This sundial is located in the University of British Columbia (UBC) Botanical Garden's Harold and Frances Holt Physic Garden. A physic garden is a garden of medicinal and poisonous plants. The Holt Physic Garden is inspired by a 1500s Dutch monastery garden, and has twelve beds arranged in three concentric rings, with each ring divided into quadrants.
The sundial is in the center and the focus of the garden. It has the Bowl of Hygeia on the gnomon and the lovely but deadly Death Camas on the dial.
Hygiea was the daughter of Aesculapius, the Greek god of healing. She was the goddess of health and cleanliness. Aesculapius’ symbol is a rod or staff with a single snake twined around it, the Rod (or Staff) of Aesculapius.
Hygeia was often portrayed with a snake coiled around her body or arm, its head drinking from a cup or saucer in her hand. The snake and cup became her symbol, the Bowl of Hygeia. It is a symbol of health and pharmacists. The Rod of Aesculapius is the symbol of healing and doctors.
The Physic Garden was first planted in 1976. It was renovated in 1990s and renamed for the Holts at that time.
It is unclear to me exactly why Death Camas was chosen for the sundial's disk. Perhaps a native poisonous plant was meant to balance the many European medicinal plants in the garden?
At the time that the sundial was made, the scientific name for the white-flowered Death Camas (or Meadow Death Camas) was Zigadenus venenosus. The taxonomy has changed, and it is now known as Toxicoscordion venenosum (c. 2009). The two bunches (racemes) of camas flowers flank the coat of arms of the University of British Columbia.
The octagonal stone column that the sundial is mounted on dates to the 1920s, when it was used as the base for a different, square, sundial in the botanic garden. It seems that the original dial was seriously damaged or lost in the intervening years, and so a new dial was commissioned for the existing base.
There is an admission charge of $10 to visit the UBC Botanical Garden (as of 2023)
REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING
UBC Botanical Garden: Harold and Frances Holt Physic Garden (
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National Library of Medicine: The Caduceus vs. Staff of Aesculapius - One Snake or Two? (
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New York Academy of Medicine Library Blog: Snakes in medicine—Slippery symbolism (
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Theoi Greek Mythology: Hygeia and the serpent (
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Art UK (Public Catalogue Foundation):Aesculapius and Hygeia Sacrificing to the Gods (
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Wikipedia: Aesculapian snake
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e-Flora BC - Electronic Atlas of the Flora of British Columbia: Meadow Death Camas (
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Photo of plinth in 1926 (
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Plinth in 1929 (
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Canadian Pharmacists Association: The Pfizer Bowl of Hygeia Award in Canada CAHP presentation June 2012 [pdf] (
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Canadian Pharmacists Association: History of Pharmacy in Canada [pdf] (
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