Celebrating Oranges

There's a long tradition of putting oranges into Christmas stockings. Oranges are so readily available today that that seems a little odd. But the next time you encounter an orange, take a moment to notice it. The rich orange color. The scent, both of the whole fruit and of the brightly colored sections inside, is enticing. The wonderful sweet juice. 

orange sections

Plant Story--the Lovely, Spicy Nasturtium, Tropaeolum

 Nasturtiums are easily-recognized garden flowers. They have big orange (or red or yellow) flowers with a long spur and interesting round leaves with the stalk (petiole) in the center. They are also edible.

nasturtium, Tropaeolum 

Plant Story--Burdock, Arctium, Burs, Vegetable, and Velcro

Burdocks are plants you recognize for their seed pods or leaves. Oh, they have pretty enough pink-purple flowers, much like thistles flowers, but the seed pods have spines with hooks that stick tightly to clothes or fur, and the leaves are very large.

burdock, Arctium

Travel Story--U.S. National Arboretum, Washington, D.C.

 In October we visited Washington D.C. I remember my first visit in 1969. I was a college graduate form Ohio. I had seen New York City, a bit of Boston, and Cleveland. Wow, Washington! The nation's capital, built to be a showplace. I was very impressed. Since then I have been to Washington's museums many times. This was my first visit to the National Arboretum. It is about 3 miles from the Mall; we took Uber.

By main building, National Arboretum

Created in 1927, the Arboretum is managed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture' Agricultural Research Service. Its mission is research improving ornamental and landscape plants and promotion through public gardens and exhibits. It has 450 acres and 9.5 miles of paths. It felt much like a very large city park; many of the visitors were strolling with babies in baby carriages or out for a run. 

Oleander, Nerium oleander, Beautiful and Poisonous

Oleander, Nerium oleander (dogbane family, Apocynaceae) has for years been, for me, an example of how comfortably we live with poisonous plants. Oleander is very poisonous. Adults are hospitalized after eating several leaves, die from a serving of leaves. The plants contain a series of very toxic alkaloids, oleandrin, oleandrigenin, oleandroside, neroside, and more. All parts of the plant, including the flower petals, sap, honey, twigs, and roots, contain these alkaloids. They are not destroyed by drying or heat, and the smoke from an oleander fire can be dangerous. However, the story that a boy scout troop died of cooking hot dogs on oleander sticks is an urban legend (see Snopes). 

oleander, Nerium oleander

The Solanaceae, Foods and Poisons

 The National Botanic Garden in Washington, DC has the above sign. 

There are about 2,300 species in the nightshade family, Solanaceae, so I can hardly mention them all, but here's a tour of some of my favorites:

Long Term Studies and Record Keeping

All experiments, observational or manipulative, need to be well-designed. But you also need to summarize and publish the results. If the study goes on very long--and I've been reflecting on lessons from a 42-year project on harvester ants--there are special issues in maintaining the records.

Study of harvest ant colony longevity;
a few days of observation every year for 42 years

Technology is bound to change. I saw the notes from a grassland study in Hays, Kansas that ran from 1942 to 1972 (data now at Colorado State University); in the middle of the study colored ballpoint pens came into existence and notes that had been in heavy black ink became color-coded. How cool! Who ever thinks about pen evolution? And yet, while xeroxing was only in black and white, the color coding was a problem for copying/backing up the data.

I have carried out several studies that ran more than a decade and worked with a couple others. Here are some of the things I learned--mostly by doing them badly. 

Plant Story--The Gangly, Gorgeous Queen of the Night Epiphyllum oxypetalum

"Here, wouldn't you like this?" my friend said, "it has a nice flower," and handed me a potted plant.  It looked rather like a Christmas cactus, with no particular spines, but was much bigger than a Christmas cactus, with some of the parts long and narrow, others broad and flat.

Epiphyllum oxypetalum

"Okay," I said, since I was always a sucker for a plant, especially one I knew nothing about. It came with its name on a handmade pot label, Epiphyllum oxypetalum. What a mouthful. I ignored the name.

