Tolkien and plants

J. R. R. Tolkien learnt about plants, their history and cultivation from his mother, from his reading, from visiting show gardens, by gardening, and by studying medieval herbals, which taught him about the lore and supposed magical properties of certain plants.^[2] He stated that the book that most influenced him as a teenager was C. A. Johns's Flowers of the Field, a flora of the British Isles, which he called his "most treasured volume".^[1]

He explained that he was intrigued by the diversity of plant forms, as he had a "special fascination ... in the variations and permutations of flowers that are the evident kin of those I know".^[1][3] Among his artworks are a series of paintings of grasses and other plants, often with the names he gave them in Quenya, one of his invented Elvish languages.^[4] These could be realistic or, as with his pencil and ink drawing of ranalinque or "moon-grass", stylized, in the manner of Art Nouveau.^[1]

Europe and Middle-earth

Tolkien imagined Middle-earth as the Earth in the distant past.^[5]

Tolkien intended Middle-earth to represent the real world in an imagined past, thousands of years before the present time.^{[T 1]} He made clear the correspondences in latitude between Europe and Middle-earth, establishing the presence of both British and Mediterranean zones:

The action of the story takes place in the North-west of 'Middle-earth', equivalent in latitude to the coastlands of Europe and the north shores of the Mediterranean. ... If Hobbiton and Rivendell are taken (as intended) to be at about the latitude of Oxford, then Minas Tirith, 600 miles south, is at about the latitude of Florence. The Mouths of Anduin and the ancient city of Pelargir are at about the latitude of ancient Troy.^{[T 2]}

Realism

Tolkien mentions many plants appropriate to the geographical and climatic zones through which his characters pass, especially in The Lord of the Rings, the accurate plant ecology conveying a strong sense of the reality of Middle-earth. Scholars such as Matthew Dickerson, Jonathan Evans, and Walter S. Judd with Graham Judd, have described the botany and ecology of Middle-earth in some detail, from the agriculture of the Shire^[6] to the horticulture of the Elves,^[7] the wildwood of the Ents,^[8] and the polluted volcanic landscape of Mordor.^[9] Walter and Graham Judd have examined the Middle-earth flora and its various plant communities from Arctic tundra to hot deserts,^[10] have listed and illustrated the many identifiable plant species from alders to yews, not forgetting cultivated plants from beans to flax,^[11] and have provided identification keys to the plants and flowering herbs involved.^[12]

The Shire is described as a fertile agricultural region, able to produce not only the food needed by its comfortable population, complete with Gaffer Gamgee's "taters" (potatoes), but cultivated mushrooms, wine such as the delicious Old Winyards, and tobacco.^[13] Nearby Bree indeed uses botanical names for many of its people, such as the "doubly botanical"^[14] name of the innkeeper Barliman Butterbur, named for barley (the chief ingredient of beer), and the butterbur, a large stout wayside herb of Northwestern Europe. Other plant-based surnames in Bree include Ferny, Goatleaf, Heathertoes, Rushlight, Thistlewool, and Mugwort.^{[T 4][14]}

Towards the end of their quest, the hobbit protagonists Frodo and Sam travel through the Mediterranean vegetation of Ithilien, giving Tolkien the opportunity to demonstrate the "breadth of his botany" with convincing details of that region's mild climate and different flora.^{[13][T 3]} The scholar Richard Jenkyns has commented that "Ithilien is Italy, as the name implies".^[15][16]

• 
  People in Bree often had botanical names; Barliman Butterbur is named for the butterbur, Petasites hybridus, a large stout herb of Northwestern Europe^{[T 4]}
• 
  Asphodel, one of the Mediterranean herbs found in Ithilien

Narrative and plot

Some plants fulfil a specific plot need, such as with athelas, a healing plant that turns out to be the cure for the Black Breath, the chill and paralysis that overcame people who fought against the Ringwraiths, Sauron's most deadly servants. In The Lord of the Rings, Athelas is used only by Aragorn, who becomes King of Gondor, explaining its common name, Kingsfoil.^{[T 5][T 6]} Shippey remarks that Aragorn the healer-king echoes a real English King, Edward the Confessor.^[17] Tolkien may have had the Old English Herbarium in mind with the healing herb Kingsfoil: in that text, Kingspear (woodruff) is said to have a distinctive aroma, and to be useful for healing wounds, while the ending in -foil, meaning "leaf", is found in the names of herbs such as cinquefoil.^[18]

