The plants of middle earth

[Alfirin]

Greetings,

As the title suggests the purpose of this thread is to hear as to what you think the real species of some of the plants of middle earth are. I will start with the plant I take my own screen name from Alfirin and its sister plant Mallos.

These two are a little difficult I have always imagined Alfirin as looking a little like a yellow flowered lily-of-the valley as that would meet the requirement that the flowers be bell shaped. The only problem is that lily of the valley is a deep woods plant and would be unlikey to be growing in a spot as open as the Plains of Lebbenen. Some sort of wild asphodel would work as well but their flowers are not particualry bell shaped. I imagine that mallos has larger flowers than alfirn and as being more upright but this is proably because Mallos sounds so much like mallow so I keep imagining a wild hollyhock.

Culumalda- I really don't know, there are so many red foliaged trees. Maybe the copper beech?

Evermind- the rohirrim grave flower. I think that this and niphridel are the same thing in which case its a kind of anemone (Tolkien said explicity that niphridel resembed the wood anemone but was smaller and whiter)

Gallows Weed- This is probably spanish moss

Lairelosse- another tough one. Maybe some sort of giant white flowered lilac?

Laurinque- This is almost certainly the koleurainia or golden rain tree. though if Numenor was a tropical place other choices like the golden shower tree (Cassia fistulosa) are possible. I believe both have good wood.

Lissuin- since this is described as being the most fragrant flower I beive it is prably meant to be something like mingionette.

Nessemelda, Oiolaire, Taniquilasse and Vardarianna- There it little said about these trees except that they are fragrant. However I am fairly sure that a least one if not all would be in the laurel family. one or the other of the latter two is probably some kind of Cinnamon tree since both are said to have fragrant bark as well as leaves. Oiolaire may be a kind of bay since it stays green for a long time and would be a good choice for a safety token

Seregon-The "blood snow" plant that grew on Amon Rudh. I think that given the rokiness of the blad hill Seregon, is prably some kind of sedum with dark red flowers

Yavannamire- Possibily some kind of citrus (though I would not describe a citrus fruit as being "luscios") other possiblities include some sort of persimmon (though this is in fact a more likely identity for lebethron the Gondor wood of which the hobbits staffs and the case for Aragorn's crown are made of since persimmons are the temperate member of the ebony family)

[Bêthberry]

Interesting conjectures, Alfirin, and welcome to the Downs. Surprisingly, there aren't many gardeners here. Perhaps since we are all dead in the Barrow (a running joke, somewhat hobbled from overuse) most of us tend to be more among the compost than the flourishing plants.

Alfirin could also be a bellflower, which comes in a variety of colours and which has both low, ground-hugging varieties and taller forms. At least, I think this plant conforms to the bell shape and white is a predominate colour for it. It is also a willowly, whispy plant that shimmers in the wind.

For some images of the peach leaf bellflower, see here.

[Morthoron]

Excellent summary, Alfirin, and welcome. As I am no horticulturist or arborist, I would be flippant if I attempted any descriptive exposition. However, you can add pipeweed (nicotiana, tobacco in description) to your list of plants, as well as athelas (kingsfoil, an herb by all accounts), and lebethron (a black wood) to the discussion on trees. I will sit back and watch, as around my home I am only allowed to mow the grass and trim the verge.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Laurinque- This is almost certainly the koleurainia or golden rain tree. though if Numenor was a tropical place other choices like the golden shower tree (Cassia fistulosa) are possible. I believe both have good wood.

I'm pretty sure that Laurelin herself, and thus laurinque, are explicitly based on the laburnum.

