Flower Power: A Divine Headdress

There are many flowers and plants that have influenced art and decoration. A lot of them appear because they are sacred or symbolic. Two that are both are the lotus and the papyrus.

There are several species of lotus, often confusingly referred to by the name of a different plant, the water-lily, and they feature significantly with the papyrus in the art of Egypt and Asia. The white and blue lotus have particular significance in ancient Egypt.

It is believed that the Egyptians were the first to turn floristry into a profession. They made garlands and arrangements for banquets and rituals, processions and burials. The lotus and papyrus figured prominently, thought the lotus was the most sacred flower in their religion.

The lotus features in the creation myths. A giant lotus was said to emerge from the muddy waters of the Nile before time began. From it rose the sun, Ra, creating the first day. The association with the Nile, where it grew in abundance, gave rise to the flower’s representation as a symbol of life, regeneration and fertility. If it wasn’t for the Nile ancient Egypt would not have existed. More specifically, it was the annual Nile floods that washed over the surrounding lands.

The ancient Egyptians created an annual festival to celebrate these floods. It is still a holiday today called Wafaa El-Nil. I wrote about this festival in August 2018 and explained how the floods were given their own god, Hapi.

Because ancient Egypt and the Nile were divided into Upper Egypt/Nile and Lower Egypt/Nile Hapi became a dual deity, both aspects represented as both male and female. His Upper Egypt/Nile name was Hapi-Meht and his Lower Egypt/Nile name was Hapi-Reset. In my 2018 article I also mentioned that each Hapi had a headdress made of his sacred plants. Hapi-Meht wore a headdress of lotus flowers and Hapi-Reset had a headdress of papyrus fronds. Sometimes both Hapis are depicted together, as in the picture below which I used in my article on the Nile floods. Hapi-Meht is on the right and Hapi-Reset is on the left. They are tying their symbolic plants to the Nile represented by the upright bar.

The lotus and papyrus both became major elements in Egyptian architecture. Most of the huge columns you can still see at sites like Luxor are stylised bundles of lotus and papyrus stalks. At the top of the columns are stylised lotus flowers and papyrus fronds. These types of column have their own architectural names – lotiform and papyriform. Hapi’s lotus was used more often than papyrus in wall decoration and furniture. They became the archetypal Egyptian design element.

In the late 18th century ancient Egypt became popular among the nations of Western Europe. The Napoleonic Wars had spread to Egypt and the famous Battle of the Nile in 1798 made people like Horatio Nelson national heroes. Napoleon in particular is responsible for the first Egyptian Revival in art by instructing a scientific expedition to draw and paint everything they saw, including wall painting and hieroglyphics. When the drawings arrived back in France and were published they cause a sensation. It was just the sort of decoration people were wanting to replace the tired old neo-classicism that had dominated the century.

This Egyptian Revival outlived the short Empire Style, the mixture of neo-classicism and Egyptian design created by (the probably gay couple) Charles Perrier and Pierre Fontaine. The lotus and papyrus were used in both styles. The Egyptian Revival spread across Europe and the Atlantic to America and for several decades Egyptian architecture was more popular than classical Greek and Roman.

Gradually tastes began to change again and Egpyt lost its appeal. But it re-emerged in spectacular style with the discovery of King Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922 sparking off the Second Egyptian Revival, again in France. This time another art style was becoming popular and the revival merged seamlessly into it. That style was later called Art Deco.

The simple shapes and outlines of Art Deco seemed to be perfect for the stylised lotus and papyrus designs from ancient Egyptian. The result was some of the most iconic buildings, decorations, furniture and jewellery produced during the 1920 and 30s. It even influence film and theatre. Hapi’s sacred plants became a common source for Art Deco design. The whole Art Deco-Second Egyptian Revival can be represented perfectly in the image below of the papyrus-inspired elevator doors in the Chrysler Building in New York.

Hapi and the other Egyptian gods and deities have rarely been used as design elements but Hapi’s sacred plants, the lotus and papyrus, have become familiar to the modern world through Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt and Tutankhamun’s tomb.

