[Hilary]

Rosa Hybrid

A stamp issued by Turkey in 1955 in a four stamp series named
SPRING FLOWER FESTIVAL

A few years ago I went with a bus load of women from Corinth to visit the Rose Garden at Schinos

Today I managed to collect together a couple of pre digital photos of that visit, a stamp depicting a rose and an article about it   in
 THE MEDITERRANEAN GARDEN
Read a ‘HISTORICAL’ ROSE GARDEN IN GREECE
 By Veronica Hadjiphani Lorenzetti in number 56, April 2009

[Hilary]

Morus bassanus, Northern Gannet

A stamp issued by Canada in 1954 to commemorate the
 NATIONAL WILDLIFE WEEK
 There are three stamps in the series

The photo, taken by my friend Y, is of a Gannet on Bass Rock, an island in the Firth of Forth

From information I have read in my ‘bird book’ it seems that this bird even reaches the shores of the Mediterranean as far as Spain, France and Italy but not Croatia or Greece

Gulls are mentioned as simply zooming overhead in
BUSTER AND THE BIRD BATH by Leonard Pearcey in
THE MEDITERRANEAN GARDEN number 36, April 2004

[Hilary]

Lonicera periclymenum, Common honeysuckle, Woodbine

A stamp issued by the Royal Mail in 1964 in a four stamp series to celebrate the
10TH INTERNATIONAL BOTANICAL CONGRESS which was held in Edinburgh
The four stamps were designed by Sylvia and Michael Goaman

I am posting two photos of Honeysuckle which I have identified as Lonicera etrusca, at Stonehenge and Lonicera japonica, in Corinth, please correct me if I am wrong.

Lonicera periclymenum is included in a list, compiled by Derek Toms, of plants suitable for the Mediterranean garden.
The list can be found in THE MEDITERRANEAN GARDEN number 3, Winter 1995/6 in the article HOME GROWN VARIETIES

[Hilary]

Anemone coronaria, Poppy Anemone

A stamp issued in 2008 by Cyprus in a four stamp series featuring Anemones
To give the country its proper name I should write
The Republic of Cyprus, Κυπριακή Δημοκρατία, Kibris Cumhuriyeti 

The stamp was kindly contributed by John J for this post
You will find a photo of this flower in the “website dedicated to all Cyprus plants” by Savvas Tryfonos
As luck would have it I found two photos in THE MEDITERRANEAN GARDEN SOCIETY Forum of Anemone coronaria growing in Cyprus which I have included here.

The photos were taken by John J and appear under MISCELLANEOUS in January 29th 2017
There are plenty of references to Anemone coronaria in THE MEDITERRANEAN GARDEN, I have chosen number 66, October 2011 for you to read
SPAROZA AS AN EXAMPLE:
A GARDENER’S WORK…
 By Fleur Pavlidis

[Hilary]

Grass

This stamp was issued by the Royal Mail in 1977 to celebrate
THE  100th ANNIVERSARY  of the WIMBLEDON TENNIS CHAMPIONSHIPS
The other stamps in the series  feature Table Tennis, Squash and Badminton.
It’s not easy to find a stamp featuring grass so I thought this would do,

The photo is of a patch of grass outside the Folklore Museum here in Corinth

In THE MEDITERRANEAN GARDEN number 93, July 2018 Fleur Pavlidis writes about
 A LITTLE PATCH OF GREEN 

[Hilary]

Cyclamen purpurascens, Purple cyclamen

A stamp issued by Switzerland in the 1947 series PRO JUVENTUTE
This stamp was issued on the 50th Anniversary of the Death of Jacob Burckhardt

I have not been able to find a photo of Cyclamen purpurascens so am posting one of my favourite cyclamen photos of Cyclamen graecum  growing near the sea in Ag. Theodori  one October.

Still on the subject of Cyclamen and want to learn how Cyclamen are grown from seed read
A CYCLAMEN NURSERY IN ENGLAND by Helena Wiesner
In THE MEDITERRANEAN GARDEN number 76, April 2014

[Hilary]

Motacilla flava, Yellow Wagtail

A stamp issued, in a four stamp series, in 1980 by the Royal Mail

Here is some information about this bird from the RSPB
https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/wildlife-guides/bird-a-z/yellow-wagtail

Irmtraud Gotsis writes in her article A GARDEN IN AGRILI,
 THE MEDITERRANEAN GARDEN, number 4, Spring 1996 about her garden and the birds and other members of the animal kingdom which visit it

[Hilary]

Jacaranda mimosifolia, TARCO

The third stamp in the flower series issued by Argentina in 1983.

