Spring at my feet, Tienie Versfeld Reserve, Darling, South Africa.

I spotted yellow stripes and pinkish patches while driving along the R315 between Yzrefontain and Darling, in South Africa. I had had plenty of flowers during my fortnight stay in Cape Town and surroundings at the end of August two years ago, but, I realized slowing down, they are never enough. I was in the Swartland, the agricultural region some 50km north of Cape Town, where centuries of cultivations, especially wheat, have dramatically reduced the spontaneous vegetation, the renosterveld. The word, derived from the Afrikaans renoster, rhinoceros, refers to the widespread presence of these animals in this area in the past centuries, or recalls the similarity between the color of this animal’s hide and the dark hues of the evergreen low shrubs that constitute the main characteristic of this flora. Shrubs of the daisy family with small, grey-green leathery leaves dominate these fertile soils where trees are absent and beautiful bulbous plants thrive. The ephemeral flowers of irises, watsonia, gladiolus, babiana, ixia, moraea, geissorhiza and lilies follow each other along the seasons, tenacious and amazing, colouring areas that are often no more than small patches along the roads. Just recently, a new attention for the importance and beauty of the renosterveld has taken to the creation of reserves to protect this endangered flora. That afternoon, I was walking in one of them, the Tinie Versfeld Wildflower Reserve, near Darling. In 1958, Mr Marthinus Versfeld, the owner of this farm that dates back to 1830’s, donated around 20ha of his pristine land to the National Botanical Institute aware of the importance of conservation.

End of August means early spring in South Africa, and, step after step, I saw unknown beautiful flowers at my feet. No crocus, anemone, narcissi or primroses to celebrate the end of winter but …

 

 

… large colonies of Lachenalia pallida, a low perennial with cylindrical flowers, cream with brown markings, surrounded by extends of white daisies, Dimorphotheca pluvialis.

Not far, the brilliant orange of the Gladiolus alatus attracted my attention with fragrant flowers whose greenish-yellow 3 lower tepals recall the wattles of a turkey.

 

 The pink slender spikes of the Ixia scillaris stood out among a carpet of small yellow flowers. 

Getting closer, I discovered little treasures, such as the Oxalis purpurea, with large pink flowers, or  the Geissorhiza, whose small deep blue cups with a stunning red centre deceive the pollinators with their similarity with other flowers. 

Step after step the initial picture was fragmented in details, in single flowers to be discovered and identified in an endless, exciting game. In the distance, the presence of Zantedeschia aethiopica revealed damp soils and, I suspected, many other unknown flowers, but they were too far for my exploration.

I left the reserve while another car stopped and a young couple came out. They looked around  pointing at the spontaneous flowers with a smile. 

Photos:
TravelinaGarden

Further reading:
Ruth Parker & Brita Lomba, Renosterveld a wilderness exposed, LR Publishers,  2009.

Links:

Info about the Tinie Versfeld Wildflower Reserve

www.darlingwildflowers.co.za/reserves.htm

Le pâtissier pittoresque - Antonin Carême.

I discovered the life and work of Marie-Antoine (Antonin) Carême (1783-1833) while I was researching for my thesis. I was looking for information about the garden follies, those fanciful buildings scattered in the parks of the eighteenth century, when, typing “hermitage” I got this result:

 

This Russian Hermitage, paired with an unexpected palm, is part of the book Le pâtissier pittoresque (1815), a collection of drawings of elaborated centrepieces, in French pièces montées, accompanied by practical instructions to prepare the necessary pastes. Ingredients are flour, sugar, white of eggs, almonds and tragacanth (a natural gum) worked in smooth, shiny mixtures, subsequently gilded or coloured. The book includes just 12 of the original 125 drawings (3rd edition) designed by Antonin Carême, the talented French chef defined “le Palladio de la cuisine”(1) for his passion for architecture, design and decoration. His life did not start auspiciously. Born in Paris in 1783, he was abandoned in the street at the age of ten by his father, too poor to support his family. By 1794, however, the young boy was working as apprentice for the famous pâtissier Sylvain Bailly in his shop at Palais-Royale. Besides, supported by Monsieur Bailly, Carême spent hours among prints and engravings at the nearby library, the Bibliothèque Nationale, each Tuesday and Friday. Books made him travel in space and time with the discovery of far countries and antique civilizations whose architectures touched his imagination and inspired his work. Ambitious and very disciplined, Carême spent his nights working to improve his recipes and to draw new spectacular pieces for the shop. Prestigious jobs, in France and abroad, rewarded his efforts: he would work for the French Prime Minister, Talleyrant, tsar Alexander I, and the Prince Regent, later King George IV. Nobles and ambassadors praised his delicacies and elegant presentations that triumphed in great soirées, sumptuous celebrations and official ceremonies. His genius went far beyond the kitchen and a new approach to cooking, to a special attention to table decoration, food presentation and service.