80 More Gays Around the World: Part 23) From France to Fern-atics

Last time on “80 More Gays”: 61) Hélène van Zuylen (1863-1947) was a pioneering female motor racer in a male dominated sport, and 62) Roberta Cowell (1918-2011) was a pioneering transgender motor racer, and she was also an lgbt pilot, as was 63) David Charlebois (1962-2001), a victim of the 9/11 terror attacks, who was born in a city that was once named after 64) Hubert Lyautey (1854-1934).

64) Hubert Lyautey was appointed Resident General of Morocco in 1907. The French were already well-established in Morocco, though they switched from being a foreign trading nation with a number of bases in the country to a colonial power at the beginning of the 20th century.

Local rebels and declining economy led Lyautey, in command of French troops in North Africa at the time, to move into Morocco to “protect” French interests in 1904. Morocco came under direct French military control in 1907 after rebels killed a prominent French doctor in Marrakesh, which led to Lyautey being appointed Resident General. In 1911 a power struggle between the Sultan and his brother led to further rebellions. France then declared Morocco to be a French Protectorate.

Unlike other French colonies Morocco was allowed to keep its distinctive character and laws. The Sultan of Morocco was allowed to remain as Head of State instead of the French President and the country remained a sovereign state.

Lyautey strengthened the infrastructure of Morocco, building railways, roads, bridges and ports. Kenitra was one such port. It was a small settlement before Lyautey turned it into a French military base in 1912. In 1933, after Lyautey had returned to France after being replaced in 1925, Kenitra was renamed Port Lyautey. It returned to its former name when France abolished the protectorate in 1956.

Although married to Inés de Bourgoing, a remarkable person in her own right, Lyautey was widely regarded as being gay. Gay men being married was not unusual for that period. There’s no actual proof Lyautey was gay. He never admitted being so, through it seems it was not a secret, and even the French Prime Minister was aware of it.

Lyautey’s may have provided inspiration for a literary character who brings us back to someone I mentioned several “80 More Gays” ago. Today he joins the chain in his own right – 65) Marcel Proust (1871-1922).

Although we’ll never know for sure, Proust based the character of the Baron de Charlus in his 7-volume novel series “À la Recherche du temps perdu” (Remembrance of Things Past) on Lyautey. It’s also likely that the Baron was based on another gay Frenchman, Count Robert Montesquiou (1855-1921). Marcel Proust had met them both – Lyautey in 1887 and Montesquiou in 1893. Both could easily been the inspiration, Proust selecting specific characteristics from each.

Baron de Charlus makes his first appearance in Proust’s novel series in volume one, “Swann’s Way”, which was turned into the film “Swann in Love” by 60) Nicole Stéphane. The main character, Charles Swann, falls in love with Odette. The first physical realisation of their attraction occurs in a scene inside a carriage. After a sudden jolt a flower, a cattleya, a type of orchid, becomes loosened from Odette’s dress. Swann leans over and pins it back in place and as they lean towards each other they kiss. From then on they adopt a private saying, “Do a cattleya” to mean any sexual contact between them.

It’s very apt that the cattleya (pronounced cattley-a rather than cattle-ya) plays such a large part in their relationship. It was Odette’s favourite flower. It was also Marcel Proust’s favourite flower. Every day he would buy a fresh cattleya for his buttonhole.

Detail of “Portrait of Marcel Proust” by Jacques Emile Blanche, 1892,
showing Proust wearing a cattleya orchid.

Orchids were very fashionable during Proust’s lifetime, even a craze. It even had a name, orchidelerium. This was one of several floral manias. There was also a craze for ferns, which was also given a name, pteridophilia. Although the height of the orchid and fern manias was over a century ago there’s still an appeal for them, as can be seen in the success of a fern nurseries, including one in southern England called Fernatix (pronounced like “fanatics”) created by 66) Steven Fletcher (b.1959) and 67) Kerry Robinson (b.1965).

Steven Fletcher’s horticultural career began with growing orchids in the 1980s. For a while he was Chair of the Cambridge Orchid Society. At the regular orchid shows Steven would use ferns to place around the pots to disguise them. He noticed people began to take as much interest in the ferns as they did in the orchids. This got him thinking about growing ferns and led to his decision to open Fernatix with his partner Kerry.