Sense of place

One reason was to enrich his descriptions of an area with beauty and emotion, such as with the small white Niphredil flowers and the gigantic Mallorn trees with green and silver leaves in the Elvish stronghold of Lothlórien, symbolising indeed Galadriel's Elves.^{[19][T 7]} Similarly, when describing the Island of Númenor, lost beneath the waves before the time of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien introduces Oiolairë, an evergreen fragrant tree said to be highly esteemed by the people there.^{[T 8]} Or again, when describing the grave-mounds of the Kings of Rohan, Tolkien mentions Simbelmynë (Old English for "Evermind"), a white Anemone that once grew in Gondolin and that stands for remembrance of the noble and brave Riders of Rohan.^{[19][T 9][20]} David Galbraith of the Royal Botanical Gardens (Ontario) writes that "plants are ... crucial in imagined landscapes", and that few of these are as rich in detail as Tolkien's Middle-earth", where "the plants ranged from simple and familiar to exotic and fantastic".^[21]

Characterisation

Tolkien mentions plant products, too, when he wishes to characterise a people. In the Prologue to The Lord of the Rings, he explains that "pipe-weed", tobacco, is derived from "a strain of the herb Nicotiana", and that the Hobbits of the Shire love to smoke it, unlike the other peoples of Middle-earth. He goes into some detail on this, naming the varieties Longbottom Leaf, Old Toby, and Southern Star, grown in the Shire, and Southlinch from Bree.^{[T 10][T 11]} This has a personal ring, as Tolkien loved to smoke a pipe, and indeed described himself as a Hobbit: "I am in fact a Hobbit (in all but size). I like gardens, trees, and unmechanized farmlands; I smoke a pipe, ... I am fond of mushrooms (out of a field)".^{[22][23][T 12]}

Obsessive interest

The scholar Patrick Curry states that "Tolkien obviously had a particular affection for flora", noting that the birch was his "personal 'totem'".^[24] Tom Shippey writes that Tolkien's many mentions of plants reveal a deep and continuous interest:

Through all his work moreover there runs an obsessive interest in plants and scenery, pipeweed and athelas, the crown of stonecrop round the overthrown king's head in Ithilien, the staffs of lebethron-wood with a "virtue" on them of finding and returning, given by Faramir to Sam and Frodo, the holly-tree outside Moria that marks the frontier of 'Hollin' as the White Horse of Uffington shows the boundary of the Mark [in England], and over all the closely visualised images of dells and dingles and Wellinghalls, hollow trees and clumps of bracken and bramble-coverts for the hobbits to creep into.^[19]

Identity of man and nature

Shippey comments that Tolkien's strongest belief, visible as a theme in much of his writing, is the identity of man and nature; he gives multiple examples:

Symbolism

Plants could also have symbolic significance in Tolkien's Middle-earth writings. Christopher Vaccaro writes in Mallorn that the White Tree of Gondor in The Lord of the Rings symbolises the return of the King to Gondor, the fresh sapling replacing the dead tree as Aragorn replaces the Stewards sitting in the King's place. The sapling, in turn, was descended from "Nimloth the fair", which itself came of the line of Telperion, one of the Two Trees of Valinor described in The Silmarillion. Those trees have powerful significance, bringing light to the world.^[25] Vaccaro states that these trees carry both Christian and pagan symbolism. In Christianity, the Book of Genesis tells of a tree of life at the centre of the Garden of Eden. Further symbolic trees described in the Book of Daniel and the Book of Isaiah, this time denoting the future King, Christ; and in the Book of Revelation, a tree of life stands in the New Jerusalem. Christ's cross, too, came in medieval times to be described as a tree, with Christ hanging on it as a fruit. In pagan literature, among many possible parallels, Yggdrasil is the world tree of Norse mythology; Vaccaro notes that a warrior comes with an axe to cut the tree, "seven the stones on which he whet[ted] it", commenting that perhaps the words of this passage "made its way into Tolkien's Númenórean folklore."^[25]

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