Used price: $50.00
Used price: $30.00
Collectible price: $190.00
List price: $35.00 (that's 30% off!)
Used price: $24.35
Buy one from zShops for: $23.34
Europeans imported the calla in 1731. The name was already in place, from Pliny, according to botanist Jacques Dalechamps. William Wood said the word meant beautiful in Greek. Carolus von Linnaeus, Swedish plant classifier, accepted the name for his "Species plantarum."
But calla palustris already named a northern water plant. So it became richardia. But that was already a rubiaeceae family member. So it became, and stayed, zantedeschia, after Italian botanist and physician Francesco Zantedeschi.
Art has left a better record than writing. For classifying plants encouraged drawing flowers. Especially after the calla was imported from South Africa into the United States, American artists took to its white blooms, spear-headed leaves and elegant silhouette. It became grown, known and painted coast to coast.
Traditionally, it was painted into women's portraits. As recently as 1951, Mexican artist Diego Rivera put the calla into his portrait of Helen N. Starr. A female bullfighter, Starr faced death many times. The calla was also called the perfect mourning flowers, along with azalea, rose and violets. In fact, it was scattered over President Lincoln's casket and Queen Victoria's deathbed.
It was also seen as symbol, and cause, of death. Some scientists believed them to be dangerously poisonous. But that didn't keep southern Californians from growing them outdoors, year-round, as potato-like tasty good in looks and cooking. It was the same with missionaries who had seen pygmies and elephants eating the corms in the Congo.
With all the hype, how could the calla become other than the best known subject in American art? Marsden Hartley and Georgia O'Keeffe were particularly responsible for, but not alone in, that. Not surprisingly, shortly afterwards the calla also became a favorite with advertisers, designers, film-makers and marriage planners. The book perfectly traces this fascinating surge, from our gardens and into almost all of our arts. It reads especially well with Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser's MARSDEN HARTLEY.
Used price: $4.75
Used price: $50.00
Used price: $14.74
Buy one from zShops for: $55.59
Used price: $3.40
Used price: $16.09
Collectible price: $9.48
Buy one from zShops for: $16.94
Used price: $2.57
Collectible price: $7.93