Steven and Kerry met on a blind date arranged by a friend and they connected instantly. When they first began displaying their ferns they attracted attention – they looked like bikers in leathers and piercings, not like gardeners at all. Nonetheless, they were accepted into the horticultural world and Fernatix soon became a successful business.

The first Fernatix display at the premier flower show in the UK, the Royal Horticultural Society’s Chelsea Flower Show, earned them a gold medal, and many more have followed over the years, right up to this year.

Ferns may seem underwhelming to most people but their popularity and the success of Fernatix and other fern nurseries prove they are still popular. The fern fever of the 19th century originally centred on their aesthetic value, but it led to them being studied to improve cultivation. Eventually, the study of ferns became a science in its own right called pteridology.

There may be many lgbt pteridophilists besides Steven Fletcher and Kerry Robinson, but there’s one who became a significant figure outside botany. His main area of study was in phytocytology - plant structure. If these scientific terms are a bit too technical we can be grateful to this particular pteridological phytocytologist for coming up with a short name for a new disease. This man’s name was 68) Bruce Voeller (1834-1994).

Next time on “80 More Gays”: A new disease acquires a new name, and names come together to raise awareness with a glass of wine.

Heritage Spotlight: Flower Power To The Rescue

 Prospect Cottage and Derek Jarman’s Garden.

Six months ago it would have been inconceivable to visit any heritage site. With the pandemic lockdown heritage and leisure venues were among the first to be closed. Many people thought that the pandemic would be over by the end of summer and that everything would be back to normal.

Things may never get back to “normal” but one of the steps towards achieving this, taken to help the heritage and leisure industry survive, is the gradual reopening of many sites. Last week the UK held its annual Heritage Open Days. In previous years most heritage sites and museums have been free to enter, and many private heritage sites opened their doors for a couple of days. This year, of course, things are different. There were still celebrations for the Heritage Open Days but many places, including my old place of work, Gainsborough Old Hall, won’t reopen until next year.

The sites that have reopened have implemented social distancing precautions, though with parks and gardens this has not been so much of a problem. Back in January, even before the lockdown, it looked as if one garden in particular was going to be lost, and when the lockdown came into effect its future looked ever gloomier. This garden is of special importance to the lgbt community. It is Derek Jarman’s Garden at Dungeness in Kent.

Derek Jarman (1942-1994) was more well-known in the lgbt community in his lifetime in the UK than he is now. Many people of my generation will know his name and work, though younger generations probably don’t. He was always challenging cinematic norms when it came to depictions of sexuality and gender, leading to him being described as avant garde or the “enfant terrible” of British cinema. Today his films seem tame and harmless. Some of his most famous films are “Sebastiane” (1976) and “Edward II” (1991, based on a play by gay Elizabethan spy Christopher Marlowe).

It isn’t only the fact that the garden was designed and made by Derek Jarman that makes it notable but also the fact that it’s not your typical garden of lush greenery and vivid flowers. It is very much a product of its location, and in his lifetime it attracted a lot of media coverage, as well as being featured in a couple of Derek’s own films.

Derek Jarman’s Garden, and the old fisherman’s collage called Prospect Cottage where Derek lived for the last 17 years of his life, is located on a piece of vast shingle beach not far from an imposing nuclear power station. It is open to the elements, and wind gusts off the English Channel almost continuously. No tree can grow there.

Derek fell in love with the place as soon as he saw it in 1986, alerted by the “For Sale” sign. He made an offer to buy the property almost immediately and very soon moved in and began renovations – not a total modern make-over but a sympathetic restoration to bring more stability to the century-old structure. He once told a journalist that he bought it as a joke, but it is apparent that this quickly turned to a love of the place.

The surrounding shingle garden was virtually a natural wasteland. In fact, the National Trust lists it as a desert. Derek also set about livening up the surrounding beach with a garden. He had always had an interest in flowers and gardening, ever since his parents gave him a gardening book when he was 4.

Derek’s first choice of plants for his new garden were roses. However, the shingle and sandy soil were not a suitable ground for the roses he chose to grow and they withered. Inspired by the surrounding landscape Derek selected roses which could survive in the soil as well as sea kale, red hot pokers, elder, poppies and rare orchids. Because the area is a conservation zone all the plants had to be grown from seed, not transplanted from another location, and no fences are allowed. In among the plants and pathways Derek set up small sculptures and erected pieces of driftwood. At first the locals thought he was building some sort of pagan shrine.

