ABSTRACT
On 7 November 1600 Canon Joachim Levenier at Bordeaux sent Clusius a box with bulbs and other plants that he had collected during botanizing trips in the Pyrenees and the Bordeaux region. e box was shipped but the ship was wrecked and the box with precious plants lost. A separate letter, which arrived in Leiden on 19 January 1601, tells us, however, what the box contained and how rare some of these plants were in Levenier’s opinion:
Crocus with long, hair-like leaves and a white ower, 2. ey are very rare and I have found only three. Crocus with long, hair-like leaves and an almost purple ower, several bulbs. e two white ones are apart on the other side of the box. Fritillary with a white ower, also apart Mountain fritillary with an almost black ower, 5 Gentian mayor, a big plant Lily-hyacinth (hyacinth liliac), 2 Hemerocallis with yellow owers, 30 & some small ones Hemerocallis with yellow owers without any spots, 1, it is wrapped up in cotton in order to distinguish it Sea narcissus, which is commonly called pancratium with a white ower, 6. I have not had the red one in ower yet, as soon as it owers I will send it to you Pseudonarcissus Aquitanicus with a campanula-shaped yellow ower surrounded by white petals, I send you 6 Mountain pseudonarcissus with pale-coloured owers, 4. (Levenier, 7 November 1600)
108 Th e World of Carolus Clusius
Levenier hoped that Clusius would ‘liberally share’ the 30 yellow hemerocallises ‘with whom he wished’.
