Flying The Aspidistra
Look at a photograph of a Victorian family posing indoors and there is likely to be a large upright plant with leathery, lance-shaped leaves lurking in the frame. Its sculptural form enhanced the composition, but its presence was much a statement as an artistic prop. For the aspiring 19th century middle-classes owning an aspidistra was a sign of arrival, of success, of having enough disposable income to spend on home decorations. It was the must-have status symbol.
Even those down on their luck saw their aspidistra as the last vestige of their self-worth. Frank Owen, the starving carpenter in Robert Tressell’s The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists (1914), was prepared to pawn everything other than his aspidistra. For George Orwell, though, in Keep The Aspidistra Flying (1936) it was a symbol of British contentment with the status quo, the antithesis of the revolutionary spirit, an “awful depressing thing” and, according to Gordon Comstock, who attempts unsuccessfully to kill the mangy specimen in his rented room, “the first thing one buys after one’s marriage”.
At first blush, the aspidistra is a surprising choice of plant; it is neither elegant nor does it provide a beautiful display of flowers to merit its place in the living room. The clue to its popularity lies in Comstock’s doomed attempts to kill it; it was well-nigh indestructible, not for nothing dubbed as the cast-iron plant.
The Victorian drawing-room was not a particularly pleasant environment. Ill-fitting windows and doors made it draughty and the reliance upon a coal fire for heating meant that when it was not lit, room temperatures varied dramatically. Anxious to rid themselves of the gloom and smell of tallow candles, the middle classes eagerly embraced the latest advance in domestic illumination, gas lighting.
Gas lights, though, did not come without their disadvantages. They emitted toxic fumes which induced headaches and nausea, as well as blackening ceilings and flat surfaces with soot, discolouring curtains, and corroding metal. While most flowers and houseplants wilted, the aspidistra proved to be remarkably impervious to such noxious conditions.
It also proved adept at surviving studied neglect, capable of withstanding infrequent watering and low light, making it ideal for tucking in a corner of a room, as well as concerted attempts on its well-being. Known as the beer plant, publicans would tip the dregs of beer glasses into the pot of the aspidistra perched on the bar. Comstock even tried grinding hot cigarette-ends against its stem and mixing salt with its earth, only to find that the “beastly things are practically immortal”. Not quite, but the natural lifespan of an aspidistra is around fifty years.
Native to south-eastern Asia, aspidistras are perennial herbaceous plants, belonging to the same family as the asparagus, and in the wild grow from rhizomes in shade under trees or shrubs. Their leaves, either solitary or grouped in small tufts of two to four, rise from the rhizome rather than growing on stems. Their flowers, often brown or maroon, follow suit, appearing either just above or slightly below ground, making them difficult to spot. Many an aspidistra has flowered unobserved by their owners.