Derek and his partner Keith Collins tended the garden through Derek’s illness. Keith continued after Derek’s death and even after his own diagnosis of a brain tumour in 2018. This was when he decided to put Prospect Cottage and the garden into a trust to preserve it for the nation. Keith died before that trust was completed.

By the end on 2019 the cottage and garden needed to raise £3.5 million to ensure both were saved for the nation or it would go up for private sale in March. A fundraising campaign was formed by the Art Fund, the Tate, and Creative Folkestone. Many of Derek Jarman’s friends and celebrity fans urged the public to help.

When the lockdown came into effect there were fears that the target would not be reached in time. Thankfully, as the deadline approached the target was reached, and Prospect Cottage and Derek Jarman’s Garden were saved. Both will remain pretty much as they were in 2018 when Keith Collins died.

After Keith’s death the Garden Museum in Lambeth, Greater London, decided to mount an exhibition about the garden. Part of the interior of Prospect Cottage was reproduced and actual items from the cottage were loaned to the museum. The opening of the exhibition was delayed by the lockdown. The museum said that the delay actually worked in their favour because the exhibition was expanded to accommodate the new social distancing rules which meant that more items could be included.

The exhibition opened on 4th July and a relatively small number of visitors had the opportunity to see it. The exhibition closed yesterday. Thankfully, more people will be able to see the real thing down at Dungeness when it eventually opens to the public officially – a unique garden created by a unique film-maker.

80 More Gays Around the World: Part 8) Life Becomes Deadly

Last time on “80 More Gays”: 19) Bilal Hassani (b.2000), an entry into the Eurovision Song Contest, had alarming similarities to a fictional character in a comedy parodying ISIS, whose flag has also been parodied and generated a reaction more often associated with the Nazi flag, whose swastika was adopted by 20) Alfred Schuler (1865-1923), who wanted to cure the madness of 21) Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) with a ritual dance to the Mother Goddess 22) Cybele.

22) Cybele originated as an Earth Mother goddess in Phrygia (the Turkey-Syria region) called Kybele and had been venerated for many centuries before both Inanna and Ishtar, fertility goddesses I mentioned in a recent article. With the spread of Greek colonisation, and later Roman expansion, a select number of myths about Kybele found their way into the Greek and Roman pantheons and she became known as Cybele, and Magna Mater, the Great Mother, and in this aspect she was impersonated by 20) Alfred Schuler in his neo-pagan rituals.

The cult of Cybele became the state religion of the Roman Empire at the end of the 3rd century BC. Natural disasters effecting the empire at that time were seen as omens of bad luck and the Senate sought advice from oracles. The advice given was to adopt the cult of Cybele and she will protect them.

In an event reminiscent of one I recounted in “The Meteorite Who Became A God” a black stone that personified Cybele, also likely to have been a meteorite, was brought to Rome from its home in Pessinos, Phrygia, and placed in a newly constructed temple. Cybele’s arrival in Rome was celebrated with an annual festival called Megalesia on 4th April, the date of her arrival.

With the cult of Cybele came her accompanying rites, priests and associated deities. Primary among these were the galli, her third gender and eunuch priests, and an associated deity called 23) Agdistis.

The Phrygians originally regarded Kybele and Agdistis to be the same deity. Agdistis was also introduced into Greek and Roman mythology as the intersex offspring of the Sky Father and the Earth Mother. The intersex nature of Agdistis disturbed the Greek and Roman gods and they removed Agdisits’s male sexual organs. The deity was then known as Kybele. I go into more detail about the origin of Agdistis in an article I wrote in 2013 called “The Gallae: Ancient and Modern – Part 1: Ancient”. Rather than repeat it all here I suggest you pop over to that article and come back to continue here.

The Greek interpretation of Agdistis gave rise to the myth of the creation of the almond tree. The almond is native to the region where Kybele, Agdistis and Attis were venerated, which would explain why the Greeks didn’t have their own native legends about its origin. Almond was a highly regarded plant with semi-mystical qualities which influenced even Hebrew belief. There is even a theory that the halo around saints heads often depicted in Christian art originated as an almond shape.

