Plant Story--Black Pepper, Everyone's Spice

Black pepper, Piper nigrum (pepper family Piperaceae) has been an important commodity for millennia. We get it as a dark powder, or if you have a pepper grinder, little round pepper corns.

Growing on Sandy Tropical Beaches

beach in Hawaii

Our world has more ocean than land, so there are vast coastlines. I live in the center of the second-largest continent, which puts me nearly as far from a coastline as is possible. So of course I'm enchanted by beaches.

Plants in Winter

When considering winter in Colorado, I often want to write that plants rest, but in fact, I don't think that is true. A rest is defined as a time to relax and recover strength. Plants drop their leaves and go dormant in winter because they cannot move ice in their tissues, let alone use it to grow. Furthermore, water expands as it freezes, so freezing rips up most cells. There is no recovery of strength in winter, only waiting out an impossible season.

That said, the plants that survive through the winter are an elite minority.

Plant Story: the Passionflowers, Passiflora

Amazing, peculiar flowers

The passionflowers, also called passion vines and passion fruit, genus Passiflora (passionflower family, Passifloraceae) include about 625 species, all but a couple dozen native to the Americas.

Reading Chinese Medicine Ingredients

The Chinese herbal supplement lists as an ingredient "Radix Alba Paeoniae." It doesn't look like a standard botanical term and a Google search is confusing.

The ingredients of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) can be puzzling, but there is a system to it. This post is about interpreting Chinese medicinal ingredients. 

Plant Story--Chicory, Roadside Blue

You see chicory on the roadside during the morning commute, a splash of bright blue. Coming home, you don't notice it. When you think about it, the blue flowers aren't generally out in the fields either.

Plant Common Names--Rules and Customs

tomato, Solanum lycopersicum

The scientific community has given every plant a single scientific name, written as if it were in Latin (link). But mostly people call plants by a common name, one in the local language. Many--if not most--common names are unlike the scientific name.

apple tree, Malus domestica