Thoughts on Long-Term Studies

I ran a study of the western harvester ant, Pogonomyrmex occidentalis, from 1977 to 2019, 42 years. Most scientific studies are done in two or three field seasons, which represents the time students have for a project and the need for professionals to show results. Some topics need longer and get it. Academic careers are about 40 years, so if started the year the scientist was beginning, 40 years is about the limit, unless a second person picks up the project. But people willing and able to do long-term studies are rare. In the case of the harvester ant study, retired well before I finished the harvester ant project.

western harvester ant (Pogonomyrmex occidentalis) colony
They can live 40 years.

I completed the project, but I learned a series of things I didn't expect:

Travel Story--National Bonsai and Penjing Museum

We love going to Washington, D.C. to see the museums. Having been there several times, my husband and I are now finding lesser-known museums. This trip, one was the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum. Who knew!

Bonsai is the Japanese name for the art the Chinese call penjing (and vice versa). Both countries have a very long history of growing miniaturized plants. The museum had some awesome pieces--I'll call them bonsai because it is the more familiar name. Both awesome in age and beauty.

Studying Western Harvester Ants, Pogonomyrmex occidentalis

I just published a research project I began in 1977. 

I had no idea what I was getting into. E. O. Wilson wrote in The Insect Societies (1971) that we only knew how long the colonies of four ant species lived. I looked at the conspicuous mounds of the western harvester ant, Pogonomyrmex occidentalis, in western Nebraska and thought  "I can find out how long those live, just follow them for some years." So I walked along the ridge above the University of Nebraska's Cedar Point Biological Station, Ogallala, Nebraska, and put down a number scraped into a square cut out of a steel pop can and held down by a nail in the center, by every harvester ant colony I saw. Then the next year, I came back to see how many of the colonies were still alive.

harvester ant nest in the shortgrass prairie
(the pile of pebbles)

The Alnwick Poison Garden, Alnwick, UK

The Alnwick Poison Garden is a very famous collection of poisonous plants. On my recent trip to Edinburgh, Scotland, we made a day trip south to Alnwick, on the coast in northernmost England. 

The Poison Garden is part of Alnwick Castle's gardens, all of which had a recent make-over and are quite lovely. I was there in a drizzle with not much time, so I focused on the Poison Garden. 

bittersweet nightshade, Solanum dulcamara

Plant Story -- Orange Hawkweed, Hieracium aurantiacum

I grew up calling it Indian paintbrush, so when I went west and was shown Indian paintbrush, I was puzzled. Currently, the websites say hawkweed is Hieracium, and Indian paintbrush is Castilleja. No relation between them. So I've learned to call the plant hawkweed. Actually, orange hawkweed, Hieracium aurantiacum or Pilosella aurantiaca.

orange hawkweed, Hieracium aurantiacum

Boulder Open Space, September after the Marshall Fire

The city of Boulder Colorado preserved a lot of open space within its city limits. Boulder is at the edge of Great Plains, the foothills rising quite abruptly on the west side of the city. The grasslands of the city open space are a mix of plains plants and mountain meadow plants. 

looking west and a little north in southern Boulder, Colorado

September is near the end of the growing season in Boulder. Frosts and snowstorms are uncommon but not unknown. Most likely, though, it will be nice through November, so the plants can open a few more flowers and produce additional seeds. 

I walked a short distance from the Marshall Mesa Trailhead. This area burned in the Marshall Fire of December 30, 2021 and I looked for the effects. 

Travel Story - Glimpses of Edinburgh, Scotland

We planned a return to pre-pandemic travel, a trip to Edinburgh, Scotland. We would spend week in a nice hotel with day trips into the countryside. The plan was good, but didn't allow for catching a cold. I haven't had a cold in easily five years...I felt lousy and lacked interest in being a tourist. However, I have argued that you can enjoy new places without the need to rush around to see everything. Looking back, the very reduced vacation was still neat.

Edinburgh, Scotland

Snarky Septuaginarian-- Dangerous Plants

wisteria, not very toxic

I've been a biologist 53 years, counting from the date of my bachelor's degree. As a University of Nebraska professor, I did ecology research and taught for 31 years, since then I've written extensively about plants, carefully checking my facts. Biological errors get to me. Today I am allowing my inner curmudgeon out.