Almond blossom

The Bible gives several examples of how almond flowers indicated divine favour. One story involves Aaron’s Rod, the staff belonging to Moses’s brother. It sprouted almond flowers as a sign of favour from God as his choice of priests from the tribes of Israel. Also, if the Israelites followed God the flowers on one side would bear sweet almonds. If they didn’t the flowers on the other side would produce bitter almonds.

This dual nature of almonds, on the one hand a sign of favour and on the other a sign of displeasure, brings us on to one of the most well-known clichés in modern whodunit murder mysteries – the bitter almond smell associated with cyanide poisoning. How strange is it that a plant whose mythical origins come from severed sexual organs, the origin of life itself, can also be a means of death.

Cyanide poisoning is a frequent method of suicide. It is also the main component of the gas used by the Nazis in their horrific gas chambers. It is assumed that the gay computer scientist Alan Turing (number 1 in my original “80 Gays” series in 2015) took his own life by cyanide.

A less well-known suicide by cyanide poisoning occurred three and a half years later when a British climber, 24) John Menlove Edwards (1910-1958) took his own life.

Next time of “80 More Gays”: We climb new heights and go to the top of the world to fight sexual abuse.

Flower Power : The Festival of Lilies

The Festa dei Gigli 2017. The towering festival structures outside Nola Cathedral.

People who visit the Italian city of Nola on this week every year can witness one of the traditional festivals registered by UNESCO on their list of events of Oral and Intangible Heritage.

The Festa dei Gigli – the Festival of Lilies – is held in this week every year to celebrate the city’s patron saint, St. Paulinus of Nola, whose feast day is today, 22nd June.

Who was St. Paulinus and what connection does he have with lilies? His full name was Pontius Meropius Anicius Paulinus and he was a Roman citizen. He was born in around the year 353 in Bordeaux into an influential senatorial family. His father was a prefect of Gaul who owned estates in France, Italy and Spain. Paulinus was thus able to receive a good education and his parents sent him to a teacher and poet who had been tutor to the emperor’s son, Ausonius.

Ausonius is one of those historical characters whose sexuality has often been subject to speculation. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, it is said that he had a large collection of homosexual literature which shocked even the Romans by its explicit content. Secondly, Ausonius was famous for translating a Greek riddle which asked “how can three men engage in four sexual positions?” (I’ll let you work it out!).

Ausonius was of Greek ancestry and had spent some time at the court of the Greek Byzantine emperor. He was well aware of “Greek love”, the sexual activity between mentor and student which was common in ancient Greece (as illustrated on this blog in the numerous articles on sex between Greek athletes and soldiers). Paulinus became Ausonius’ student in the 360s. Ausonius found his pupil extremely intelligent and handsome.

Some of Paulinus’s later poems and letters indicate that a mutual love existed between the two, often expressed in physical terms, though whether this involved sexual activity cannot be proved. Even though the empire had been nominally Christian since 313 Paulinus had yet to adopt the Christian faith which throughout its first millennium celebrated same-sex attraction but demonised same-sex activity. Whatever their physical relationship Paulinus was Ausonius’s favourite pupil and they remained in touch right up to Ausonius’s death in around 394. The distinguished lgbt historian Dr. Rictor Norton is sure there was some relationship between them based on their letters. I tend to believe him.

Paulinus soon entered public office when, at the age of 24, he was appointed a suffect consul (a kind of substitute for the elected consul). This gave him senatorial rank. Within three years he was appointed Governor of Campania province in southern Italy. He reacquainted himself with Nola, a city he had visited as a child with his family who had estates near by. He had marvelled at the shrine of St. Felix of Nola and the devotion of its citizens. As governor Paulinus built a road for pilgrims to visit St. Felix’s shrine and built a hospice of the poor.

Paulinus relinquished his governorship at the age of about 30 to embark on a life of leisure. He married a Christian lady called Theresia and was himself baptised. Their only son died in infancy, and this was the cause which put Paulinus and Therasia on their road to a life of charity and austerity. They gave away many of their land and possessions.

