Cheatgrass, also known as downy brome and downy chess, Bromus tectorum (grass family Poaceae) is a very small grass that has become a major weed. Generally we think of problems increasing as plants get bigger. Individual plants of cheatgrass are almost too small to notice. It makes up for that in numbers.
| patch of cheatgrass along a trail (red) |
Hummingbirds are a strictly New World group of birds, some 375 species (family Trochilidae) found from Alaska to southern Chile and Argentina. They are the main group of birds that pollinate in the New World. Fast and often brightly colored, people love to watch them. They typically hover while probing flowers for nectar, a fascinating sight.
| hummingbird pollinating Monarda |
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.
| red chrysanthemums |
As summer fades into fall, a different set of plants dominate the landscape. In my garden, the chrysanthemums that were an unassuming cluster of leaves all summer are now covered in blossoms. My fruit trees are dropping apples and peaches. Burning bush (Euonymous) and maples start to turn color.
| common wood sorrel, Oxalis stricta |
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 |