If Sternbergia Lutea had sat for its portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and if its descendants were painted today, the yellow faces would be identical.
Gardeners have become so accustomed to new, improved varieties of plants that it is a surprise to see a flower that has remained unchanged for more than two centuries.
Finding the descendants of bulbs planted 200 years ago growing in the same town is a rare occurrence today.
Sternbergia Lutea In The Old Days
Sternbergia lutea, erroneously known as fall crocus, was among the plants imported to the Palace of the Royal Governors in Williamsburg when Virginia was a British Colony.
After the Revolution had been won and the Palace had burned, the gardens fell into decay, but Sternberg continued to bloom and spread among the weeds.
As Williamsburg began to settle into dust, even the old, guarded walls of the grand garden were forgotten.
Ladies living in the quiet town dug a few bulbs here and there and planted them in their yards, not with any thought for posterity but for love of the flower.
Every September, when the first rains had softened the earth and cooled the air, a sudden thrust of strong, yellow-green stems lifted the yellow flower buds, and overnight borders blazed -with their gleaming cups.
When patient researchers and builders began resurrecting Williamsburg, the hunt started for the plants that grew in the 18th-century gardens.
Lists were compiled, inventories studied, old letters read and re-read, and diaries dragged out of ancient attics. For years, the residents lived in an atmosphere of daily discovery.
Sternbergia was, of course, soon discovered. For plants, the ladies dug into borders planted by great-grandmothers.
Thus the first stern begins to bloom in the restored Palace garden were direct descendants of the first bulbs that had started life behind elegantly reposing brick walls, where humble enslaved people tended them.
In Williamsburg
Visitors to Williamsburg sometimes express disappointment when they do not see hedges, banks, and meadows smothered in flowers.
If they come amid the 90° degrees Fahrenheit heat wave in April or at the end of a scary summer, they are inclined to be sympathetic toward the gardens they find and wonder if anything ever survives.
Gardeners, however, do not give up but accept the inconstant weather as a challenge, and the plants that grow well year after year are cherished for that reason.
With one hand, they reach for the newest hybrids — the super giant pansy, the fragrant viburnum, the heat-resisting sweet pea, and the red daylily.
With the other, they cling fondly to the flowers of grandmother’s day, the Roman hyacinth, the pale yellow primrose, the intensely fragrant jonquilla simplex, and the common mock orange (Philadelphia honoraria), with its delicate scent.
Perpetual Sternbergia Lutea
Sternbergia lutea has stood both the test of time and history. Its botanical name derives from Count Caspar Sternberg, and it has several common names, such as autumn or fall crocus, fall daffodil, king cups, and lily of the field.
The plant is neither a crocus, a daffodil, nor a lily but a very sturdy member of the amaryllis family.
Its original home is Palestine, and the common name lily-of-the-field suggests that it may be one of the true “lilies of the field.”
44659 by Mary Selby Iturralde