Pancratium Illyricum
全能花属·Pancratium Illyricum
Pancrace de Dalmatie
About this plate
Description
Sa racine est une bulbe arrondie, un peu alongée en dessus, et recouverte de tuniques membraneuses, entières et légèrement rougeâtres. Cette bulbe émet des feuilles disposées sur deux rangs opposés, linéaires, oblongues, très-obtuses, souvent courbées en canal à leur base, et étalées à leur sommet; la hampe est droite, comprimée, surtout à sa base, longue de 3–4 décimètres, terminée par une ombelle de 7 à 8 fleurs blanches et presque sessiles; ces fleurs sortent d’une spathe à deux valves membraneuses, et sont munies à leur base de quelques petites bractées linéaires.
L’ovaire est de couleur verte, triangulaire, adhérent avec la base du périgone: celui-ci a un tube cylindrique, long de 2–3 décimètres, qui se divise en un limbe très-ouvert, à six segments oblongs, rétrécis aux deux extrémités, pointus au sommet, et plus longs que le tube. Les six étamines naissent de la gorge de la fleur, sont plus courtes que les segments du périgone, et ont le bas de leurs filets jaune; leurs filets sont réunis à la base par une appendice pétaloide, qui a reçu le nom de couronne, ou de nectaire, et qui fait le caractère du genre Pancrace; dans cette espèce, les portions de la couronne qui se trouvent entre chaque filet sont séparées des étamines, ouvertes en étoile, et chacune d’elles est divisée jusqu’au milieu de sa longueur en deux lobes pointus; cette structure de la couronne distingue facilement cette espèce de toutes autres espèces du genre.
Le style est filiforme, courbé et ascendant au sommet, un peu plus long que les étamines, terminé par un stigmate simple. Le fruit est une capsule à trois angles, à trois loges; les graines sont noires, arrondies, un peu anguleuses.
Histoire
La véritable patrie du Pancrace que nous venons de décrire n’est pas encore connue avee certitude. Clusius, qui la le premier fait connaitre, en avait reçu les graines des jardins d’Italie, et le croyait indigène d’Orient. Mathiole le regardait comme originaire de Constantinople, sans rapporter ses preuves; Jean Banhin rapporte que Jean Van-Ophem de Bruxelles en avait rapporté des bulbes de la Dalmatie, et avait observé cette même plante sur les hautes montagnes de la Sardaigne.1 Morison assure qu’elle se trouve sur les côtes de l’Ouest de la France, auprès de la Rochelle; enfin, M. Gawler le regarde comme originaire de la Sicile, de la Corse et de l’Espagne, mais sans dire d’après quelle autorité.
Cette plante est assez répandue dans les jardins de botanique; on la cultive en pleine terre sous des chassis. Elle fleurit au mois de mai; ses fleurs ont une odeur agréable: on la multiplie soit de cayeux, soit quelquefois de graines. ♃.
Fam. des Narcisses. Juss.—Hexandrie monogynie. Lin.
- Pancratium illyricum. P. spathâ multillorâ, folis lanceolatis, coronæ sinubus dentatis, dentibus acutis bifidis patentibus. Syn. Fl. gall. n. 1978.
- Pancratium illyricum. P. spathâ multiflorâ, foliis lanceolatis, nectarii dentibus sex acutis bifidis non staminiferis. Willd. Spec. 2. p. 45. Pers. Ench. 1. p. 351.
- Pancratium illyricum. P. spathâ multiflorâ, foliis ensiformibus, staminibus nectario longioribus. Lin. Spec. 4 18. Roy. Lugd-b. 34. Mill. Dict. n. 2. icon. 2. t. 197.
- Pancratium illyricum. P. spathâ multiflorâ, foliis ensiformibus, corollæ laciniis tubo vix brevioribus, limbo interiore brevi. Sav. in Lam. Dict. 4. p. 733.
- Paneratium illyricum. P. multiflorum, scapo varicosè nervoso, foliis lineari-oblongis obtusissimis, laciniis convexis stellatis tubo longioribus, corona staminilegâ his 3–4 plò breviore, turbinatim patente, laciniis sex bifidis, staminibus limbum subæquantibus. Gawl. in Cart. bot. mag. t. 718.
- Pancratium stellare. P. foliis spathulæformibus glaucis, corollæ tubo triangulo, laciniis tubo longioribus patentissimis lanceolatis, coronce sinubus profundo bifidis in stellam patentissimam. Salisb. act. soc. Lin. Lond. 2. p. 74. t. 14.
- Narcissus illyricus liliaceus. Bauh. pin. 55. Seb. thes. 1. p. 17. t. 8. f. 1.
- Lilio-Narcissus hemerocallidis facie. Clus. hist. 1. p. 167 et 168. f. 1. Besl. Eynst. vern. 3. t. 16. f. 1.
