AMARYLLIS FLOWERS PICTURES

Georgia O'Keefe and the Calla Lily in American Art, 1860-1940

During the second half of the 19th century, the exotic South African calla lily was introduced in the United States, and it began to appear as a subject in American art. The flower became even more popular with artists after Freud provided a sexual interpretation of its form that added new levels of meaning to depictions of it. The calla lily soon became a recurring motif in works by important painters and photographers, particularly Georgia O'Keeffe, who depicted the flower so many times and in such provocative ways that by the early 1930s she became known as "the lady of the lilies". This volume features 54 paintings, photographs and drawings of the calla lily dating from the 1860s to 1940. It includes nine of O'Keeffe's most renowned paintings of the flower as well as works by Imogen Cunningham, Charles Demuth, Marsden Hartley, John La Farge, Man Ray, Joseph Stella and Edward Weston. There is an introduction by O'Keeffe scholar Barbara Buhler Lynes and essays on various aspects of the flower in American art by Charles C. Eldredge and James Moore.

On Distribution: A broad distribution across Europe, Russia, Caucasus, central Asia, and Himalayas.
Afghanistan:
Albania:
Andorra: Well collected throughout Andorra.
Austria:
Azerbaijan: Kew mentions 'central and western Caucasus', GRIN mentions Georgia and Azerbaijan, but not Armenia, so the only way they could know that from their references is from the Flora SSSR or possibly the Flora of Turkey, both quite trustworthy publications.
Belarus:
Belgium: Uncommon in most of the country, but rarer in Flanders, Campine (Kempen) and the Ardennes. Protected by law.
Bulgaria: Only recorded in GBIF database in the Pirin and western Rhodope mountains in the SE of the country.
Channel Islands: Historically occurs here, but has apparently not been sited since before 1930.
Czech Republic:
Denmark:
Estonia:
Finland: Not in northern Finland.
France: Found throughout all parts of France, including Corsica. Not rare.
Georgia: Kew mentions 'central and western Caucasus', GRIN mentions Georgia and Azerbaijan, but not Armenia, so the only way they could know that from their references is from the Flora SSSR or possibly the Flora of Turkey, both quite trustworthy publications.
Germany: Found throughout Germany.
Greece: Probably occurs throughout Greece. Recorded on Hortiatis mountain near Thessaloniki, Olympos mountain, Drama, Kilkis and Nomos Pellis in Macedonia; Kallithea Elassonos in Larissa perfecture; Samos island, Andros island (in the Cyclades), Crete, near Platanos in the Achaia prefecture, the Taigetos mountains on the Peloponnese peninsula, and reasonably often in the Agrafa region of the south of the Pindus mountains, in southwestern Thessaly.
Hungary: Protected by national law.
Iceland: Uncommon but found scattered throughout the country. Well collected in Iceland. Protected by national law.
India: It has been collected at least twice in India; 'between Nagha to Gaujni' and in popular woodland in the high reaches of the Kishanganga/Neelum river valley in Kashmir (in 1903!). FNA also mentions its occurrence in India.
Iran: Occurs in Iran according to Kew World Checklist; occurs in northern Iran according to GRIN (sources unclear?, no records in GBIF, not in Flora Iranica).
Ireland: More common in the inland portions of the country. Less common in the west (western Galway and Mayo) and southwest (Cork and Kerry).
Italy: Found throughout entire Italy, including Sicily and Sardinia. 0-2000m.
Kyrgyzstan:
Latvia: Rather common.
Lithuania:
The Netherlands: Uncommon in southern Limburg, in the east of the country, and in the dunes of Zealand and Holland, elsewhere in the country it is rare to very rare. Protected by law. Included in the Red List. Population shrinking slightly.
Norway: Not in northern Norway.
Pakistan: Uncommon in northern Pakistan at high altitudes.
Poland:
Portugal: Extremely rare in the north of the country. A distribution for this species in Portugal is not included in the Flora Digital de Portugal, Fl. Eur., GRIN and Kew; however, the Spanish Anthos database does in fact have a single record of this species in the region of Beira Alta.
Romania: Rare, but well reported in Romania. Most reports are from the Carpathian mountain belt crossing the country north to south.
Russia: All parts of European Russia except the Kola Peninsula and Arctic areas. It occurs in the south throughout parts of the northern Caucasus (once known as Ciscaucasia, now split between Southern Federal District and Northern Caucasus Federal District). Further east it is found in Altay, Buryatia, Gorno-Altay, Irkutsk, Kemerovo, Krasnoyarsk, Kurgan, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Tomsk, and Tyumen.
Slovakia:
Slovenia: Collected everywhere throughout Slovenia.
Spain: Found in the provinces of Alicante, Barcelona, Castellon, Gerona, Lerida, Tarragona and Valencia in the south. Absent in the Balearic and Canary Islands. Uncommon or absent from the dry interior central and the southernmost regions. Protected by law in Valencia.
Sweden: Not in northern Sweden.
Switzerland: Collected everywhere throughout Switzerland except on the highest peaks and glaciers.
Turkey:
UK: Occurs everywhere, including the Isle of Mann, throughout Northern Ireland, the Hebridies, and Orkney; but is rarer in the Schottish Highlands, the Lake District and around the largest cities. It is not found on the Shetland Islands, however.
Ukraine: Collected in the Carpathian mts, also found in Crimea.

