the range of colours available.[3]
Anemone coronaria is widely grown for its decorative flowers, and has a hardiness of USDA zones 7–10, preferring full sun to part shade. Although perennial in its native climate, A. coronaria is usually grown as an annual in cooler climates, from tubers. Planting is usually in the autumn if kept in pots in a greenhouse through the winter or in the ground in spring once the risk of frost has passed.[4]
Cultivars
[edit]Modern cultivars have very large flowers, with diameters of 8–10 cm and a wide range of bright and pastel colours, in addition to two toned varieties. The centre is usually black, but may be pale green in white varieties. Stems may be as tall as 40–50 cm, and each plant may produce 13–15 blooms.[3]
Numerous cultivars have been selected and named, the most popular including the De Caen (single) and St Brigid (semi-double and double) groups of cultivars.[14] The De Caen group are hybrids cultivated in the districts of Caen and Bayeux in France in the 18th century,[4] and include 'Bicolor' (red with white), 'Blue Poppy' (blue), 'Mr Fokker' (purple), 'Sylphide' (deep pink) and 'The Bride' (white). Referred to as poppy anemones because they closely resemble the true poppy (Papaveroideae). St. Brigid cultivars originated in Ireland, and named after that county's saint, they include 'Lord Lieutenant' (purple blue) and 'The Governor' (red).[15] In addition to these large groups, there are two minor groups, Rissoana which is very rustic and early blooming (November) and Grassensis with large double flowers that bloom in the spring.[3]
Symbolism
[edit]Palestinian
[edit]The poppy is a symbol of Palestine, with its colors—green in the stem, red in the flower petals, black in central blossom, and white in the small ring around the blossom—evoking the colors of the Palestinian flag.[16][9] It has appeared in Palestinian protest art, especially as a symbol of sacrifice or return.[9][17][18][19][20][21]
According to Nasser Abufarha, "the poppy is the dominant Palestinian spring flower that children normally collect from the hillside."[16] Abufarha writes that the poppy flower been used in popular Palestinian representations to symbolize the blood in the land of the fidā'ī, the "heroic warrior sacrificer"; the šahīd, "victim youth sacrificer"; or the istišhādi, "moving the Shahid from victim to hero and asserting the intentionality of the sacrifice."[16] Abufarha describes these figures as icons of the "three distinct periods in the contemporary Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation and rule," referring to the guerrilla warfare of the Palestinian fedayeen in the 1960s and 70s, the First Intifada (1987–93), and the Second Intifada (2000–05)—the blood and sacrifice of all of whom Palestinians have represented with the poppy.[16]
In popular Palestinian narrative dating back to Canaanite and Phoenician times, the red color of flower's petals is from the blood of martyrs in the land.[16] The narrative is related to the story of the Greek mythological figure Adonis, a boy representing the ideal of male beauty who was killed by a wild boar in the forests of Lebanon and whose blood nourished the land from which the red anemone grew.[16] Abufarha notes that the flower thus came to represent "renewal, resurrection, and life."[16]
Israeli
[edit]In 2013 Anemone coronaria was elected as the national flower of the State of Israel, in a poll arranged by the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (החברה להגנת הטבע) and Ynet.[22] Each year in Israel there is a month-long festival to celebrate the blooming of the red anemones.[23]
Gallery
[edit]-
Flowers of various colors -
Growing wild near Megiddo, Israel -
Red flower -
Blue flower -
White flower -
Purple flower -
Red flower with 6 petals -
Scanograph of purple flower -
In Cyprus -
Purple anemone in the Judean mountains -
Red and white anemone -
Tubers -
Red carpet of flowers in Shokeda Forest, Israel, 2012
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See also
[edit]- Biodiversity of Israel and Palestine
- Wildlife of Turkey
- Wildlife of Greece
- Wildlife of Syria
- Biodiversity of Albania
- Wildlife of Iraq
- Wildlife of Egypt
References
[edit]- ^ BSBI 2007.
- ^ Johnston 2008.
