A Wandering Botanist

Vera aloe has been a household remedy for burns for millennia. It still works.

Vera aloe, Aloe vera

I live in Colorado. Castles are not a part of my landscape. So of course I was fascinated by the plants that had colonized the walls of Conwy Castle.

View of Conwy Castle

The dandelion is a plant everybody knows. That is quite a distinction since so many people are oblivious to the plants around them. And because dandelions are not particularly distinctive. There are many plants with similar yellow flowers and others with a puff-ball seed head. It is not the dandelion's  unique shapes that make it so widely recognized, but rather because it is so common.

common dandelion, Taraxacum officinale seen in Seattle, Washington

Winter enhances memories of summer. Here is a July visit to Guanella Pass, in the Rocky Mountains of central Colorado. 

Rocky Mountains, central Colorado, July

In April, 2018, I visited the Foster Botanical Garden in Honolulu and was delighted to see a double coconut, Lodoicea maldivica, (palm family Aracaceae) growing there. The double coconut, also called the Seychelles coconut, sea coconut, and coco de mer, has the largest seed in the world. It is endemic to two islands Seychelles, small islands in the Indian Ocean. At the time, the Foster Garden was proudly displaying seeds their double coconut had produced.The plants are rare and they are dioecious so a "male" and "female" plant are needed for reproduction.The Seychelles is trying to preserve and increase the wild populations so is not sharing seeds. To pollinate their female palm, Hawaiian botanists brought pollen from Singapore, where there is a male plant. (Blog posts from that visit the plant; getting the seeds. )

Seed of double coconut, Lodoicea maldivica, largest seed in the world, Foster Garden 2018

A few decades ago, milkweeds (genus Asclepias) were simply common native plants that could be poisonous to livestock, so they were ignored or eliminated. Then monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) populations were found to have decreased dramatically. Looking for causes, ecologists pointed to land development eliminating milkweeds, which are the only food plant of monarch caterpillars. Trying to help, people all over have been planting milkweeds for the monarchs. 

Showy milkweed, Asclepias speciosa with a monarch butterfly perched on it

 I flew into Manchester England for the start of a tour of Wales. It was September and I wondered whether any plants were still flowering. Awaiting the tour, I stayed at a hotel near the Manchester Airport, a very urban area. It was cloudy with intermittent rain. Nevertheless, I became restless and went out to look for plants (to "botanize"). 

willowherb, Epilobium

I think the word disambiguation is cute. It means to remove uncertainty, and in this context and Google's, to point out when two different things have the same name and clarify which is which. Scientific names were created to address this problem in plants and animals, but not everyone understands this and certainly not everyone uses scientific names. 

Below are disambiguations for sage, hemlock, bergamot, and yam. (More in future posts)

sagebrush, Artemisia is not the same as culinary sage, Salvia

I had two nights in Iceland thanks to Iceland Air. It was the end of September and I signed up for a tour north and west of Reykjavik, to the Snaefellsnes Penninsula. It was spectacular. 

Sumacs are common shrubs in North America, and inconspicuous except in the fall, when the leaves turn a brilliant red. 

When I wrote a blog post about my visit to Wales a couple weeks ago (link), it got long before I had shared the full trip. Here are more pictures from Wales, starting at about Cardigan and continuing southward.

the countryside in Wales

The New England aster (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae aster family, Asteraceae) is very widespread; in North America it is found from the Atlantic to the Pacific, missing only very dry states like Nevada. Distribution maps show it as native across all that range, but it is an attractive plant that was brought into gardens long ago and may have escaped and naturalized. 

New England aster

I took a tour in Wales, mainly along the coast. Wales, the southwest corner of Britain, is about 170 miles long and 60 miles wide, but hills, mountains, and rivers make it a lot more complex.  My tour, with Road Scholar, began just north of Wales in Manchester, and circled south along the coast, finally turning east to Cardiff and then London. 

We saw lots of green pastures, with cows or sheep

zucchini and yellow summer squash

Sorting out the squashes is a job for experts, which I am not. They are wonderfully confused.

“True squashes” are plants in the genus Cucurbita (Cucurbitaceae, cucumber family). About 15 species make up Cucurbita, all of them native to the Americas. 

Melons, such as cantalope genus Cucumis, watermelon, genus Citrullus (blog about watermelon) and others--all the melons--are from Asia, Africa or Europe. 