Plants can be poisonous. A very few are so deadly that a bite will kill a healthy adult. Other plants will upset your stomach. More plants just don't taste very good. Sloppy reporting of plant dangers offends me. 

Plant Confusions: the Bugleweeds, Ajuga and Lycopus

Growing in my back yard since I bought the house in 2006 is a plant I only just learned a name for. Its Ajuga reptans, a little mint native to Europe that is used as a ground cover. My friend called it ajuga, and ajuga is used as its common name. Reading about it, I discovered the common name in USDA plant list (link) is bugle. Googling it sends you to bugleweed. 

bugleweed, Ajuga repens

Knowing it as ground cover, I was surprised to find it mentioned as a medicinal plant. 

But searching for more information on its medicinal qualities, I found I was often reading about Lycopus. For example, when I followed "bugleweed for thyroidism" I arrived at an article for Lycopus virginicus.

Lycopus is another mint genus, taller than Ajuga, with some plants native to North America. 

Late Summer in the Garden

Late August is surely the height--or just past the height=--of summer. The temperatures are as hot as they'll get. Many plants are in full bloom. I rarely appreciate "high summer." By this time I'm tired of being too hot and weeding has gotten old. And yet, my plants are reveling in being warm and large. So I took my camera to document the peak of the growing season.

The little French marigolds (Tagetes patula) that I planted this spring are about at their best. Their flowers are open and few are beyond flowering, maturing seeds. 

French marigolds, Tagetes patula

The Impossible Origins of Purslane, Portulaca oleracea

Purslane, Portulaca oleracea, is a worldwide crop and weed (see last week's post link). It has been cultivated for thousands of years in both the Old World and the New. That doesn't make much sense: how did it cross the oceans before Columbus?

purslane, Portulaca oleracea

Plant Story--Purslane, Portulaca oleracea, Nutritious and Weedy, Everywhere

Purslane (Portulaca oleracea, purslane family Portulaceae) is a very widespread, common plant. 

purslane, Portulaca oleracea

So much has been written about it that mostly I'm going to remind you to notice it.

The "Ideal" Weed

My major professor, Herbert G. Baker, caused a stir in academic botany in 1965 by publishing a list of the characteristics of an "ideal" weed. Since weeds are not popular, an ideal one is a troubling idea.

What Baker did was to look at the characteristics of successful weeds and reduce them to a list, characters of plants highly adapted to reproducing rapidly under any conditions. No real plant has all those characteristics, but some have several. 

The paper made me look analytically at troublesome, weedy plants...and reluctantly admire their resilience and productivity. Fifty-seven years later, these are still good ideas. 

Thoughts on Weeds, Useful Plants, and Wild Plants

Facebook gardening groups post pictures of plants found in their yards and ask "Is this a plant or a weed?" Botanically that is a terrible statement because all weeds are plants, though not all plants are weeds. But what the writer meant was, "Is this a desirable or undesirable plant?" 

We can identify the plant, and if the property owner didn't plant it, then it will likely be called a weed.

But that is so limited! I'd like at least a third category. 

Estes Park, Colorado: Wildflowers along the Stream

Hiking in Estes Park, Colorado at 7,500' elevation on the east side of the Colorado Rocky Mountains, last June, I climbed a rocky slope and shared the plants and views a couple weeks ago (link). The next day I walked downhill and along a clear, turbulent stream. The plants were quite different.

Stream, Estes Park, Colorado

The difference wasn't elevation as much as habitat. The stream provided water in the soil and humidity in the air. These supported leafy trees that cast shade and trapped the water that evaporated off the stream. And finally, streams periodically flood, leaving silt to build and enrich the soil along their banks. So for all these reasons, the streamside plants were different from the hillside plants. 