Probs:
Luxembourg - No info.
Moldova: Only data from GRIN.
Uzbekistan - Only recorded in Kew World Checklist. No references.
China - Plants from Xinjiang were identified as Listera ovata during the preparations made for the Flo

How the First Earth Day Came About
By Senator Gaylord Nelson, Founder of Earth Day

What was the purpose of Earth Day? How did it start? These are the questions I am most frequently asked.

Actually, the idea for Earth Day evolved over a period of seven years starting in 1962. For several years, it had been troubling me that the state of our environment was simply a non-issue in the politics of the country. Finally, in November 1962, an idea occurred to me that was, I thought, a virtual cinch to put the environment into the political "limelight" once and for all. The idea was to persuade President Kennedy to give visibility to this issue by going on a national conservation tour. I flew to Washington to discuss the proposal with Attorney General Robert Kennedy, who liked the idea. So did the President. The President began his five-day, eleven-state conservation tour in September 1963. For many reasons the tour did not succeed in putting the issue onto the national political agenda. However, it was the germ of the idea that ultimately flowered into Earth Day.

I continued to speak on environmental issues to a variety of audiences in some twenty-five states. All across the country, evidence of environmental degradation was appearing everywhere, and everyone noticed except the political establishment. The environmental issue simply was not to be found on the nation's political agenda. The people were concerned, but the politicians were not.

After President Kennedy's tour, I still hoped for some idea that would thrust the environment into the political mainstream. Six years would pass before the idea that became Earth Day occurred to me while on a conservation speaking tour out West in the summer of 1969. At the time, anti-Vietnam War demonstrations, called "teach-ins," had spread to college campuses all across the nation. Suddenly, the idea occurred to me - why not organize a huge grassroots protest over what was happening to our environment?

I was satisfied that if we could tap into the environmental concerns of the general public and infuse the student anti-war energy into the environmental cause, we could generate a demonstration that would force this issue onto the political agenda. It was a big gamble, but worth a try.

At a conference in Seattle in September 1969, I announced that in the spring of 1970 there would be a nationwide grassroots demonstration on behalf of the environment and invited everyone to participate. The wire services carried the story from coast to coast. The response was electric. It took off like gangbusters. Telegrams, letters, and telephone inquiries poured in from all across the country. The American people finally had a forum to express its concern about what was happening to the land, rivers, lakes, and air - and they did so with spectacular exuberance. For the next four months, two members of my Senate staff, Linda Billings and John Heritage, managed Earth Day affairs out of my Senate office.

Five months before Earth Day, on Sunday, November 30, 1969, The New York Times carried a lengthy article by Gladwin Hill reporting on the astonishing proliferation of environmental events:

"Rising concern about the environmental crisis is sweeping the nation's campuses with an intensity that may be on its way to eclipsing student discontent over the war in Vietnam...a national day of observance of environmental problems...is being planned for next spring...when a nationwide environmental 'teach-in'...coordinated from the office of Senator Gaylord Nelson is planned...."

It was obvious that we were headed for a spectacular success on Earth Day. It was also obvious that grassroots activities had ballooned beyond the capacity of my U.S. Senate office staff to keep up with the telephone calls, paper work, inquiries, etc. In mid-January, three months before Earth Day, John Gardner, Founder of Common Cause, provided temporary space for a Washington, D.C. headquarters. I staffed the office with college students and selected Denis Hayes as coordinator of activities.

Earth Day worked because of the spontaneous response at the grassroots level. We had neither the time nor resources to organize 20 million demonstrators and the thousands of schools and local communities that participated. That was the remarkable thing about Earth Day. It organized itself.