A Timeless History
Syringa vulgaris grows wild on the rocky hills of the southern Balkans. Ogier de Busbecq, the Habsburg ambassador to the Ottoman court, sent it from Constantinople to Vienna in the 1560s, and from there it spread to the gardens of Europe. Three centuries later Victor Lemoine of Nancy bred more than 150 doubles and new colours — the “French lilacs” still sold today.
SourceRoyal Horticultural Society — rhs.org.uk · Encyclopaedia Britannica — britannica.com, “Busbecq”, “lilac”
Science In Action
Corolla — the four lobes are fused at the base into a narrow tube, six to ten millimetres long • Nectar — held at the bottom of that tube, reached by butterflies, moths and long-tongued bees • Scent — released in warmth, so a lilac smells strongest on a still evening after a hot day • Old wood — the heads form on last year's shoots, which is why a lilac is pruned right after flowering
SourceNorth Carolina State Extension — plants.ces.ncsu.edu · Royal Horticultural Society — rhs.org.uk
Arts
Walt Whitman built his elegy for Abraham Lincoln around a lilac in bloom, because Lincoln died in April 1865, when the lilacs were out. Sixty years earlier the German painter Philipp Otto Runge had cut a whole lilac branch, panicle and leaves, out of a single sheet of paper with scissors.
SourceLibrary of Congress — loc.gov · Cleveland Museum of Art — clevelandart.org, 2023.120
Applications Today
The scent cannot be bottled: lilac gives no usable essential oil, so every “lilac” perfume is built from synthetic molecules. The shrub itself is nearly indestructible in cold climates — across the north-eastern United States an old lilac in open ground often marks where a farmhouse once stood.
SourceUniversity of Ottawa, Holmes Mass Spectrometry Facility — uottawa.ca · Library of Congress — loc.gov
The lilac belongs to the olive family, alongside the olive itself, the ash tree and jasmine.
Syringa ×persica (Persian lilac); Philadelphus coronarius; Syringa vulgaris (common lilac) — leaf from the Gottorfer Codex — Hans Simon Holtzbecker (German, c. 1610–1671), gouache on parchment — 1649–1659 — Statens Museum for Kunst (SMK), Copenhagen — KKSgb2948/44