[Child of the 7th Age]

Welcome! I do not possess your knowledge of plants and gardening, and I am not sure if this will help you (indeed, you may already have seen it), but there is a wonderful letter (#312) where Tolkien discusses some of the flowers in LotR. He is looking through the Cape Flower Book and says this:

I have not seen anything that immediately recalls niphedril or elannor or alfirin: but that I think is because those imagined flowers are lit by a light that would not be seen ever in a growing plant and cannot be recaptured by paint. Lit by that light, niphedril would be simply a delicate kin of a snowdrop' and elanor a pimpernel (perhaps a little enlarged) growing sun-gold flowers and star-silver ones on the same plant, and sometimes the two combined. Alfirin ("immortal") would be an immortelle, but not dry and papery: simply a bell-like flower, running through many colors, but soft and gentle....

I am always amazed at how much practical knowledge Tolkien had about flowers and how he obviously loved them. At the same time, when he writes about flowers, even those that have equivalents in the "real world" he describes them in such a way to become "more" than they were before......we see shadows and nuances that are only hinted at when we look at a real blossom on earth.

Have you seen the book "The Plants of Middle-earth: Botany and Subcreation" by Dinah Hazell? Lalwende has mentioned this before, but it is a lovely, lovely book. What makes it unusual and a joy to read are all the plates: replications of pen and ink sketches and watercolors. I have just dipped in and out of it, but will be going on a plane trip and am taking it along for a "serious" read.

Haskell makes an interesting point. She talks about how, in the middle of a world filled with strange and fantastic beings, Tolkien used "familiar" grasses and forests and flowers to create a landscape we feel comfortable in. Although there are fantastic, magical plants that have no earthly equivalent, most of the flora actually came from Tolkien's England. There's a fascinating chapter where JRRT surveys female hobbit names and, looking closely at each flower, tries to identify the characteristics that the parents were emphasizing when they gave their child that particular name.

So much Tolkien criticism nowadays is just "same old, same old". But this book shows a different way of looking at things. It also reminds us just how unusual a man Tolkien was.....that we can't just pigeonhole him as "Christian" or "medievalist" or "philologist". The minute we do that another piece of Tolkien---in this case, botanist, gardener, and lover of plant lore--surfaces and gives us a big surprise.

[Alfirin]

Thanks to all who have responded so far

I agree that laburnum is a far more likely identity for laurinque than either of the ones metioed if for no other reason than tolkien would have been familar with laburnum but probably not with either of my two. since the cassia is tropical and kolurenia was not a popular tree planting back when tolkein was alive. I would point out however that it would have to be a kind of laburnum which grew to far larger proportions than the current type as the currnet type is too short and spindy to produce wood planks of the size that would be needed for ship building

I did not put pipeweed on the list for the same reason I left out brethel (beech) region (holly) and many other still extant trees, everyone knows thier identites so no speculation could ensue.

I actually did mention lebethron its in the secion on Yavannamire. As I stated my money on some sort of persimmon which would have black wood (i.e. ebony) and which does have finger like leaves.

I have no clue as to what plat Athelas is based on. I though it might be somewhere in the Lamiacae (mint family) since a lot of members of that family are medicinal (including some with the telling name of "heal all") though such mints do not generally have leaves that could be described as long.

I had never heard of that Tolkein letter before thank you for pointing it out. Its intersting that tolkein envisioned a yellow/white pimpernel as being eleanor since european pimpernels usually only come in pale blue or orange (the orange is the famous "scarlet pimpernel" though both are in fact the same species.) I guess tolkein chaged his mind a some point about what niphredel was since he as Imentioned had said elswhere it was a kind of wood anemone (which does not look like a snowdrop at all)

The real problem with getting the identitiy of Alfrin right is that Tolkien seem to have used the same for two different plants. I think based on the context that Tolkein is using Alfirin in its other sense as a synonym for Uilos (as he does in bits of the Silmarillion. If this is the case than it means that evermind is an imortelle (I have now idea what an imortelle is but it think it may be the same thing as a strawflower if tolkien says it's papery) A bellfower is a good guess for the Lebennen alfrin, though it also tends to like shady woods (maybe Lebennen doesn't get a lot of sun)