The Victoria Water-lily 2. The Plant

The Victoria water-lily (Victoria amazonica) is a grand plant with 8' diameter leaves and big fragrant white flowers. It caused a stir when it was discovered and the English made it a symbol of Queen Victoria.  It made another stir last week when a new publication recognized a giant water-lily in the same genus, Victoria boliviana, with 10' diameter leaves. (Description of discovery and the July 4, 2022 recognition of a third species in the genus Victoria in the previous post: link).

But beyond all that, it is an amazing plant.

 Victoria water-lilies, Urucayli River, eastern Peru
the white blob in the center is a flower

The Victoria Water-lily I. History

It is one of the wonders of the world. A water-lily with leaves 8' in diameter and beautiful fragrant flowers nearly 12" across. It would have been famous in any event, but it was discovered for England in 1836 in British Guiana by Robert Schomburgk, just as Queen Victoria was about to become Queen of England. Members of the British botanical and geographical communities, individually and collectively, dedicated it to Queen Victoria. So they named it Victoria regia in her honor. (Not without controversy, see Flower of Empire for a detailed story). 

Victoria water-lilies on the upper Amazon in Peru

Today you can see it growing in many botanic gardens or buy seeds if you want to try for yourself. Today it is called Victoria amazonica, with two other species in the genus, the largest described in July 2022. I'll explain all that. But when I saw the plant in Amazonian Peru, I was struck by its botany, not its name or history. So this became a two-part blog, one on the finding and naming of it, and the other on it as a plant (botany). 

Estes Park, Colorado, June Wildflowers

 Hike with me up a dry mountainside in Estes Park, Colorado. It is late June, almost July. But mountains are fun; climb a few hundred feet or turn a corner and the season is two weeks earlier or later, because it is cooler or warmer, shadier or sunnier, moister or drier there. Elevation and aspect make dramatic differences. (And so does location, going north or south changes your season too.) So you might see these plants in bloom in other months. 

western wallflower, Erysimum capitatum

Thinking about Insects

We need to revise our attitude toward insects. 

It is probably fair to say we've waged war on insects this last half-century in the United States. Insects were generally bad: mosquitos when you ventured outside, cockroaches and ants in the kitchen, caterpillars and grasshoppers in the garden, moths in the stored woolens, weevils in the jar of beans of walnuts. You get the picture.

bumble bee on echinacea flower

So we deployed better and better weapons against them, to the point of spraying pesticide around neighborhoods to kill mosquitos. But of course that killed all manner of nontarget insects. (And, very few mosquitos; to reduce mosquitos, drain their breeding puddles.) So today insect numbers are way down. Not just monarch butterflies, but painted lady butterflies, swallowtail butterflies, and many, many more.

The Attractive Wallflowers, Genus Erysimum

western or sanddune wallflower, Erysimum capitatum

Spring and early summer is when most members of the cabbage and mustard plant family, Brassicaceae, flower. There are a lot of them--774 species in North America. They share the "cross-like" flower structure: four petals at right angles, and the flowers tend to be yellow or white, so they can be hard to tell apart (hint: use seed pod shape.) But one genus that I quickly learned to distinguish is the wallflower, Erysimum. Wallflowers have a compact shape, large flowers (for a mustard), and orangy flowers that set them apart. 

How Accurate Was That Really?

How do I know what I read is accurate?

When I write about a plant, I pull books on that topic, books about herbs for example, from my shelf to see what they say about it. I search on the internet for government websites and blogs that discuss it. I usually want to identify the plant, define its names, describe where it originated and where it is found today, mention medical and other historical uses, and find a cool little fact about its biology to include. It becomes clear when reading all those sources that people writing about plants often quote each other. Of course. I didn't pour through old manuscripts to find the medical uses of yellow toadflax; I read people who did, or people who read people who did.  

yellow toadflax

And that's what's bothering me today. When are the people who I quote accurate and when am I repeating something doubtful?

Planting Natives: Beautiful Colorado Flowers

The push to plant natives to make habitat for native animals, particularly birds (see previous post link) touches our often-negative attitudes toward native plants (wild plants). "Really, I should plant that stuff?"