To his surprise Paulinus was ordained in 394 and he and Theresia moved back to Nola. They “separated” in order for them both to pursue a near monastic life. After Theresia’s death Paulinus was consecrated Bishop of Nola in 409.

Now we come to the legend of the lilies. Medieval saints often had fabulous stories invented to link them with various patronages (as with St. George, St. Nicholas and St. Valentine, among others). Paulinus had several legends attached to him. One is that he introduced bells into churches. The legend of the lilies is another, and it goes as follows.

The Roman Empire was in decline and marauding forces were attacking southern Italy. Nola was attacked and Paulinus was able to lead all the children to safety in the mountains. All the men of Nola were captured and taken to north Africa as slaves. When the marauders had gone Paulinus returned to Nola with the children.

A widow’s only son and heir had been taken as a slave and she pleaded with Paulinus to get him back. Paulinus sailed across to Africa and tried to buy the widow’s son’s freedom. All his efforts were in vain. Eventually he offered himself in exchange for the man’s freedom. This offer was accepted and the widow was soon reunited with her son in Nola.

Paulinus gained the respect of his new owner his acceptance of his plight. Two years later Paulinus predicted some danger which threatened his master, and when the danger was revealed and avoided Paulinus was offered his freedom. He refused to accept unless all the men taken from Nola were freed as well. Surprisingly, this was agreed and all the men went back home. The citizens of Nola welcomed the return of their menfolk with arms full of lilies.

This is one version of the legend. There are variations. Following Paulinus’s death many years later the people of Nola began leaving lilies at the altar of the cathedral in his honour on the anniversary of his death (the usual date for saints’ feat days). From there an annual ceremony developed, and over the generation this grew into a week-long festival. The lilies were presented in more and more elaborate bouquets until eventually special wooden stands were built for them and carried through the streets. This developed even further into 80-feet-tall decorated structures that are carried through Nola in today’s Festa dei Gigli.

To finish with, here is a video of last year’s Festa dei Gigli. You can see very clearly the towering floral offerings which are carried into the city square, and the ceremonial boat in which sits a statue of St. Paulinus. He was truly a man with a lot of Flower Power to have the people of his city still celebrating his return from slavery with lilies nearly 1,600 years after his death.

Flower Power : Floral Rainbows

The rainbow has been a symbol of lgbt pride since 1978 when the first Rainbow Pride flag was designed. To the ancient Greeks the rainbow was personified by their goddess Iris.

Legends of the origin of the flowers that now bear her name go back even further to the ancient Egyptians. The symbolism attached to the flowers also go back to ancient Egypt. To the Greeks the goddess Iris was a messenger of the gods and the rainbow was her path from Olympus to earth, and when she foot on the ground a flower grew, the flower that now bears her name. The symbolism of the iris flower survives today in the fleur-de-lys emblem. The fleur-de-lys provides a link between the goddess of the rainbow and the rainbow pride of the lgbt community. I’ll return to that idea later this year when I look at the used of the fleur-de-lys in queer heraldry, and propose a new flag for the lgbt community (ironically, one of the other common names for the iris is flag).

Today, because the Chelsea Flower Show is happening this week, we’ll look at one man and the establishing of a National Collection of 90 or more rare vintage varieties of iris he bred and introduced over a 40 year period.

Sir Cedric Morris (1889-1982), although a prolific plant breeder, was primarily an artist. His plants featured in many of his paintings. Art was in his blood. His mother was also an artist and a needlewoman, and an ancestral aunt co-founded the Dulwich Picture Gallery.

Cedric was studying at the Académie Delécluse in Paris when World War I broke out. He joined the Artists Rifles, a reserve regiment made up of artists, actors, musicians and performers. The Rifles saw active service in the trenches of France. Because of a botched operation when Cedric was a child he was considered unfit for active duty and was discharged in 1917. After the war he met the man who was to spend the rest of his life with him, Arthur Lett-Haines (1894-1978).

Arthur was married to an American, and when she decided to return to the USA Arthur decided to stay behind in England and live with Cedric Morris. Their relationship was an open one. Cedric and Arthur both had affairs. They moved to Cornwall and then to Paris in 1920. They returned in 1926 and eventually founded the east Anglian School of Painting and Drawing.

