[Sca-cooks] need help identify these items---LONG

[johnna holloway]

Located my copy of Geoffrey Grigson's The Englishman's
Flora from 1958.

Cypress is probably what has been discussed but Grigson notes
that "CYPRESS" is a local name for tamarisk which was
introduced and grown in Tudor England. Gerald grew it later
in the century. OED is interesting:
cypress in such Forms as ciprese, cypris, sypres, cipris,
cipres, cypres, cipriss, -ys, cyprys, syprees, -ese, cupresse,
cipresse, cypresse, cipreis, cyparesse, syprys, cypers, can mean
a variety of plants-- OED lists:
--A well-known coniferous tree, Cupressus sempervirens,
 a native of Persia and the Levant;
--Applied to various trees or shrubs allied to the
 true cypress, as African c., the genus Widdringtonia
 (Miller Plant-n.); bald, black, or deciduous c.,
 Taxodium distichum; embossed c., the Chinese genus
 Glyptostrobus; Japanese c., the genus Retinospora;
 swamp c., the genus Chamæcyparis (Miller).
---Applied to various plants taken to resemble the cypress-tree,
 as broom c., Kochia scoparia; dwarf c., heath c.,
 names proposed by Turner for Lycopodium alpinum;
 field c., Ajuga Chamæpitys; garden c.,
a. in Gerarde, Artemisia maritima;
b. in Lyte, Santolina Chamæcyparissus;
 standing c., Gilia coronopifolia; summer c., Kochia scoparia.
ENTRY 2 says---
'cypress2. Obs. [A corruption of L. cyperus, cyperos,
 app. confounded with cypress1. ] The Sweet Cyperus or Galingale
Entry 3 concerns a range of textile fabrics that came from Cypres.

Regarding Sweet Flag, Grigson lists Sweet Rush as a common name here
and says that Acorus Calamus was a new introduction to Elizabethan
England, having been brought from Turkey in 1567. He does not mention
connection with "lemon- grass of Malabar" which the Fussells wrote
about in in the 1948 Plat.
OED however mentions both---
OED cites calamus as: "A reed, a cane:
 vaguely used by early writers, after Latin or Greek authors"; then
under
sweet calamus, C. aromaticus: says: "a. some eastern aromatic
 plant or plants (supposed by some to be Andropogon Schnanthus,
 the Sweet-scented Lemon Grass of Malabar). So here again the connection
is made between lemon grass and calamus. The next entry goes back
to the connection with Sweet Flag as it says: "applied by some
 English herbalists to the native Sweet Flag or Sweet Rush (Acorus
Calamus)."


Grigson includes a great deal of material on the Gladdon or Stinking
Iris and the Yellow Flag, including a paragraph of common names
for each. OED gives orace as orris and says of it:
"A plant of the genus Iris, esp. Iris germanica and I.
 florentina (Mayne); the flower-de-luce"; "Short for orris-root,
-powder";
and "Comb. orris-pea, an issue-pea made of orris-root; orris-powder,
powdered orris-root.
which includes the quote---
1602 Plat Delightes for Ladies iv. ii,
 Take..some orace powder, and foure ounces of Beniamin"
OED later in the same entry lists orris-root.
 The rhizome of three species of Iris (I. florentina,
 I. germanica, I. pallida) which means that the source might be
any of three plants.

Johnna Holloway  Johnnae llyn Lewis


johnna holloway wrote: on Friday July 19th-->
>snipped... I did pull my copy of Plat off the shelf.
> This is from Sir Hugh Plat's Delightes for Ladies. I own the Fussell
> edition from 1948. Skipping over Orace and Cypres,
> I noted that:>
> "Calamus Aromaticus is identified by the Fussells as supposed to be
> Andropogon Schoenanthus, the sweet-scented lemon-grass of Malabar.">
> Now where they got this I can't tell you and I haven't had the time to
> take it further or to run
> the OED/MED searches yet. I'll try and run it through Grigson later
> today and see what he says.>
> Johnna Holloway    Johnnae
>
> Huette von Ahrens wrote:>
> > Since the instructions call for orace, which is Orris
> > Root, which is Iris root, _and_ it calls for "Calamus
> > Aromaticus", which you say is "the root of Sweet
> > Flag".> > Last I heard, Sweet Flag was a form of Iris.  Has no
> > one but me noticed the similarity in ingredients?
> > > Huette