As mentioned, books were an important source of inspiration for Carême. Reading was not an easy task for him, but designs captured his imagination, and aroused a definitive passion for architecture, while he perused the pages of travel books or the flourishing literature about garden follies. He probably knew the books of J. C. Krafft, Plans des plus beaux jardins pittoresques de France, d’Angleterre et d’Allemagne, George Louis Le Rouge, Details des nouveaux jardins à la mode and William Chambers, Dissertation on Oriental Gardening. These are just some examples among the large number of publications, in different languages and formats, which favoured the success of the fabriques, French for garden follies. The term, borrowed from painting, was extended to the small picturesque buildings arranged in gardens. Increasingly popular during the eighteenth century, these decorative structures surprised and amused with their architectural styles that recalled different periods of time or distant countries, and invited to meditation with their sophisticated symbolism. Carême’s fabriques represented pavilions, bridges, temples, ruins, towers, belvederes, cottages, hermitages, pyramids, mills, cascades and fountains inspired by his “travels” to Italy, India, China, Russia, or Egypt. He replaced table decorations of baroque taste with elegant Chinese pavilions and Gothic temples made of almonds and sugar, with perfect proportions and the most seductive details, the result of long hours of study, practice and research. 

In the first pages of Le pâtissier pittoresque, Carême retraces his difficult beginnings and how his passion for architecture became the key for his success. He wrote this book for the young, ambitious pâtissiers, offering his experience and knowledge, using a practical language and useful drawings. Extremely scrupulous and serious, he concludes with a short history of architecture and brief explanatory notes about the five orders of Vitruvio, completed with the relevant drawings. He ascribes great importance to drawings that, giving an immediate idea of the final product, help to memorize and to work speedily and better. In Le pâtissier pittoresque, he adroitly overcomes the limit of black-and-white, accompanying each drawing with a short description, mainly suggesting the best colour combinations to decorate his  creations. Tender shades give the best results. For the Russian Hermitage he definitely recommends:

Le rocher doit être exécuté de couleur orange, tandis que l’ermitage sera de couler vert-pale, et les toits en chaume; la cloche, la croix et la boule, ainsi que le cadran, doivent être de couleur jaune, de même que les vitraux des croisées. Les branches du palmier et les groupes de mousses  qui décorent le rocher, de couleur vert-printanier. (2)         

Notes:
(1) Le pâtissier pittoresque, pg.13.
(2) Ibid, pg. 53. "The rock must be executed in orange, while the hermitage will be pale green with thatched roofs; the bell, the cross and the ball, as the horologe, must be yellow, as well as the stained glass windows. The palm branches and the groups of mosses that decorate the rocks, spring-green."

Photos:
Travelinagarden except:

Carême's drawing of the Hermitage Russe which Jacobin constructs for the Prince Regent's dinner in honor of the Russian  Ambassador. Available at:
http://www.mirandaneville.com/antonin_careme.php#cherries

Further reading:
Antonin Carême, Le pâtissier pittoresque, Paris, Mercure de France, 2003.
John Dixon Hunt, "Follies, Fabriques and Picturesque Play." In A World of Gardens, Reaktion Books, 2012. 

Bonnet Jean-Claude, "Carême ou les derniers feux de la cuisine décorative." In: Romantisme, 1977, n°17-18. pp. 23-43. doi : 10.3406/roman.1977.5121
http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/roman_0048-8593_1977_num_7_17_5121http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/roman_0048-8593_1977_num_7_17_5121