In 1939 Cedric and Arthur moved this school to Benton End, a rambling Tudor farmhouse in Hadleigh, Suffolk. This was to become a floral and artistic paradise which attracted many important artists and horticulturalists. Maggi Hambling and Lucien Freud are among the artists who studied there.

Cedric Morris had often turned the gardens of his homes into colourful, luscious displays. At Benton End he began to take a more artistic approach to plants by propagating hundreds of irises every year, carefully selecting colours and attributes that would show off the flowers at their best.

He produced about 93 new iris varieties and maned most of them after Benton End. There was Benton Nigel (named after a former lover, Nigel Scott, who was introduced to Cedric by renowned horticulturalist Beth Chatto who sadly passed away last week), Benton Stella and others named after friends. There was also Benton Baggage and Benton Menace, both named after his cats. This made it easier to locate some of these plants because few of them became commercial successes and survive, if at all, as long forgotten flowers in a half-hidden corner of a private stately home, or as a specimen rhizome on a shelf in some plant collection.

A revival of Cedric Morris’s irises came at the Chelsea Flower Show in 2015. Sarah Cook, Head Gardener at Sissinghurst, rediscovered the Benton Nigel iris in the Sissinghurst gardens. This was the catalyst for an international hunt to find all of Cedric’s irises and establish an official National Collection, just like there are for works of art. This was recognised in 2006 when the hard work done by Sarah Cook and her team with the Cedric Morris iris collection being granted National Collection status by Plant Heritage.

By 2015 Sarah had collected 25 of the 93 irises and exhibited them at the Chelsea Flower Show, some of which hadn’t been seen there since the 1950s. They won a Gold Medal.

In 1947 Cedric inherited the family title and became Sir Cedric Morris, 9th Baronet. In his later years he became partially sighted, which must have caused some degree of despair. The East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing was closed when Arthur Lett-Haines died in 1978.

Sir Cedric Morris’s botanical legacy wasn’t completely lost, even if most of his iris varieties were. Varieties of poppy, rose, geranium, daffodil and California fuchsia have been named after him. The Garden Museum, next to Lambeth Palace opposite the Houses of Parliament, is currently running an exhibition and series of talks on Sir Cedric.

If you have green fingers and want to have an lgbt themed garden for your own there can be no better was to achieve it than to bring a rainbow of irises and, if you’re lucky enough to find any, one or two of Sir Cedric Morris’s varieties.

Flower Power : Botanical Crowning Glories

With so many international sporting festivals this year (Winter Olympics and Paralympics, Commonwealth Games, Gay Games, Asian Games, Youth Summer Olympics, among others) athletes’ attention turns to winning medals. The ancient Greek games from which so many of them take their inspiration didn’t have medals. Instead they had various prizes, and those that didn’t had victory crowns made from sacred plants as their only reward.

We saw some acknowledgement of these victory wreaths at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, both in the form of the games logo (above) and in the olive wreaths presented to the medallists on the victory podium.

Only the winners of the ancient games were awarded victory wreaths. There was no prize for coming second or third. All of the athletes, regardless of which shrine the games were being held, has trained the same way. Athletes joined a gymnasium as a boy of about 12, and were immediately sought out by an older athlete as a training and sexual partner. It gives a whole new slant of the term “gym buddy”. That is why there was always a statue of Eros in every gym. Without repeating what I’ve written many times before Eros was associated with male same-sex activity more than with any other kind.

The ancient Olympics were the most famous and most prestigious games. Olive trees grew in the grove around the temple of Zeus at Olympia and were considered sacred to him. One myth recounts that Herakles brought the first olive tree to Olympia after one of his many adventures and planted it at Olympia to honour his father Zeus. Herakles is also said to have founded the Olympic Games and was the first to present the victors with a wreath of olive branches.

Before we look at the other floral victory wreaths let’s look at which games awarded them. The Olympic games were the most important of the four Panhellenic games. These were the games that were open to all Greeks regardless of which city state they came from. The other games were held in specific years of the Olympiad.