A bit of native Colorado grassland in June 
The thistle in front is native, wavy-leaf thistle, the blue flax (Linum lewisii) are hard to spot, the red-orange hawkweed (Hieracium) is from Europe, the yellow is a wallflower (Erysimum), and a diverse collection of hardy grasses.

Our local plants are really beautiful! I'm writing about northern Colorado today, I wrote about central California last week (link). If I had the photos, I could write a "beautiful natives" post for every region in the country.

California Natives in Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History Garden

The Pacific Grove Natural History Museum has a garden of native plants. In this post I share my photos from a visit in April. It meets two goals: a travel post and an affirmation that planting natives is not a hardship, you can have beautiful plants.

The first is the spectacular California flannel bush, Fremontidendron californicum (hibiscus family, Malvaceae). It is a native, fast-growing shrub (to 30'). The leaves and twigs are covered in a soft fuzz, the flannel. The scientific name honors J. C. Fremont (1813-1890) who explored California in the 1840s and took control of California for the United States in 1846. (See bios link). The plant is also commonly called fremontia, its former scientific name (Fremontidendron = Fremont-tree). 

California flannel bush, Fremontidendron californicum

Native Plants for Wildlife: Details, Details

I was easy to convince that native animals and the plants they depend on are declining, hit by the double whammy of land development and competition from introduced species. DougTallamy's solution--that we all grow some native plants in our yards and foster native animals by tolerating insect damage --birds eat insects! -- also made sense to me. (See more on the logic: link). Thus, I reviewed my yard and found a few natives, but many more garden plants introduced from Eurasia, as well as a nice collection of exotic weeds. So I resolved last winter not to add any plant that wasn't native (for a while at least) and replace plants that died with natives. 

The photo has several natives but as many nonnatives

Those were better as resolutions than as reality. 

Beautiful, Invasive Dame's Rocket, Hesperis matronalis

Dame's rocket (Hesperis matronalis mustard family, Brassicaceae) is an obvious garden plant with its bright red-purple flowers. But it grew so well in North America it is now on noxious weed lists across the U.S.

dames rocket, Hesperis matronalis

The Less Aggressive Iceplant, Sea-Fig, Carprobrotus chilensis, in California

I wrote last week about highway iceplant, Carprobrotus edulis (link). In 1970 as a new graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, I chose to write a paper about it. I had an Anthropology-Zoology major and writing a paper about a plant for Botany Department professor Herbert Baker was well out of my comfort zone. It is true, as I indicated last week, that I seized on iceplant as conspicuous, but there was more to it. During breaks, my roommates and I explored California, especially the coastline. I saw icesplant hanging off the cliffs at the edge of the Pacific and enjoyed incorporating my observatioins and photos into my assignment. Botanists go interesting places, for work.

Iceplant, Carpobrotus chilensis, California coast 1970
There's a pink flower in the center, 1/5 of the way down

The Aggressive Highway Iceplant, Carprobrotus edulis, in California

Visiting coastal California, you can't miss iceplant (Carprobrotus edulis). It grows in big patchs of pointy green fingers, covering the ground in a monoculture. Probably every visitor and resident in California gets to know it. In 1970, I was a new graduate student taking a Genetic Ecology course  at the University of California, Berkeley, from Herbert Baker. He assigned a research paper about a plant. I had no idea what I was doing. I saw iceplant and chose that for my project. 

highway iceplant, Carprobrotus edulis

So I go way back with iceplant. Iceplant is from South Africa. It was brought to California a hundred years ago and widely planted to stop erosion. It did that pretty well, and was an easy, low maintenance plant, so roads departments and parks, and people generally, planted it all over the place. In 1970 it was very widespread and people were just starting to wonder if that was good thing.

Iceplant on the Berkely campus 1970 

Scarlet Flax, Linum grandiflorum, Spectacular!

Scarlet flax, Linum grandiflorum, flax family Linaceae, is a short plant with bright red flowers. I have admired it for years; last year I planted it. 

scarlet flax, Linum grandiflorum 

Yard Plants in Monterey, California

I was in Monterey, California this week. I walked residential streets oogling the plants. Exotic plants with huge cascades of flowers, from places like Australia and South Africa. In full flower in April. And then I realized what I wasn't seeing: grass lawns.