- ^ a b c d e f Laura & Allavena 2007.
- ^ a b c d MBG 2017.
- ^ a b Lane, Edward William (1872). Arabic-English Lexicon. Islamic Book Centre.
- ^ Kadhim, Hussein N. (2004). The Poetics of Anti-colonialism in the Arabic Qaṣīdah. BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-13030-2.
- ^ a b c Hitti, Philip K. (1951). History of Syria. p. 117. Retrieved 2 July 2020.
- ^ a b "Five national flowers from the Middle East and the symbolism they hold". Middle East Eye. Retrieved 26 March 2026.
- ^ a b c Abufarha, Nasser (30 May 2008). "LAND OF SYMBOLS: CACTUS, POPPIES, ORANGE AND OLIVE TREES IN PALESTINE". Identities. 15 (3): 343–368. doi:10.1080/10702890802073274. ISSN 1070-289X.
- ^ Anemone coronaria Archived 4 May 2009 at the Wayback Machine in WildFlowers.co.il (Hebrew).
- ^ Segev, Tom (2000). One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs under the British Mandate. New York, NY: Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt and Company LLC. p. 481. ISBN 0-8050-4848-0.
- ^ Hoot et al 2012.
- ^ "Anemone coronaria L." Plants of the World Online. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
- ^ GW 2017.
- ^ Gardenia 2017.
- ^ a b c d e f g Abufarha, Nasser (30 May 2008). "Land of Symbols: Cactus, Poppies, Orange and Olive Trees in Palestine". Identities. 15 (3): 343–368. doi:10.1080/10702890802073274. ISSN 1070-289X. Retrieved 25 January 2024.
- ^ Maira, Sunaina (2021). "Two Red Poppies, Possibly More". Journal of Visual Culture. 20 (2): 386–389. ISSN 1470-4129.
- ^ Arafat, Zaina; Eid, Kholood (14 May 2024). "The View from Palestinian America". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 26 March 2026.
- ^ Iscoe, Adam (4 December 2023). "Among the Protesters". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 26 March 2026.
- ^ "Artists Display 20,000 Poppies Outside NY Stock Exchange". Hyperallergic. 15 December 2023. Retrieved 26 March 2026.
- ^ "Homage to Ghassan Kanafani | Dalloul Art Foundation". dafbeirut.org. Retrieved 26 March 2026.
- ^ הכלנית: הזוכה בתחרות "הפרח של ישראל", ynet, 25 November 2013.
- ^ staff, T. O. I. "60,000 flock to south where fields torched by incendiary balloons now bloom". The Times of Israel. ISSN 0040-7909. Retrieved 2 February 2019.
Bibliography
[edit]- Hoot, Sara B.; Meyer, Kyle M.; Manning, John C. (1 March 2012). "Phylogeny and Reclassification of Anemone (Ranunculaceae), with an Emphasis on Austral Species". Systematic Botany. 37 (1): 139–152. doi:10.1600/036364412X616729. S2CID 85773478.
- Laura, M.; Allavena, A. (1 January 2007). "Anemone coronaria Breeding: Current Status and Perspectives" (PDF). European Journal of Horticultural Science. 72 (6): 241–247. doi:10.1079/ejhs.2007/491527. JSTOR 24126221. Archived from the original (PDF) on 18 April 2017. Retrieved 17 April 2017.
- Johnston, Brian (May 2008). "A Close-up View of the "Anemone": Anemone coronaria (De Caen Group)". Microscopy UK. Retrieved 17 April 2017.
- "Anemone coronaria". Gardening help: Plant finder. Missouri Botanical Garden. Retrieved 16 April 2017.
- "List of accepted plant names" (Excel). Resources. BSBI. 2007. Retrieved 16 April 2017.
- "Anemone coronaria (poppy anemone)". Gardenia. 2017. Retrieved 16 April 2017.
- "Anemone coronaria 'De Caen Group'". Gardener's World. BBC. 2017. Archived from the original on 24 February 2018. Retrieved 17 April 2017.