Syringa vulgaris ultimately for the plants, was Pietro Andrea Mattioli, as one can tell from a unique copy of Tradescant's plant list in his Lambeth garden, an adjunct of his "Musaeum Tradescantianum"; it was printed, though probably not published, in 1634: it lists "Lilac Matthioli". That Tradescant's "lilac of Mattioli's" was a white one is shown by Elias Ashmole's manuscript list, "Trees found in Mrs Tredescants Ground when it came into my possession" (1662): "Syringa alba". In the American colonies, lilacs were introduced in the 18th century. Peter Collinson, F.R.S., wrote to the Pennsylvania gardener and botanist John Bartram, proposing to send
Madonna of the Dry Tree Madonna of the Dry Tree Madonna of the Dry Tree (or Our Lady of the Barren Tree) is a small oil-on-oak panel painting, dated c. 1462–1465, by Early Netherlandish painter Petrus Christus. Unusually innovative and dramatic for its time, it depicts the Virgin Mary holding the Christ Child as she stands on a disembodied dead tree trunk, surrounded by the circular briars of a crown of thorns. The painting is believed to allude to the Book of Ezekiel, with the tree symbolizing the Tree of Knowledge from the Garden of Eden. However, Christus portrays the tree as dead and withered,