Pride of Madeira, Echium candicans

Native Plants for Wildlife: How to Know a Plant is Native?

As I wrote two weeks ago (link), I'm trying to support birds by growing plants that produce insects for them to eat. The evidence is strong that native plants will support the insects that live around us and that most exotic plants will not. 

BUT, to feature native plants in my yard, I have to know what plants are native. Or, alternatively,  know which of the plants in my yard are not native. That is suprisingly hard. 

Plant Story:Trumpet Creeper, Campsis radicans

Trumpet creeper, also called trumpet vine, Campsis radicans (catalpa family, Bignoniaceae) has for years been one of my favorite plants. The flowers are spectacularl: large red tubes, classical hummingbird-pollinated shape. The tropics has many plants like this, but in New York and Ohio, trumpet vine stood out. In those areas, it was easy to recognize. Add to the red flowers, long leaves with five or more paired leaflets and one more leaflet at the tip and a woody base, and you see how I knew it when I saw it. And it had an easy common name, trumpet creeper, obvious and descriptive. 

This big plant is native to the southeastern United States where it is a magnet for ruby-throated hummingbirds, but also for long-tongued native bees and moths. It attracts other flower visitors, like smaller bees, and perhaps they sometimes pollinate. For bees getting nectar is a project since they have to climb into each flower, not just hover in front of it like a hummingbird. The nectar is so good that both the Northern Oriole and Orchard Oriole feed from the flowers. 

Becoming Part of Homegrown National Park

I've always liked native plants--stately cottonwoods (Populus deltoides), dramatic redbuds (Cercis canadensis), robin-attracting serviceberry (Amelanchier alnifolia), blanketflowers (Gaillardia species), columbines (Aquilegia species)...I can go on and on. I grow them in my yard (well, not the cottonwood, too big) because I like them. But I also have a bit of Kentucky bluegrass lawn (Poa pretense, from Eurasia), creeping buttercup as a ground cover (Ranunculus repens, from Europe), a maple (Acer, not local to area), lilacs (Syringa vulgaris, from Eurasia), iris (Iris, from all over the world), peonies (Paeonia from China), crocus (Crocus from Eurasia) and many others. I like them too.

blanket flower, Gaillardia, native

What I learned recently is that native animals--butterflies and moths, but also wood-borers and leafhoppers--often cannot eat introduced plants. That makes sense to me. In fact, I used to teach that one of the reasons for species being invasive is that they left behind the animals, fungi, and bacteria that ate them, and, with very little damage in the new continent, could grow much better. I never thought about the reverse of that: the impact of nonnatives on the native food chain.

Plant Story--Little Red Radishes, Raphanus sativus

The radish is an ancient vegetable that has been mainly reduced to a garnish. 

radishes, Raphanus sativus

Calling the radish just a condiment is a little excessive, since in Asia radishes are important foods, but in my life, mostly little radishes are sliced into a salad for a little color. Yet they have been grown by Europeans for 5,000 years, and in Asia for at least 2,000. They were an important vegetable in Egypt 4,000 years ago. Greeks and Romans ate radishes, cooked and raw. The Romans spread them all over Europe But we don't seriously consider eating a dish of radishes...

It is Spring, Some Places

Spring is late on the Front Range of Colorado this year. It is almost mid-March and my yard is under snow. Again. Normally I would have snowdrops and crocuses by now. So a visit to Corvallis and Eugene Oregon was a shocking, wonderful leap forward into spring. I'm posting spring flower pictures for your enjoyment if you are already in spring, for your encouragement if you are not.

a big stand of hellebores (lenten rose, Helleborus)

Plant Story--Weeping Willow, Salix babylonica

I was four years old when my parents rented an old house in Scotia, New York. That was the 1950s; my father shoveled coal into the furnace each morning for heat. The back yard was dominated by a weeping willow tree. I think that was the first tree I learned. The tree was huge. Or, I remember it as huge. I was pretty small during the three years we lived there. The fact that I couldn't reach more than a quarter of the way around the trunk should be modified by remembering how short my reach was, at the beginning of elementary school. But my memory that the tree was taller than the two-story house is surely accurate. A big tree with dangling branches, creating a lot of fallen twigs that my father disliked. But the sticks were great for my games!

weeping willow, Salix babylonica

Evening Primroses in Early Modern Science

Missouri evening primrose, Oenothera missouriensis

Evening primroses are a group of moderately obscure North America wildflowers (genus Oenothera, evening primrose family, Onagraceae). Unrelated to primroses or roses, evening primroses are pretty and easy to grow, so they have played a solid role in the development of genetics and plant biology.

