Military Airs

MILITARY AIRS
            July is full of long sticky days, summer vacations and enticing specials on fall-planted bulbs like tulips and daffodils.  I was hot on the trail of those discounts the other day, flipping through the pages of the Old House Gardens catalog, when I noticed an arresting antique tulip called General Ney.  It is hard to tell General Ney’s true colors from the catalog photo, but the flowers appear to be a deep red with brownish overtones.  As befits a high-ranking officer, the general stands tall at eighteen to twenty inches high.  The catalog copy mentions that the tulip was named after a French military leader whom Napoleon called “the bravest of the brave.”

            The tulip General Ney was introduced in 1837, twenty-two years after its namesake’s death.  The name was probably bestowed on the handsome flower by a Bonapartist breeder pining for the deceased emperor’s glory days.  Ney himself was prone to both bravery and foolishness as well as somewhat shifting loyalties, but at the end of Napoleon’s  career, Ney was on Emperor’s side.  This may have been a mixed blessing, as Ney’s errors in command were allegedly part of the reason for the French defeat at Waterloo.  Eventually captured by the monarchist Bourbons, he was executed for treason in 1815.  Some accounts say that Ney lived up to his reputation for bravery by giving the final go-ahead signal to his own firing squad.

A history like that is a lot to load onto one tulip.  However, Ney is not the only general to be honored with an eponymous flower.  General De Wet, a scented orange tulip, appears right next to General Ney on the catalog page.

            The General De Wet tulip is named for Christiaan De Wet, a hero of South Africa’s Boer War.  A master of guerilla warfare, De Wet played a leading role in the victory of the Boer or Dutch South African forces over the British in the very first years of the twentieth century.  General De Wet’s namesake tulip was introduced in 1904, just two years after the signing of the peace treaty that ended the Boer War and the release of Three Years War, De Wet’s book about the conflict.  Like plant breeders of every nationality, the Dutch loved to name promising new cultivars after their prominent countrymen and women.  De Wet was a natural for such an honor, and since he did not die until nineteen twenty-two, he may have even seen his namesake tulip.

            While a few tulips bear the names of prominent military men, you could fill an entire large garden full of roses with martial names.  The very helpful www.helpmefind.com/roses website lists at least fifty rose varieties that start with the word “general”.  Many of those generals are long-forgotten European military luminaries, but a few Americans also stand out in the crowded field.

            Patriotic Americans will be happy to know that there have been at least two General Washington roses.  One is a big red hybrid perpetual rose, bred in France and introduced in 1860.  The other, a red American tea rose introduced in 1855, was bred by the little known C.G. Page.  Only the hybrid perpetual General Washington rose remains available today.

            General Robert E. Lee was a yellow-apricot tea rose introduced in 1896.  Though General Lee may still exist in some old gardens, the rose is no longer commercially available.  The general’s name also lives on today in a red-flowering azalea, which is one of the “Confederate Series” of azaleas bred by Tom Dodd III of the Dodd & Dodd Native Nurseries in Semmes, Alabama.  The Confederate Series also includes a number of hybrids named after notable southern historical figures including military leaders like General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson.

            Another general, John “Black Jack” Pershing, whose official title was “General of the Armies of the United States,” had a large-flowered, pink climbing rose named after him.  Pershing, who was Commander of the American forces in Europe during World War I, was honored with the rose in 1917, as the Great War was coming to a close.  The American breeder, Frederick Undritz, created several other new roses–Victory, Freedom and Silver Star–to commemorate the United States’ role in the military victory.

            My 1947 edition of the Wayside Gardens catalog lists Douglas MacArthur, a pink or coral blend hybrid tea rose, introduced in 1943 by California breeder Frederick Huber Howard.  General MacArthur, a larger-than-life and often controversial military leader, accepted the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II, oversaw the occupation of Japan after the war and commanded the United Nations forces in Korea until President Truman relieved him of duty in 1951.  It is perhaps fitting, given the general’s drive and ambition, that there is also a Climbing Douglas MacArthur rose.

            Many of the roses and other flowering plants named after great warriors of the past have been lost to commerce.  It is both ironic and gratifying that the rose that outdistanced all those generals to remain among the most popular in the world is universally known as “Peace”.