The photo was taken in 2006, before the world financial crisis, when we visited Cyprus with a group of friends
Jacaranda trees abound in Greece and put on a lovely show in the spring.

You can read SEEDS FROM MALLORCA AND THE COSTA BLANCA  by Chantal Giraud in THE MEDITERRANEAN GARDEN number 67, January 2012

[Hilary]

Triticum aestivum, Common Wheat

A stamp issued by San Marino in 1958 in a series named FRUITS.
There were ten stamps in the series depicting five agricultural products

I found some photos I had taken in 1966 of some women working on the threshing floors of the Lasithi plateau, Crete, Greece. I don’t know what grain it was that they were threshing. They were sitting or standing on  threshing boards and being pulled round and round by buffalo.

Wheat is mentioned many times in THE MEDITERRANEAN GARDEN mostly with a historic reference.  Go to number 57 July 2009 and read.
LIBYAN GADENS by Lynne Chatterton

[Charithea]

Hilary I think it is wheat.  It takes me back to when we used to get 'rides' on the threshing boards pulled by the oxen.  My male cousin Xen....and I were allowed to stand on it together as we were very skinny.  In this way we could  have double the time allotted to each child. This method of separating the wheat was overtaken in our area in 1960 by the arrival of the Combine harvester. It was a relief from the dreary, hard work of cutting and separating wheat. Before we were forced to use large wooden 'forks' to lift the wheat  and the wind blew the chaff  away. All in our faces hair etc. We were rewarded with new clothes and shoes from the proceeds.

[Hilary]

Interesting
Were your buffalo beige like these ones  or black?

[Charithea]

The oxen was beige.

[Hilary]

Nymphoides aquatic

A stamp issued to commemorate THE INTERNATIONAL BOTANICAL CONGRESS, EDINBURGH in 1964

The photo is of Nymphoides peltata which we saw in the Great Prespa Lake, in northern Greece one November.   I think the plant was identified for me by this Forum

Water lilies appear in three issues of THE MEDITERRANEAN GARDEN , all of which I have referred to in the past
If you want to read them again go to issues
number 8 page 37;
THE AQUATICS AND THEIR CULTIVATION IN MEDITERRANEAN CLIMATES
By Gianluca Corazza
 13page 12;
THE BOTANICAL GARDEN OF PALERMO
By Sabine Rossini Oliva
and 53 page 19
EMBRACING MEDITERRANEAN FLORA IN VITERBO
 By Helene Pizzi




;

[Hilary]

Tulipa cypria

A stamp issued, in a four stamp series named WILD FLOWERS OF CYPRUS
by
The Republic of Cyprus,  Κυπριακή Δημοκρατία,  Kibris Cumhuriyeti in 2017.

The stamp was kindly donated by John J to help keep this this post going 

This tulip is in the Red list of endangered plants. There are only three places on the island where this tulip grows, all between 100- 300 meters above sea level

Photos of the flower can be seen on the website of Savvas Tryfonos
 “A website dedicated to all Cyprus plants “

I found a very clear photo, taken by Oron Peri, of this plant on this Forum in MISCELLANEOUS, under WHO IS IT? August 13th 2012

You can read about this plant in THE MEDITERRANEAN GARDEN number 59, January 2010 in
THE ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 2009,
LIMASSOL, CYPRUS by James Cable

[John J]

Hilary, thanks for reminding me about that article that I haven't read for 8 years. You've used a photo taken by Oron Peri, one of the Moderators of this Forum, to illustrate your post and he was also mentioned in the article. He gave an excellent talk on bulbs at the 2009 AGM and as the author, James Cable, notes another member suggested he write a book on bulbs. Well he did, 'Bulbs of the Eastern Mediterranean' was published in 2015 by the Alpine Garden Society, and it was well worth the wait. More information about it can be found on their website.