An Olympiad is a period of time, not an event. It lasted four years and the Olympics were held in the first year, as the modern games still are. If you’ve wondered why the 2018 Rio Olympics were referred to as the games of the 31st Olympiad even though they were only the 28th games that have been held, that’s the reason why. The World Wars prevented games from being held for the 5th, 12th and 13th modern Olympiads.

Here is a table of the ancient Panhellenic games and where and when they were held. 

Olympiad	Name	Location
Year 1	Olympic Games	Olympia
Year 2	Isthmian Games (April-May)	Corinth
	Nemean Games (July)	Koutsoumadi (modern day Archaia Nemea)
Year 3	Pythian Games	Delphi
Year 4	Isthmian Games (April-May)	Corinth
	Nemean Games (July)	Koutsoumadi (modern day Archaia Nemea)

In the second year of the ancient Olympiad two Panhellenic games were held. The first was the Isthmian Games held at the temple of Poseidon at Corinth. The victors of these games were awarded wreaths of pine fronds. The pine tree was sacred to Poseidon, the god of the sea, because it was used for building ships. Like the flora used for the other victory wreaths pine was considered a vital part of the local economy and culture and held sacred significance.

During the 5th to 1st centuries BC the Isthmian pine wreath was temporarily replaced with one made of celery. No, not the crunchy salad celery but the leafy wild celery from which it was cultivated. I can’t get the image of a hunky naked Greek athlete standing on a victory podium with a wreath made of stick of celery on his head! It’s like something out of the abysmal “Horrible Histories” alleged children’s educational television series. But while the Isthmian Games regained the pine wreath the Nemean Games always awarded wild celery victory wreaths.

Wild celery was considered to be unlucky to the ancient Greeks. So why would anyone use it to celebrate victory? The reason goes back to one of the myths about the creation of the Nemean Games. An oracle had told a local king that his son, Prince Opheltes, should never touch the ground until he had learned to walk. One day the Seven Against Thebes, a group of legendary heroes who led an army against the usurper of the Theban throne, rested for a while in the foothills of the Arkadian mountains. There they met a nursemaid carrying the baby Prince Opheltes. The nursemaid offered to fetch some water to refresh the heroes and laid the baby down onto a bed of wild celery, ensuring that he couldn’t touch the ground. It wasn’t high enough to stop a snake from slithering up to the baby and killing it. This seemed like a bad omen to the Seven heroes and to bring good luck in their mission they held funeral games in the baby prince’s honour at the place where he died. Funerals were always occasions where sport played a major part in Greece, so this was not unusual. Victory wreaths made from wild celery were given to the victors. That’s one of the myths of the Nemean Games and celery. The modern revival of the Nemean Games still has wild celery wreaths as the only reward for the victors.

The fourth of the Panhellenic Games was the Pythian Games held at Delphi in honour of Apollo. These games awarded the most famous victory wreath of them all – the wreath that has given its name to the best of other endeavours. The laurel wreath.

The honour of being appointed a Poet Laureate or a Nobel laureate originate in the ancient award of a laurel wreath (the word “baccalaureate” comes from a different source). The reason is because of the original contests held at the Pythian Games. I’ll write more about this later this year as part of my “Around the World in Another 80 Gays” series, but, briefly, the Pythian Games originated as song and poetry contests. Apollo was god of music and poetry and Delphi was his most important shrine. Sport was added to the games a few centuries later.

The laurel was sacred to Apollo. The myth goes that he and Eros argued over who had mastery over archery. Eros secretly created two arrows, one of gold and one of lead. He shot the gold arrow at Apollo, giving him an overwhelming feeling of sexual passion. Eros then fired the lead arrow at a nymph called Daphne, giving her an overwhelming revulsion to sex. Apollo pursued Daphne relentlessly, ignoring the nymph’s protests. In desperation Daphne called upon the gods for help and they turned her into the first laurel tree. Apollo’s passion was not diminished and he declared his eternal devotion to the laurel. Since then Apollo was always seen wearing a laurel wreath on his head. Therefore the Pythian Games awarded laurel wreaths to the winners of the poetry and song contests in honour of Apollo.

I like the idea of presenting floral victory wreaths. Like the 2004 Athens Olympics it’s a nod to those ancient games which have inspired so many modern games. At least it’s more likely to be welcomed than having all-male naked sport with same-sex couples is likely to be.