- Lilio-Narcissus albus maritimus major. Moris. hist. 2. p. 366. s. 4. t. 10. f. 29.
- Paneratii monspeliaci hemerocallidis valentinæ facie Lilio-Narcissus vel Narcissus tertius Mathioli. J. Bauh. hist. 2. p. 613. ic.
- Narcissus marinus seu tertius Mathioli. Park. parad. 95.
- Narcissus constantinopolitanus tertius. Math. comm. 859. ic.
- Il dit avoir vu en Sardaigne des pieds de ce Pancrace qui portaient jusqu’a 35 fleurs.
Twelve ways of seeing
- measured cast yellow-green
- slightly upright 1.26 : 1
- published 1805
- Plate 153
Not a catalogue entry but a way of looking: how to stand, what to notice, how the line was cut, when it flowers, where it came from, who made it — and then the poems and the classics that taught China to see the same flower. Read the twelve in order and the plate opens.
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First Look
真山水之川谷，远望之以取其势，近看之以取其质。
—— 宋·郭熙《林泉高致·山水训》
Mountains and valleys: from afar take their momentum, up close take their texture — the two distances from which any picture is read.
Slightly taller than wide; the eye lands above centre. Then step in close: watch where colour meets line, and whether the line ever breaks. Third, find where the green is deepest: the whole tonal order is measured from that patch. The pose leans right: the upper half carries 13 points further right than the lower — a living thing, not a diagram.
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Name and Thing
The binomial is Pancratium illyricum: the first word is the genus it belongs among, the second the epithet that sets it apart. Two words carry a whole provenance. The older system filed it under Amaryllidaceæ by overall affinity; Linnaeus, counting stamens only, placed it in Hexandria — two ways of asking what a plant is. No established Chinese name exists, so it is cited by its binomial alone.
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Form and Colour
Measured on this plate: flower colour is sparing, 0.4% of the sheet against 5.8% of foliage, the cast tending yellow-green — as with pale or white blooms, outline and tone do the talking. Bulbous plants store the year underground — bulb, corm or tuber — then send up a few thick leaves and a single scape, with six tepals in cup, funnel or star. Filed under green — a moss green, a colour that comes mostly from leaf and stem. A single plant, laid out with nothing hidden.
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Composition
Slightly taller than wide, the plant set a little above centre. (about 1.26 : 1) No details are appended: a plate for looking, not for keying out. The plant covers only 25% of the sheet, centred near the centre; the emptiness is where the eye rests. Cover the margins with your thumb and the plate suffocates; uncover them and the flower breathes again.
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Line and Colour
The first half of the nineteenth century moved from copper to steel to lithography; stipple could render the softest transition. Take a loupe to three places: petal edge, leaf vein, caption. An unbroken line means engraving; colour crossing the outline means a hand.
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Season
Early spring to early summer, genus by genus: tulips and hyacinths first, gladiolus and amaryllis later. The year 1805 on the plate is that of publication, not of flowering — the gathering came a year or two earlier. Note the season. Phenology is the most practical tool of appreciation.
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Provenance
Three homelands: the Mediterranean, Central Asia and South Africa. The tulip came from Ottoman gardens and became a Dutch mania; South African bulbs filled European glasshouses after 1800. The volume was made in 1802-1816, when most of this knowledge came from living plants under glass.
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The Book and the Hand
“The Liliaceae” was drawn by Pierre-Joseph Redouté and published 1802-1816. This plate is Plate 153, book page 153. The image is public domain; the hand-colouring is still one person's hand.
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Poetic Resonance
总待别人般数尽，袖中拈出郁金芽。
—— 唐·王建《宮詞一百首 八十五》
The poem gives the mood first and the picture supplies the form; set the line beside the plate and the green the corolla becomes its resting point.
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The Written Tradition
庭下如积水空明，水中藻荇交横，盖竹柏影也。
—— 宋·苏轼《记承天寺夜游》
The courtyard seemed flooded with clear water, weeds crossing in it — in fact the shadows of bamboo and cypress.
Li Bai's 'orchid wine, fragrant with yujin' is often misread as tulips; the Tang yujin was a turmeric-like root used to scent wine — same name, different plant. The difference is not of quality but of question: Europe asks what it is, China asks whom it resembles.
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Symbolism
The tulip was an imperial emblem in Istanbul and a speculative bubble in Amsterdam; the hyacinth sprang from a boy's blood in Greek myth. What bulbs share is concealment: next year kept underground. Flower language was added later; the flower knows nothing of it, and that innocence is part of its power.
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What to Take Away
If you keep one line, keep Guo Xi's: from afar its momentum, up close its texture. The flower of that year is dust, yet its image on paper has outlived every living cousin.
