originally posted: December 27, 2001 | by chelsie

In Mexico, the poinsettia (Euphorbia pulcherrima) becomes a large shrub. With annual sales around 300 million dollars (US), the poinsettia has become a familiar plant. But the modern poinsettia would seem strange to the Aztecs who revered it. [Click here to read more...]

originally posted: December 20, 2001 | by chelsie

The moodjar (Nuytsia floribunda (Labill.) R. Brown) of Western Australia is a hemiparasite, a mistletoe. Unlike other mistletoes in its family, the Loranthaceae, the moodjar does not grow upon the above-ground portions of host plants. Nor does it remain shrubby. It is the largest of the mistletoes, growing to 10 meters (30 feet). [Click here to read more...]

originally posted: December 13, 2001 | by chelsie

Fireweed (Erechtites hieracifolia Rafinesque) [ee' reck ti' tes hire as' e fo' lee a] is not a pretty plant. In A Modern Herbal, Mrs. Grieve describes it as "this coarse, homely American weed..." Fireweed is a rank and rangy annual, individual plants will grow wherever soils have been disturbed. [Click here to read more...]

originally posted: December 6, 2001 | by chelsie

Violets (Viola spp.) are crafty plants and have an assortment of methods whereby they will not be driven from their ground. The sooner a gardener understands this, the easier it is to get along with violets. [Click here to read more...]

originally posted: November 29, 2001 | by chelsie

There are a number of odd things about the domesticated banana plant (Musa X paradisiaca Linnaeus). It is an arborescent (tree-like) perennial herb. The pseudostem (stalk) is composed of leaf bases bundled tightly together. The true stem, a rhizome, remains underground. The inflorescence (flower stalk) grows from the rhizome through the center of the leaf bases and emerges at the top of the bundled leaves. [Click here to read more...]

originally posted: November 22, 2001 | by chelsie

The coconut palm (Cocos nucifera) is monotypic, a single species within its genus. It produces a fruit called a drupe similar to a cherry or olive. But unlike the cherry or olive, the coconut's outer portion is modified into a fibrous flotation device and the seed is eaten. Within the seed is a liquid endosperm that led to scientific discovery and launched an industry. [Click here to read more...]

originally posted: November 15, 2001 | by chelsie

The Chinese ladder brake (Pteris vittata Linnaeus) [ter' is vi tat' ah] is one of those ferns that does not live like a fern. The brake prefers full sun and rocks, not minding alkaline limestones or concrete rubble. Native to China, the brake is an escapee and is now found in most of the warm areas of the world. In Florida, it has picked some unusual places to habituate. [Click here to read more...]

originally posted: November 8, 2001 | by chelsie

The oaks (Quercus spp.) in a park do not appear strange; rather they are considered stately and give one a sense of relaxed graciousness. Oaks appear to shrug off the indignities of nature and simply to endure. But oaks can and do wage war. [Click here to read more...]

originally posted: November 1, 2001 | by chelsie

It is called the Skeleton Coast, a place of shipwrecks where the vast Namib meets the Atlantic. This is the oldest desert on Earth, an uninhabited land, an uninhabitable land. The Herero call it the Kaokoveld, the coast of loneliness. [Click here to read more...]

originally posted: October 25, 2001 | by chelsie

The sensitive briar (Mimosa quadrivalvis) [mi mo' sa quad ri val' vis] is native to the Americas with a number of varieties ranging from Brazil to Canada. Linnaeus named the genus Mimosa from the Latin mimus or mime since the plants mimic the movement of animals. This low creeping briar is at home in old fields, pastures, and roadsides where it is subject to the predations of herbivores. But the plant has two tricks to defend itself against predators. [Click here to read more...]

originally posted: October 18, 2001 | by chelsie

The maguey or blue agave (Agave tequilana azul Weber) [ah gah' va ta key' la na ah' zul] is a succulent native to the high pine-oak forests and thorn scrubs of Texas, Arizona, and Mexico. This relative of the lily is a hardy thing, tolerant of the heat of day and the cold of night. Archaeological evidence shows that this agave has been cultivated for at least 9,000 years, apparently one of the first plants useful to early man. [Click here to read more...]

originally posted: October 11, 2001 | by chelsie

The petunias (Petunia X hybrida) of today are robust plants with big showy flowers; our grandparent's petunias were rangy plants with small flowers. We have lots of colors to pick from, our grandparents had but a few pale pinks, lavenders, and whites. But, the petunia of old held many of the colors petunias have now. The colors were merely hidden. [Click here to read more...]

originally posted: October 4, 2001 | by chelsie

The soybean (Glycine max) [gli' seen max] is a cultigen, a plant generated under cultivation, far removed from its wild predecessor. Sometime in the Eleventh Century BCE, the Chinese began cultivating Glycine ussuriensis, a weedy, creeping legume with small hard seeds. [Click here to read more...]