COLOURS OF FLOWERS
I am always surprised at the vague, not to say reckless, fashion in
which garden folk set to work to describe the colours of flowers, and at
the way in which quite wrong colours are attributed to them. It is done
in perfect good faith, and without the least consciousness of describing
wrongly. In many cases it appears to be because the names of certain
substances have been used conventionally or poetically to convey the
idea of certain colours. And some of these errors are so old that they
have acquired a kind of respectability, and are in a way accepted
without challenge. When they are used about familiar flowers it does not
occur to one to detect them, because one knows the flower and its true
colour; but when the same old error is used in the description of a new
flower, it is distinctly misleading. For instance, when we hear of
golden buttercups, we know that it means bright-yellow buttercups; but
in the case of a new flower, or one not generally known, surely it is
better and more accurate to say bright yellow at once. Nothing is more
frequent in plant catalogues than "bright golden yellow," when bright
yellow is meant. Gold is not bright yellow. I find that a gold piece
laid on a gravel path, or against a sandy bank, nearly matches it in
colour; and I cannot think of any flower that matches or even approaches
the true colour of gold, though something near it may be seen in the
pollen-covered anthers of many flowers. A match for gold may more nearly
be found among dying beech leaves, and some dark colours of straw or dry
grass bents, but none of these when they match the gold are bright
yellow. In literature it is quite another matter; when the poet or
imaginative writer says, "a field of golden buttercups," or "a golden
sunset," he is quite right, because he appeals to our artistic
perception, and in such case only uses the word as an image of something
that is rich and sumptuous and glowing.
The same irrelevance of comparison seems to run through all the colours.
Flowers of a full, bright-blue colour are often described as of a
"brilliant amethystine blue." Why amethystine? The amethyst, as we
generally see it, is a stone of a washy purple colour, and though there
are amethysts of a fine purple, they are not so often seen as the paler
ones, and I have never seen one even faintly approaching a really blue
colour. What, therefore, is the sense of likening a flower, such as a
Delphinium, which is really of a splendid pure-blue colour, to the
duller and totally different colour of a third-rate gem?
Another example of the same slip-slop is the term flame-coloured, and
it is often preceded by the word "gorgeous." This contradictory mixture
of terms is generally used to mean bright scarlet. When I look at a
flame, whether of fire or candle, I see that the colour is a rather pale
yellow, with a reddish tinge about its upper forks, and side wings often
of a bluish white--no scarlet anywhere. The nearest approach to red is
in the coals, not in the flame. In the case of the candle, the point of
the wick is faintly red when compared with the flame, but about the
flame there is no red whatever. A distant bonfire looks red at night,
but I take it that the apparent redness is from seeing the flames
through damp atmosphere, just as the harvest-moon looks red when it
rises.
And the strange thing is that in all these cases the likeness to the
unlike, and much less bright, colour is given with an air of conferring
the highest compliment on the flower in question. It is as if, wishing
to praise some flower of a beautiful blue, one called it a brilliant
slate-roof blue. This sounds absurd, because it is unfamiliar, but the
unsuitability of the comparison is scarcely greater than in the examples
just quoted.
It seems most reasonable in describing the colour of flowers to look out
for substances whose normal colour shows but little variation--such, for
example, as sulphur. The colour of sulphur is nearly always the same.
Citron, lemon, and canary are useful colour-names, indicating different
strengths of pure pale yellow, inclining towards a tinge of the palest
green. Gentian-blue is a useful word, bringing to mind the piercingly
powerful hue of the Gentianella. So also is turquoise-blue, for the
stone has little variety of shade, and the colour is always of the same
type. Forget-me-not blue is also a good word, meaning the colour of the
native water Forget-me-not. Sky-blue is a little vague, though it has
come by the "crystallising" force of usage to stand for a blue rather
pale than full, and not far from that of the Forget-me-not; indeed, I
seem to remember written passages in which the colours of flower and
firmament were used reciprocally, the one in describing the other.
Cobalt is a word sometimes used, but more often misused, for only
water-colour painters know just what it represents, and it is of little
use, as it so rarely occurs among flowers.
Crimson is a word to beware of; it covers such a wide extent of ground,
and is used so carelessly in plant-catalogues, that one cannot know
whether it stands for a rich blood colour or for a malignant magenta.
For the latter class of colour the term amaranth, so generally used in
French plant-lists, is extremely useful, both as a definition and a
warning. Salmon is an excellent colour-word, copper is also useful, the
two covering a limited range of beautiful colouring of the utmost value.
Blood-red is also accurately descriptive. Terra-cotta is useful but
indefinite, as it may mean anything between brick-red and buff.