Gardens and yards are changing. People are reducing their use of herbicides and pesticides. Planting more water-wise plants. Adding natives. Appreciating mixes of plants not just monocultures, whether in the lawn or the flowerbeds. All of this is revising our ideas of what an attractive yard is. 

front yard, natives (and others), no lawn grass

I visited the cloud forest of Ecuador in May. As mountains everywhere rise, they block the movement of clouds. Day after day, clouds full of water, rising off the ocean, hit the same areas on the mountains. On the Pacific slope of Ecuador, that is at about about 3000 feet in elevation. Every day, the clouds roll in, shading everything, covering the forest in fog. Actual rainfall is moderate (80", more than most of the eastern U.S. but low for tropical rainforests) but the humidity is 80-90% most of the time. Under these conditions, a very tall mountain forest grows, lush with epiphytes (plants that grow on other plants), mosses, vines, orchids...all kinds of botanical wonders. Which then support diverse animals. 

clouds on Ecuador forest

Blooming near you in North America, generally ignored, is black medic, Medicago lupulina (pea family, Fabaceae). This is a little invader from Eurasia that is found all across the North America. 

black medic, Medicago lupulina

 Flies don't get much respect, we think of them mainly as pests. However, they are important pollinators.

Botanic gardens have many functions: as places to grow and protect rare plants, as places to show diverse plants to the public, as places to recommend yard and garden plants, as places to breed plants for human uses, and more. The Chicago Botanic Garden is no exception.  website

I visited for the first time in June. It is beautiful.

Chicago Botanic Garden

This post is about a native orchid, the scentbottle, Plantanthera dilatata (orchid family, Orchidaceae).

scentbottle orchid, Plantanthera dilatata

The bright yellow flowerhead nodded in the breeze, peeking out among a variety of leaves. Look! A coreopsis!

tickseed, Coreopsis grandiflora hybrid

Gardeners discovered them long ago, so there are many color patterns and varieties, and the plant you see growing in a garden is probably a hybrid, not a natural species.

 I visited the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, Chaska MN (website), at the end of April. I had heard about it for years and I had traveled with them on several excellent garden tours, so I was eager to see it. I found it was much more than I had expected. 

a magnolia in flower

Petunias Engineered. Petunia--the common one is Petunia x atkinsiana--are easy to grow. Petunias are fast-growing, hardy, diploid plants and so several plant research labs tried studying them. They soon became a model organism, widely used for research on plants, including plant genetics. (See previous blog on petunias generally). They were cutting edge for inserting and turning on genes from other species.

petunias in many colors

For this blog, I shopped a large garden store and came home with two transgenic petunias--orange and bioluminescent--and possibly the blackest flower in the world. Researchers inserted genes from corn into petunias to see how the biochemical pathways work; the successful insertion created an orange-flowered petunia. The orange petunia was a desirable garden plant which caused a scandal, a story I find fascinating.

Petunias are everywhere: in summer street plantings, in decorative pots, in hanging baskets. And yet, petunias are anonymous. Poor petunia, we barely notice you.

red petunias

My blog for this week, on petunias (Petunia), is running way behind. So, how about a post celebrating  early summer flowers? 

Blanket flower, Gaillardia (sunflower family, Asteraceae), below, is native to North America. There are 12 species, but only two are widespread, Gaillardia aristida and Gaillardia pulcella. The first is in the western and northern North America, the second in eastern and southern. Gaillardia xgrandiflora is their hybrid. I've seen them growing in gardens from Oregon to Florida, and if you were out hiking now, you could find wild ones in flower, all across the continent. 

blanket flower, Gaillardia

On my recent trip to the Galapagos I joined park rangers on hikes, and usually I was a laggard. I kept  stopping to see the plants. The rest of the group hopped from one animal photo op to the next. I tried to keep up but did a bad job of it.

the endemic tree cactus Opuntia galapagela

Just like its  animals, the Galapagos's plants include many that are unique and that differ from their mainland relatives and between islands. 

I recently visited the Galapagos for the first time, on a tour with the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum and Knowmad Adventures. The Galapagos Islands, whose animals and plants played a crucial role in Charles Darwin formulating his ideas of evolutionary change, is Must See location for biologists...so, contrarily, I scorned it for 50-odd years. But, eventually my curiousity sent me there. 

