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

Visting Michigan--Late Summer Splendor

There are lots of places to see in Michigan. I attended the University of Michigan and over the years visited many parts of the state. I had the opportunity to return this fall. The trees were tall and green, the forest dotted with meadows and ponds.

Here is a look at central Michigan habitats, roughly the area near Grand Rapids.

Plant Story--Day Flower, Commelina

dayflower, Commelina

Dayflowers were still flowering in late September this year. They are small plants with attractive blue flowers, peeking up through the grass all across North America. The scientific name is Commelina and there are a half dozen species found in North America, about half of them native. Worldwide, there are some 40 species.

Plant Story--Fragrant Oregano, Origanum vulgare

When I was a beginning gardener, decades ago, I tried to grow all the spices of my kitchen shelf: sage, rosemary, thyme, oregano and so on. I have had oregano in my gardens ever since.

Common oregano, also called Greek oregano, pot marjoram, and wild marjoram, is Origanum vulgare in the mint family, Lamiaceae (also called Labiatae). Origanum is the Greek name for the plant, although you can read the more romantic explanation that it is a combination of óros and gános meaning "mountain splendor" or "mountain joy," perhaps both are true. The species epithet, vulgare, means "common." Oregano in native to southern Europe where it has a number of close relatives, such as sweet marjoram (Origanum majorana).