Red-lead, if it would be accepted as a colour-word, would be useful,
denoting the shades of colour between the strongest orange and the
palest scarlet, frequent in the lightest of the Oriental Poppies. Amber
is a misleading word, for who is to know when it means the transparent
amber, whose colour approaches that of resin, or the pale, almost
opaque, dull-yellow kind. And what is meant by coral-red? It is the red
of the old-fashioned dull-scarlet coral, or of the pink kind more
recently in favour.
The terms bronze and smoke may well be used in their place, as in
describing or attempting to describe the wonderful colouring of such
flowers as Spanish Iris, and the varieties of Iris of the _squalens_
section. But often in describing a flower a reference to texture much
helps and strengthens the colour-word. I have often described the modest
little _Iris tuberosa_ as a flower made of green satin and black velvet.
The green portion is only slightly green, but is entirely green satin,
and the black of the velvet is barely black, but is quite
black-velvet-like. The texture of the flower of _Ornithogalum nutans_ is
silver satin, neither very silvery nor very satin-like, and yet so
nearly suggesting the texture of both that the words may well be used in
speaking of it. Indeed, texture plays so important a part in the
appearance of colour-surface, that one can hardly think of colour
without also thinking of texture. A piece of black satin and a piece of
black velvet may be woven of the same batch of material, but when the
satin is finished and the velvet cut, the appearance is often so
dissimilar that they may look quite different in colour. A working
painter is never happy if you give him an oil-colour pattern to match in
distemper; he must have it of the same texture, or he will not undertake
to get it like.
What a wonderful range of colouring there is in black alone to a trained
colour-eye! There is the dull brown-black of soot, and the velvety
brown-black of the bean-flower's blotch; to my own eye, I have never
found anything so entirely black in a natural product as the patch on
the lower petals of _Iris iberica_. Is it not Ruskin who says of
Velasquez, that there is more colour in his black than in many another
painter's whole palette? The blotch of the bean-flower appears black at
first, till you look at it close in the sunlight, and then you see its
rich velvety texture, so nearly like some of the brown-velvet markings
on butterflies' wings. And the same kind of rich colour and texture
occurs again on some of the tough flat half-round funguses, marked with
shaded rings, that grow out of old posts, and that I always enjoy as
lessons of lovely colour-harmony of grey and brown and black.
Much to be regretted is the disuse of the old word murrey, now only
employed in heraldry. It stands for a dull red-purple, such as appears
in the flower of the Virginian Allspice, and in the native
Hound's-tongue, and often in seedling Auriculas. A fine strong-growing
border Auricula was given to me by my valued friend the Curator of the
Trinity College Botanic Garden, Dublin, to which he had given the
excellently descriptive name, "Old Murrey."
Sage-green is a good colour-word, for, winter or summer, the sage-leaves
change but little. Olive-green is not so clear, though it has come by
use to stand for a brownish green, like the glass of a wine-bottle held
up to the light, but perhaps bottle-green is the better word. And it is
not clear what part or condition of the olive is meant, for the ripe
fruit is nearly black, and the tree in general, and the leaf in detail,
are of a cool-grey colour. Perhaps the colour-word is taken from the
colour of the unripe fruit pickled in brine, as we see them on the
table. Grass-green any one may understand, but I am always puzzled by
apple-green. Apples are of so many different greens, to say nothing of
red and yellow; and as for pea-green, I have no idea what it means.
I notice in plant-lists the most reckless and indiscriminate use of the
words purple, violet, mauve, lilac, and lavender, and as they are all
related, I think they should be used with the greater caution. I should
say that mauve and lilac cover the same ground; the word mauve came into
use within my recollection. It is French for mallow, and the flower of
the wild plant may stand as the type of what the word means. Lavender
stands for a colder or bluer range of pale purples, with an inclination
to grey; it is a useful word, because the whole colour of the flower
spike varies so little. Violet stands for the dark garden violet, and I
always think of the grand colour of _Iris reticulata_ as an example of a
rich violet-purple. But purple equally stands for this, and for many
shades redder.
Snow-white is very vague. There is nearly always so much blue about the
colour of snow, from its crystalline surface and partial transparency,
and the texture is so unlike that of any kind of flower, that the
comparison is scarcely permissible. I take it that the use of
"snow-white" is, like that of "golden-yellow," more symbolical than
descriptive, meaning any white that gives an impression of purity.
Nearly all white flowers are yellowish-white, and the comparatively few
that are bluish-white, such, for example, as _Omphalodes verna_, are of
a texture so different from snow that one cannot compare them at all. I
should say that most white flowers are near the colour of chalk; for
although the word chalky-white has been used in rather a contemptuous
way, the colour is really a very beautiful warm white, but by no means
an intense white. The flower that always looks to me the whitest is that
of _Iberis sempervirens_. The white is dead and hard, like a piece of
glazed stoneware, quite without play or variation, and hence
uninteresting.