Travel Story--Cornwall, The Far Southwest of England

Cornwall is the peninsula that runs west and south of the main part of the island of Britain, into the Atlantic. Beautiful and distinctive, here are some highlights of a recent tour I took there with the trou company Road Scholar.

The coast of Cornwall

Plant Story--Yarrow, Achillea millefolium, Ancient Healing Herb, repost

Plant Story-- Yarrow, Achillea millefolium, an Ancient Healing Herb

Reposted and slightly edited from 2014

Achillea millefolium yarrow

Yarrow, Achillea millefolium, is a familiar wildflower with an interesting and confused history. A member of the very large sunflower family, Asteraceae, it is quite closely related to wild and cultivated chamomiles.

Plant Story--Reasons to Like Primroses, Primula species, reposted

Plant Story -- Reasons to Like Primroses, Primula species

reposted and slightly edited from 2014 post. 

common primrose, Primula vulgaris

I had been trying for years to grow primroses, genus Primula. In 2013m stuck three sad little plants, rescued from the nursery’s end-of-the-season stock, into my yard and ooh, in 2014 all three are alive and flowering!

Primrose eliator, from my yard

Monophyly and Plant Name Changes

Plant names keep changing. Some changes are based on studies that show previously unknown relationships. Plants are moved to reflect that and sometimes the names change. Other times plants are found to be the same or different and the process of merging or splitting a species creates a name change. More puzzling to non-botanists are mergers and splits based on phylogeny. Let me try to explain. 

Pasque flower, Anemone pulsatilla

Plant Story--Silky-leaved Lamb's Ears, Stachys byzantina

Lamb's ears, Stachys byzantina, is a mint brought from Tuirkey, Armenia, Iran, and Azerbaijan in western Asia, to be a garden plant.

lamb's ears, Stachys byzantina

Indigenous Knowledge and Problematic Common Names

Language steadily changes. Words are added because we have new things to describe. Meanings shift. I just read Moult’s Relation, a record of the Plymouth Colony, 1620. Relation in the title is “what Moult related” but it sounds really weird to me. In it, a rope trap to catch a deer was described as “as artificially made as by any roper in England”—the writer clearly meant "skillfully" so artificial's meaning has shifted.

Hopi tea, greenthread, Thelesperma megapotamicum

Naturally, we have plant common names whose meanings or nuances have changed. Some are insulting or objected to by the people they refer to. People regularly suggest changing ones they don’t like. The American Public Garden Association (link) asked for input and in 2021 published a report on “Potentially Problematic Common Names in North American Public Gardens”. They found a long list of “potentially problematic” words, noting, that “… words may seem completely benign to one group, culture, or language while holding offensive and egregious connotations for another.” (p. 26 )

Plant Story--Red Yucca, Hesperaloe parviflora, a Very Handsome Plant

I saw red yucca in bud or flower all over the Dallas Fort Worth area of Texas in April. A handsome plant, it was easy to learn to recognize it.

red yucca, Hesperaloe parviflora

Plant Story--Sorghastrum nutans, Indiangrass, Yellow Indian Grass

Sorghastrum nutans was one of the three most common grasses of the tallgrass prairie. Its range spanned the U.S. from the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains. It has been recorded in almost every county across that range. And because prairies and meadows were plowed, most people don't know it.   

Sorghastrum nutans, Indiangrass, yellow prairie grass

Growing Native Wildflowers on the Colorado Front Range

When people grow native plants, the plants are domesticated or becoming domesticated, whether we intend it or not. The conditions in yards and gardens are pretty different from growing in the wild, even in the same location. This post is about that contrast.

black-eyed Susans, Rudbeckia hirta, in a garden

Plant Story--Balloon-Flower, Platycodon grandiflorus, Ornamental, Food, and Medicine

  Balloon-flower is a pretty ornamental from Asia. 

balloon-flower, Platycodon grandiflorus

Balloon-flower is sufficiently unique that there is only one plant in the genus Platycodon, the balloon-flower, Platycodon grandiflorus. It is in the bellflower family, Campanulaceae.

Travel Story--Laura W. Bush Native Texas Park, Dallas, Texas

Visiting Dallas, Texas, we stopped into the George W. Bush Presidential Center, to find a gem of a garden I had never heard of, the Laura W. Bush Native Texas Park ( link)

Amazing hillside of wildflowers, Laura W. Bush Native Texas Park

Plant Story--Beautiful Gunnison's Mariposa Lily, Calochortus gunnisonii

One of the first things that confused me about the mariposa lily was how to tell it from a sego lily. Different people pointed out the flowers to me and told me the name. It turns out they are both the name of this flower. The scientific name is Calochortus (lily family, Liliaceae) but it is called both mariposa lily and sego lily. 

Gunnison's mariposa lily, Calochortus gunnisonii

Travel Story--the Botanical Garden in Quito, Ecuador

Quito, the capital of Ecuador, is at 9,350' in elevation (the various neighborhoods a little higher and a little lower) and the town center is about 15 miles south of the Equator (latitude 0ᆼ,0', 0"). I live at about 5,000' elevation in Colorado. Where I live, winter lasts from October to May. In Quito, there is no winter. Despite the elevation, Quito does not have frosts and consequently, the Botanical Garden had amazing tropical plants. It boggled this temperate zone botanist's mind.

orchid (Epidendrum) growing outside in Quito

Followers

 I know a lot about plants. Websites and blogs, not so much. So today, after 13 years of blogging, I figured out and added the Follower's gadget. 

Who knows what other discoveries are out there...

Photos of bouquets for fun: 

Plant Story--Red valerian, Jupiter's beard, Valeriana rubra, Centranthus ruber

The plant is called red valerian or Jupiter's beard. Here's a picture

red valerian, Jupiter's beard,
Valeriana rubra formerly Centranthus ruber

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Travel Story--Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, Austin, Texas

For me, who writes about plants and checks her accuracy in books and on websides, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center (website) has long been a resource I rely on, both the website (Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower data base) and books they have published. So to visit the actual center was a treat!

flower bed of evening primroses (Oenothera)

Disambiguation of Some Common Plant Names 3: Marigold, Mountain Ash, Bugleweed, and Loosestrife

Common names are locally-used names. Nobody standardizes them. So it is easy for people to use the same common name for different plants. 

marigolds, genus Tagetes

Plant Story--Common Poppies, Corn Poppies, Flanders Poppies, Papaver rhoeas

 Poppies are cheerful flowers of middle and late spring. 

common poppies, Papaver rhoeas

Travel--Spring in the Chinese Garden in Montreal

Traveling, my husband always tries to pick the perfect time: not too hot, not too cold, not rainy, etc. He scheduled us to see Montreal, Quebec, Canada, the second week in May because apparently tourists start arriving the third week in May and hotel prices rise dramatically. I am not sure whether he thought about what that said about Montreal's weather. We flew into most of a week of chilly temperatures and light rain. 

So I have to say this was not the perfect time to see Montreal. 

rhododendrons in the Chinese garden

And yet, the Chinese Garden at the Jardin botanique de Montreal was gorgeous. 

Plant Story--Houndstongue, Gypsyflower, Cynoglossum officinale

About four years ago, I found an unfamiliar plant in my yard. I watched it flower and liked the pretty red flowers. So I let it go to seed. Mistake.

hounds tongue, gypsyweed, Cynoglossum officinale