Louesa Roebuck - Foraged Flora: Found and Foraged Arrangements for Every Season

EPILOGUE

Beauty is a terrible and awful thing! It is terrible because it has not been fathomed and never can be fathomed, for God sets us nothing but riddles. Here the boundaries meet and all contradictions exist side by side

The Brothers KaramazovFyodor Dostoevsky

Of all mediums, flora is the most ephemeral, the most fragile, the quickest to deteriorate, decompose, dry, wither, and die. Unlike most of my peers, I dont believe in or spend time trying to slow this natural process. I find it fascinating, moving, and utterly beautiful.

All talented floral designers take great pride in creating romantic, lush weddings. But I am curious why these same designers dont want to create hauntingly beautiful funerals, an equally important ceremony in this life! I do. I would love to create a whole new genre of incredibly thoughtful, dark, brooding, and personal memorial flora.

As we began to close down a year of shooting (twelve shoots over as many months), I desired to document some of the memorable material we had used in a state of decay. I often bring bits, remnants, and treasure from gigs and shoots into the houselike a crowand we watch them dry and decay, set amongst the beach stones, collected feathers, bones, lichens, trinkets, and miniature relics that make up our living space.

I had amassed a little collection of one or two things from each shoot, and I wanted to photograph and document these as a funereal record of the year.

SELECTED FLORA

FENNEL FOENICULUM VULGARE ANGIOSPERMA

This family owes much of its beauty to multiple masses of tiny florets in various shades of yellow or bronze, with great variety depending on the stage of its yearly life cycle. Fennel is in the sea botanical family that includes dill (of course), carrot, parsnip, parsley, and the infamous and deadly hemlock, which is native here in California.

Fennel is native to southern Europe and the Mediterranean, where it has been used for many many centuries as a culinary treasure and prized medicine. Speculation is that it was introduced to California about 120 years ago and thrives in our mesic locations with our Mediterranean climate, colonizing from sea level to 2,000 feet. This beautiful weed prefers and thrives in disturbed areas, especially weedy areas near fresh or brackish fresh or salty water. It grows tall and abundant in pasture, abandoned lots, roadsides, and open banks of creeks, estuaries and bays. You can see why I love it!!

The fennel we often use is not a true fennel. Ferula communis, giant fennel, is a California native growing 6 to 8 feet tall.

Fennel will reproduce from both taproot and seeds, which are dispersed by water, birds, rodents, even vehicles and clothing. Hence the moniker invasive. Flower production usually begins when the plants are eighteen to twenty-four months old. Germination can occur at any time of the calendar year. Flowers may be seen from early spring to late late fall, making it especially useful for my work.

In medieval Europe, fennel wreaths were hung above doorways on midsummer days to keep witches away.

In the Pyrenees, fennel fronds were fastened to rooftops for protection against evil magic.

In order to invoke rainfall, the ancient Phoenicians planted fennel in clay pots around the image of the god Adonis. The rapid sprouting of the seeds, fast growth, and subsequent withering of the sprouts in the heat were symbolic of the death and resurrection.

Roman warriors consumed fennel seeds, often mixed with honey to increase fighting strength, stamina, and courage, and fennel victory wreaths were worn after victories.

The Romans had at least twenty-two medicinal uses for fennel, including but not limited to snake bites, insect repellent, calming of the bronchial tubes, mouth health and odor, tonics for liver, kidney, and spleen, and indigestion.

Some of the medicinal benefits include:

high levels of flavonoids, antioxidants, phenylpropanoids

anti-inflammatory properties

high concentrations of minerals (copper, iron, niacin, calcium, potassium, manganese, selenium, zinc, and magnesium).

vitamins A, E, C, and B complex

Ayurvedic properties

A most divine herb to me.

QUINCE CYDONIA OBLONGA FLOWERING QUINCE CHAENOMELES SPECIOSA

The common quince is a 10-foot tall, crooked-branched tree native to western Asia with four known species in temperate climates grown for its incredibly fragrant fruit. It has also been used throughout eastern and western civilizations for jellies, preserves, compotes, and pies traditionally eaten at Christmas time. The fruit must be cooked for human consumption.

The Chaenomeles species (Asiatic) are self-sterile, hence requiring multiple trees for fruit production. Slow growing and long lived, these diminutive trees are set at one to two years, with fruit beginning to bear at three years.

Chaenomoles speciosa is the earlier flowering and most spectacular, as it blooms early in the spring before the leaves appear.

Chaenomoles japonica flowers later, with its leaves, and then again often in the fall.

The scent of both fruits is so heavenly that it was a custom in medieval and Shakespearean times to place the ripe fruit in drawers and wardrobes, scenting linens and garments.

I know from my own experience that a single fruit in a bowl will scent an entire room!

Quince branches are an excellent choice to bring spring blossoms into the home. If cut before flowers appear, they will force in the heat of the house and keep blooming for two to three weeks.

MAGNOLIA

Magnolias have been on this earth a very very long time. Fossils of flowers date back to at least before the Cretaceous period, in the time we know as the age of the dinosaur (14465 million years ago).

Fossil flowers that are nearly 100 million years old, found in what we now call North America, look remarkably like todays magnolias. Truly native!

The flowers of magnolias are central to the development of ideas about the first angiosperms, flowering plant. Both sexes are present in this flowering tree. They are among the first of all known flowering plants, yet more specialized and complex than blooming grasses or wind-pollinated flora.