Galapagos

Sweet clover, genus Melilotus, is a group of some 23 species native to Eurasia, in the pea family, Fabaceae. Two of them, yellow sweet clover, Melilotus officinalis, and white sweet clover, Melilotus albus, are found all over North America. They are weedy and often quite aggressive, building up large populations quickly. But they add nitrogen to the soil, are good forage for livestock, are a source of honey for bees, and more. They have both supporters and detractors.

yellow sweet clover, Melilotus officinalis

white sweet clover Melilotus albus

The deciduous forests of eastern North America seem very dull as winter becomes spring. The snow vanishes to leave a layer of brown leaves under the leafless trees. 

central Minnesota forest in April

And, then you spot a spring wildflower!

Can you see it? A pink flower (pink form of rue anemone, Thalictrum thalictroides)

Particular plant species generally have particular habitats where you will find them. Rainfall, temperature range, shade, soil characteristics and disturbance (level of trampling or grazing or similar effects) determining where a plant thrives and where it does not survive. Thus, if you go looking for flowers, which ones you find depends on where you walk. 

We tend to see the same ones over and over, because they grow well where people walk, liking the sunniness and not minding being stepped on sometimes. Conversely, hikers will likely see quite different plants when they get a mile into the wilderness area

Rocky Mountain forest wildflower blanket flower, Gaillardia aristida

This rather odd-looking flower was common in the pine forest at 9000' in the Rocky Mountains in late June.  

silverleaf phacelia, Phacelia hastata

It is silverleaf phacelia, Phacelia hastata, in the waterleaf family, Hydrophyllaceae. 

 Beetles are always included in lists of pollinators. In fact, it is likely beetles were the first pollinators, moving pollen between flowers in some of the earliest flowers. 

beetle on a daisy flower

Beetles are insects in the order Coleoptera, the largest of all orders, with about 400,000 species. As flower-visitors, they are looking for food, eating pollen, chewing petals, drinking nectar. Pollen adheres to their bodies and then brushes onto the flower's stigma to self-pollinate or be carried to the next flower for cross-pollination.

I love folklore, I guess because it seems so fantastic. 

"In Norfolk, it was considered unlucky to cut holly, as distinct from breaking off berry-bearing twigs at Christmas time." (Vickery p 181).

holly, Ilex aquifolia

"In West Sussex, if you found nine peas in the first pod you gather, it boded good luck." (Vickery p.277). 

Pansy leaves are heart-shaped, so tea made from them will cure a broken heart. (Martin p. 11).

It's spring. Every day or so a different plant comes into bloom. Exciting times! As you notice them, consider these bits of folklore.

Grape hyacinths (Muscari species) are good luck growing outside, but brought in, cause gloom and depression. 

grape hyacinths

I first remember noticing pincushion flower (also called scabious, honeysuckle family, Caprifoliaceae) on a hike on the coast of Italy. What a pretty flower!

scabious, Scabiosa or Krautia, in Italy

Taiwan is an island just east of the continent of Asia. It is subtropical to tropical, full of scenic vistas, rugged mountains, and, being an island, it is surrounded by beaches. When the Portuguese discovered it in the 1500s, they called it Ilha Formosa, "beautiful island" an aptly descriptive name, though no longer in use.

beach, looking south

It is the end of winter, Colorado is still brown and beige, so here is a photo tour of coastal Taiwan. My photos are not especially colorful, so remember to imagine the temperature is a very comfortable 80^oF, a light wind is blowing and the humidity is very high.

The sphinx moths are the family Sphingidae of the Lepidoptera, handsome moths that can hover in the air. Many fly by day or during dawn and dusk, so are more often spotted and admired than their relatives that fly in the dark. 

sphinx moth pollinating vervain

Moths are the secret pollinators. They fly at dusk or after dark, tend to be small, and have blotchy color patterns. For all those reasons, they get little attention. And yet:  Moths are very numerous. They make up most of the insect order Lepidoptera, moths and butterflies. Lepidoptera are the second largest group of insects, after beetles, with 180,000 species, which is about 10% of all described living organisms. Lepidoptera are broken into 126 families; two families are butterflies, 17, 000 species, the rest are moths. So nearly 10% of the world's organisms are moths. And yet we generally overlook them. 

big tropical moth, about an inch across

 Everyone knows a broom:

broom

And lots of people know the plant, broom, common broom, Scotch broom Cytisus scoparius  

Scotch broom, common broom, Cytisus scoparius