originally posted: March 27, 2003 | by chelsie

Roman bathhouses were engineering, architectural, and artistic masterpieces; elegant places where friends could meet, chat, and relax. The baths included massages with fragrant oils, saunas, spas, and pools; the bath experience was an art of self-indulgence. Or was it? [Click here to read more...]

originally posted: March 20, 2003 | by chelsie

The genus Coffea has twenty-five to forty species depending upon the authority. Of those species, only one, Coffea arabica Linnaeus, has come into general cultivation in tropical areas around the world. Coffees are small, subcanopy trees native to Africa. Traditionally, coffee was cultivated within forests or under large shade trees. [Click here to read more...]

originally posted: March 13, 2003 | by chelsie

The pussy willow (Salix discolor Muhlenberg) is native to moist habitats of Canada and the northern U.S. The shrub is a herald of spring, usually the first to expand its buds. Pussy willows flower before leafing. In late February or March, branches of pussy willow are brought indoors and placed in vases. The 'forced' buds expand into soft, silvery-gray 'pussy-toes'. [Click here to read more...]

originally posted: March 6, 2003 | by chelsie

Scotch thistle (Onopordum acanthium Linnaeus) is native to Eurasia. It is well armed; the leaves and phyllaries (bracts below the flowerhead) have spines, the stem has spined alae (wings, leaf-like tissues). The unwary browser is quickly educated by the plant. [Click here to read more...]

originally posted: February 27, 2003 | by chelsie

The Cucurbitaceae, [kew kur bi tay' see ee] the family of cucumbers, pumpkins, squash, and watermelons, contains several fruits that mature hollow and are called gourds. There are an estimated five hundred species in 114 genera within the family. Those useful to humans have numerous varieties; one seed catalog alone offered seventeen cucumbers, ten pumpkins, and seven watermelons. Members of the family are native to different continents; they were domesticated by various cultures. Humans spread cucurbits around the world. [Click here to read more...]

originally posted: February 20, 2003 | by chelsie

Seeds from flowering plants are generally considered simple things to most people. Stuck into the soil, the seed grows into a plant. It is generally known that what a plant becomes is determined by its genes--half come from the mother plant which produced the seed and half from the father which donated the pollen. But seeds are not simple. [Click here to read more...]

originally posted: February 13, 2003 | by chelsie

The orange is not a species; no wild type has been discovered. Oranges, both sour and sweet, do escape from cultivation and grow in the wild, but there was no original wild orange. The designation for the sweet orange, Citrus sinensis Osbeck, is a name of convenience used in horticulture and agriculture. (It is shunned by most taxonomists.) Linnaeus's designation--Citrus X aurantium--belongs to sour and sweet oranges, as well as grapefruit, indicating hybrid status. The orange is now believed a cross between a pomelo (Citrus maxima) and a tangerine (C. reticulata). [Click here to read more...]

originally posted: February 6, 2003 | by chelsie

In 1905, David Fairchild of the U.S. Department of Agriculture hired Frank N. Meyer to work as a plant hunter. Within months, Meyer left the U.S. to explore China. His assignment was to find new varieties unknown to the western world. Meyer hiked the Chinese countryside. [Click here to read more...]

originally posted: January 30, 2003 | by chelsie

Ericaceous plants--blueberries, azaleas, heathers, and heaths--have symbiotic relationships with mycorrhizal fungi. The subterranean fungal partners extract and transfer nutrients to the roots of the ericaceous plants, the plants in turn provide photosynthates (products of photosynthesis--sugars, starches) to the fungus. Many plants like conifers have similar arrangements for attaining nutrients. [Click here to read more...]

originally posted: January 23, 2003 | by chelsie

Of all the seeds planted in an herb garden, parsley (Petroselinum crispum (Miller) Nyman ex A.W. Hill) is usually the slowest to germinate. The seeds may take up to a month before the tiny leaves appear above the ground. A legend, told me in my youth, stated the seeds must visit the devil three times, a week each visit, before allowed to grow. [Click here to read more...]

originally posted: January 16, 2003 | by chelsie

Bracken (Pteridium aquilinum (Linnaeus) Kuhn) is a cosmopolitan species (found around the world). Unlike most ferns which like consistent moisture, bracken grow on drier sites. Bracken fronds arise from alternate branches of a thick rhizome; the main rhizome produces no fronds and may grow as deep as two meters underground. [Click here to read more...]

originally posted: January 9, 2003 | by chelsie

The sweet pea (Lathyrus odoratus Linnaeus) was introduced to England and the Netherlands in 1699 from a Franciscan monastery in Sicily. Sweet peas are thought native to North Africa possibly Tunisia. Their original introduction to Sicily is lost to history, perhaps they came with ships out of Carthage in Roman times. [Click here to read more...]

originally posted: January 2, 2003 | by chelsie

The plant that would become the English or garden pea (Pisum sativum Linnaeus) began around 5000 BCE cultivated from Persia to northwestern India. No one knows exactly how the garden pea came into existence for no wild Pisum sativum has been found. The plants are cultigens; they came into existence under the effects of cultivation, the result of centuries of selection by gardeners. Peas are sufficiently different from their forebears to be classified a species. [Click here to read more...]