Teasels, Dipsacus fullonum and Dipsacus sativus, in the teasel family, Dipsacaceae, for centuries were essential to the clothing industry. Today, in North America, they are noxious weeds.
teasel showing the seed heads |
Tales of a lover of plants, history and travel.
artichoke (Cynara cardunculus) in grocery store |
Rocky landscape of Salta Province |
Tansy is a small plant with bright yellow flowers and a spicy smell (scientific name, Tanacetum vulgare sunflower family, Asteraceae). It is native to western Asia but long ago became an herb and spice that was grown throughout Europe and then transported by Europeans all over the world. Today we know it more as a garden flower or roadside weed than as a flavoring or medicine, but it is all of those.
common tansy, Tanacetum vulgare |
One of the ideas that attracted me to ecology as a student was pollination. In particular, the match between flowers and their visitors. Bees like open flowers like echinacea and bees can enter closed flowers like peas, but some flowers are too long and narrow for them to reach the nectar. This results in patterns in nature, plants that are mainly bee-pollinated, for example, and plants that are not pollinated by bees. And those bee-flowers share characteristics, so that you can recognize them, just as bees do.
Bumblebee drinking nectar from golden banner (Thermopsis montana) |