Pulmonaria

Here's another one from my parents' place in Virginia: Pulmonaria angustifolia, or lungwort.



This particular lungwort species is different from other plants in the genus, which are characterized by light green spotting on the leaves' surfaces. In any species, however, all lungworts have very scratchy leaves.



You can see that more flower buds are forming and will possibly unfurl soon, which is odd because this plant usually flowers in late spring. Perhaps it's confused, like the cherrylaurels I mentioned two weeks ago.



No doubt, you can determine there is a connection between the genus name and the common name. Pulmos is Latin for lung, and historically people thought the spotted leaves of Pulmonaria indicated that this plant was a cure for diseased lungs. The plant has no modern medicinal uses.

When a common name ends in -wort, you can usually assume that it has had (or still does) a therapeutic reputation. St. Johnswort (Hypericum perforatum), woundwort (Stachys palustris) and barrenwort (Epimedium) are other examples that illustrate this point.

Aconitum

Here's the drill at my folks' place in Virginia: I go to a plant nursery with them and, on a whim, we pick up a few perennials that I want to watch grow in order to decide if I like them. I plant them and presume them deceased when, after a year, they have done nothing. Inevitably, a few years later, they rise from the dead and baffle my parents, who wonder 'Where did this come from?' They take a picture, email it to me and I feel a little surge of relief to know that I didn't kill the damn thing.

This happened recently with Lycoris squamigera, and today I received these photos of Aconitum.


Aconitum has some of the coolest common names, ever: monkshood, woman's bane, wolfsbane, devil's helmet and leopard's bane. Apparently this plant is the ruin to a fair amount of forbidding creatures.


This is primarily due to the many toxicological (or therapeutic, depending on how you look at it) uses its various species possess. In some cases, they provide the poison for arrows; in other cases it has been used as an anodyne (painkiller that functions by creating numbness).

For most of these species, the plant is benign in only the tiniest of doses and is cultivated with great care. A bit too much can result in fatal consequences. A few famous literary characters have died from Aconitum poisoning, including Leopold Bloom's father in James Joyce's Ulysses. Medea tried to use it for her murderous plot and, more recently, Harry Potter has been quizzed on the proper use of wolfsbane at Hogwart's.



It's pretty easy to understand why the common names monkshood and devil's helmet are applied to Aconitum -- the flowers are shaped like a hood or helmet. The other common names most likely relate to the pharmaceutical reputation this plant has accrued over the ages and across cultures.

The scientific name also relates to the plant's toxic qualities: Aconitum is derivative from the Greek word for dart and can be loosely translated as unconquerable poison.

Naked Lady

Naked Lady is one of the common names for Lycoris squamigera, though if you google the plant, your results will be more...botanical if you search using the scientific name. This is especially recommended if you have a public workspace.

Lycoris is a bulb that blooms this time of year and is perhaps too often placed in the 'oddity' category and ignored as a wonderful late-summer addition to a garden. Like most bulbs, this plant puts out basal foliage in the spring. As the weather warms up, the foliage withers and dies, leaving what would appear to be virgin ground. Then, when August nears, erect stems rise from the ground...


...and in a matter of days, the plant bursts forth with a profusion of four to six blossoms per stem:


This plant has multiplied consistently in the six or so years since I planted it at my parents' place. This fall, I'll definitely need to divide it (or conscript my father to do it).

The photos above were taken shortly after an intense summer storm so you can see that the plant is quite resilient, too.

The plant is named for a Roman actress, who was also the mistress of Marc Antony. I suppose you can make some assumptions about why this name was applied. Squamigera means 'bearing scales' which likely refers to the bulb itself, which can appear scaly.

A few good reasons not to plant Bradford Pears

My students are no strangers to my... rants about Pyrus calleryana 'Bradford,' or Bradford Pears.

Sadly, I was not a plant geek when my parents hired a landscape designer for their house in Virginia. Otherwise, I would have protested against the use of this tree.

Alas, 20 years later this tree has succumbed like so many others Bradfords before it.

Bradfords, as you may know, are notoriously weak-wooded. They grow very quickly and that, coupled with the acute branching habit, is a recipe for the damage you can see in these photos. You have probably seen Bradfords and noted their perfect lollipop shape. After it loses a limb like this, it doesn't recover. Instead it looks like a lemon missing a wedge and will never quite fill in. Due to their low cost, they are also so over-used that the pollen is causing more allergies each spring when they bloom.

Finally, the wood rots very quickly after this kind of damage and it will be a fast ride to oblivion for this specimen.


It's always fun to say 'I told you so,' right? I'm glad no damage was done to their house, otherwise I may have held back a bit. But please: don't plant Bradford Pears!

Goldenraintree

Here's a shot of Koelreuteria paniculata, shortly after the seed pods had formed, in Arlington, Virginia. You'll note that the tree is upstaging a Hummer-Limo, the environmental opposite of yesterday's post.


I was hoping that there was some kind of meaning behind the genus name, but alas, it is simply named after a German naturalist, J.G. Koelreuter.

Goldenraintree, however, is a common name applied for more precise reasons. In early summer, large panicles of yellow flowers adorn the tree. As the flowers age they fall from the tree like so many canary colored raindrops. Shortly after, seed pods resembling Chinese lanterns form on the panicles and persist well into autumn. The transition from blooms to seedpods is very, very fast. In fact, on some trees, half the canopy will be in flower, while the other half has well-formed pods.


Perhaps this speedy transition also accounts for why the tree self-seeds very aggressively. I recommend to my students that they don't plant this over juniper beds or any other underplanting that will be difficult to weed. That's the situation my poor parents have inherited at their home in Virginia. Though the tree has a lovely form, each year my folks have to scour their lot for seedlings before they become too large, and they must sheepishly tell neighbors about this tree's aggressive progeny when they see saplings growing in the yard next door. This plant annoys them very, very much.

To prove the point, here you can see the seedlings sprouting in a planting bed nearby:


Goldenraintree is very easy to ID. Though there is a slew of plants that have pinnately compound leaves, very few have lobed leaflets. And to the tree's defense, it is very tough and performs well as a street tree.

When Environmentalists Get Carried Away...