One summer several years ago, my family visited Bellevue, WA to attend a soccer tournament. While we were there, we had a chance to explore the beautiful Bellevue Botanical Garden. If you are ever in the area, this garden is definitely worth a visit.
I took lots of plant pictures, and one of my favorites has long been what I believe to be Perfoliate Alexander (Smyrnium perfoliatum) surrounded by some little bell-shaped purple flowers. For years I’ve had a printout of this picture floating around in my art inspiration folder. I once did a paper collage version of it that did not go well, but I still loved the photo and kept it in my stack for future work.
As I mentioned in my previous post, I have recently been experimenting with incorporating neurographic art techniques into some of my work. Hmm, I thought, maybe using this would be the perfect solution for doing something with this photo. I first did a detailed pencil sketch of the main plant and went over this with my .005 Micron pen. Then I added a loose sketch of the purple flowers in pencil and returned to my pen to draw in a whole series of mostly random lines from the edges of the page to the edges of my central drawing, following the purple flower sketch lines whenever I intersected them. I went back over these lines again to fatten them up a little and add curves to all the crossing points. Then I took my watercolor pencils and colored it all in. The result isn’t perfect but makes a nice journal entry and gives me a new reference to use for doing a full painting of it in the future. This page makes me smile whenever I look at it as it was both a pleasure to create and brings back memories of that enjoyable trip.
And if you are a plant geek like me, an internet search that included iNaturalist, Kew Gardens, and pfaf.org sites yielded a few interesting facts about this plant.
- It is a biennial that is part of the carrot family (Apiaceae)
- Its native range is eastern/central Europe to the Mediterranean and Caucusus
- It blooms June–August and its seeds ripen July–September
- It is self-fertile and likes moist, well-drained soil and full sun but can tolerate partial shade
- The leaves and young shoots and stems are all edible either cooked or raw in salads. It is said to have a strong celery flavor and the seedlings can be used as a parsley substitute. The root can also be cooked and used in soups and the spicy seeds can be used like pepper.
Who knew? I wish I could taste it. Aha! More searching just revealed that one of the seed companies I regularly order from has a different variety of Alexander (aka Black Lovage, also edible) that I might have to try someday.