If you ask, "why do botanists study some plants and not others?" the answers are all very human. Does it grow where they work? Or at a spectacular location where they would like to work? Do they know the plant? That gives showy flowers an edge. Can it be grown easily? Having as many plants as you want allows much better experiments.

Evening primroses do most of those well, so they were noticed by botanists long ago. Which led to publications about their biology, and to more study.

Plant Story-- Eastern Catmint, an Ornamental Nepeta Species

Catnip, Nepeta cataria, is famous, the plant that is a cat drug. Its genus Nepeta, however, includes from 251- 350 species, native to the Old World. Several have been introduced into North America as garden plants. This blog is about N. racemosa, called eastern catmint, racemose catmint, and dwarf catnip. You can find it sold as Nepeta mussinii, which was its name, but has been replaced.

eastern catmint, Nepeta racemosa

This is a cute little plant, less than 2' high, which has bright purple flowers and richly green leaves. In my garden it comes into full bloom well before much of anything else is available for bees. 

Have You Seen...? An Eclectic Botanical Quiz

This week's post is a gallery of very neat plants. I have snow on the ground, snow in the forecast; its a good time to look at colorful photos.

Here are the pictures. You can make it a quiz.

HAVE YOU:   

1. Seen camellia plants heavy with flowers?

  camellia

This photo is from Oregon. Camellias are native to Asia. In Japan, the samurai reportedly disliked camellias because the fallen flowers reminded them of decapitated heads.  

Another Anniversary!

 I started this blog at the beginning of February, 2013. I am celebrating its 8th anniversary.

How very long ago 2013 seems! 

I started writing this blog to make good plant stories more available. For example, a Supreme Court decision that decided the tomato is a vegetable; several plants native to the Americas became such a part of Eurasian cultures so fast that by the 1700 people thought they were Eurasian plants, for example chili peppers, and plumeria (aka frangipani and Indian temple tree). 

red flax, Linum grandiflorum, a plant I grew because I'd read about it.

                                             It is as pretty as it was described to be.

Plant Story--Tasty Goji Berries, Chinese Wolfberries, Lycium species

The familiar fruits of the U.S. are only a small portion of the fruits eaten around the world. One that appears increasingly in the U.S. is the goji berry. As with many new fruits, they have lots of names, few  in widespread use. They're called Chinese wolfberries, Chinese box thorn, Barbary box thorn, and matrimony vine. Two species are sold commercially, Lycium chinense and L. barbarum.  The Chinese name is gojizi or, in some transliterations, kouchi, which often becomes goji berry. There are other Chinese names for the fruit, such as yang-ju, and specialized Chinese names for leaves and stalks, which are used in traditional Chinese medicine.

goji berries, Lycium species, for sale in China

As dried fruit, goji berries are sweet but not very sweet. One of my books says they taste like licorice. I can detect what he thought was licorice but to me that's a very minor part of the taste. Fresh, they look like small cherry tomatoes, but are sweeter than tomatoes and lack that distinctive "tomato" flavor. 

A Plant's View: Plants in History

"Seriously," said Junior the Christmas cactus, wise in the ways of humans after decades as a houseplant, "What humans call history is just a list of past attempts to capture plants. You tell it as if heads of state or armies that were responsible, but, really, possessing particular plants is what has always motivated humans."

"Huh?" I said. 

Junior, a Christmas cactus

"Where should I start?" they asked. "The key to what you call civilization was agriculture. From that came cities and countries. Tell me that isn't all about plants?"