Aristocratic Horse Chestnuts |
My parents came from different social classes. I have an
early memory of the argument between a member of each family over when to put
milk into a cup of tea. The individual who lived in a council house said you poured
milk into the bottom of the cup before adding
the tea; the haut-bourgeois one insisted
that you added the milk at the last minute.
As a result of this upbringing, until recently I thought
that I was bilingual in class and cultural mores, at least in Britain. I prided
myself on being able to handle complicated cutlery and discuss brands of
handbag or breeds of horses, while feeling personally more at home in the co-op
than the organic delicatessen.
But then it happened. A friend who lives in a genteel
village, where the Horse Chestnuts (Aesculus hippocastanum) have sadly
become diseased, asked me what the parish council should plant instead.
Spotting a beautiful Sycamore through the window, I said brightly, ‘How about Sycamores?’
The shock on his face was palpable. ‘Oh NO!’ he said, grimacing as if I had
suggested force-feeding his children Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Lower-Class Sycamore |
Aspirational Laburnum |
Can someone please help me? It is not that I am unaware that
horticulture and arboriculture are arenas of class conflict. My posh parent told me that the Laburnum tree
was a favourite of the nouveaux riches (because it is toxic or because it is
ostentatious?) and that the Pampas Grass was only for the tiny
garden yards of the working classes.
Proletarian Pampas |
I had a hunch that the issue might be
indigeneity. The Pampas Grass comes from the southern Americas, which in the
mind of a middle-class Briton just might make it ‘vulgar’. But
the Horse Chestnut originally comes from the Balkans, where it was cultivated
by the Ottomans. It was only introduced into western Europe in the sixteenth
century.
Medieval Shrine of Frideswide |
Sycamore leaves, however, feature along with Oak, Hawthorn, Maple and Bryony on the Oxford shrine of the
very English Saint Frideswide, which was built in 1259. Sycamore trees are
mentioned by Geoffrey Chaucer, who was once a forester.
Sensible Roman Gardener |
The Sycamore was almost certainly introduced into Britain by the Romans, who
were great gardeners but also sensible enough to know that this tree produces very strong and flexible timber. Please can someone explain its class
profile before I betray my lack of refinement any further? Can it really be that Roman imports are still regarded as vulgar?
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