Mauna Kea and Hawaiian Blueberry

One of the places I absolutely *had* to visit when I was on the Big Island was Mauna Kea, Hawaii's tallest mountain, reaching a height of 13,900' above sea level. Technically, it's the world's biggest mountain, measuring 30,000' from the base, which is at the bottom of the sea, to the tip.


It's also the site of the world's largest astronomical observatory, with 13 telescopes representing 11 different countries. The air in this microclimate is the some of the driest on earth, second only to Antarctica. This, in addition to the absence of cloud cover and light pollution, makes for excellent astronomical viewing conditions.



Warned that going to the summit individually is quite difficult (you definitely need four-wheel drive) and reluctant to bring a bunch of winter gear with me from the mainland (it's a chilly 32° at the summit) I signed up for a tour with Mauna Kea Summit Adventures. The tour picked me up at 4pm, and along with about 12 other people, we had a picnic dinner at the visitors center (elevation 9000') before going to the summit for sunset.


After the sunset, we descended back to 9000' for some stargazing. I saw Saturn and its rings, the Omega Centauri, constellations Sagittarius, Virgo and Leo, as well as the beautiful binary star, Albireo. We also learned a fair amount about night viewing and general astronomy. It was an excellent tour and quite educational. By the time I got back to the hotel, nearing midnight, I was more than a little awestruck by how truly insignificant we are and by the incomprehensible age of the galaxies. (Light years, as a concept, always trips me up. The Omega Centauri is around 15,000 light years away. I see it, but because of its distance, it may not really be there anymore. Only in 15,000 years could someone know if it existed in 2010. Discussing this brain-bending concept with the tour guide, he quipped, 'I think that's why insanity is more common among quantum physicists and astronomers.' ...I can't verify that, but can imagine that the sense of profound insignificance, combined with the fact that - in such a profession - you ask questions that can never be truly answered, may be a bit maddening at times.)


I suppose that's why I prefer plants. There aren't a lot in this biome, but there were enough. I saw the plant below when we stopped for a photo-op at around 11,000'. Does it look familiar to any east coasters?


Those bell-shaped flowers are a clue, perhaps. Also maybe the reddish hue to the foliage...But who am I kidding, you read the post title so you know it's a blueberry, or Vaccinium reticulatum. In Hawaii the plant is commonly called the 'ohelo. There are two species of Vaccinium in Hawaii, and both have some subspecies, too, varying slightly among the different Hawaiian islands. V. reticulatum is found in open woodlands and high elevations, while V. calycinum is found in wet, wooded areas.


The plant's berries, like our more local V. corymbosum, V. caesariense, or V. angustifolium, make wonderful jams or jellies or can be eaten fresh. They can be picked by visitors and locals but the maximum takeaway is 1 quart when picking in parkland. That's because the plant provides habitat and food to two endemic moths as well as the endangered nene, or Hawaiian goose.

Cibotium glaucum

On Monday I mentioned the tree ferns that populate the forests near the active volcano at Volcanoes National Park. Today, we'll take a closer look at the Hawaiian tree fern, or Cibotium glaucum, or hapu'u.


As you can see from the photo above, Cibotium can reach heights up to 8 meters. I encountered this forest - the upper canopy consisting of ohi'a and the understory of hapu'u - while walking to the Thurston Lava Tube in the park. The scale of these beautiful plants is awesome, in the truest sense of the word.


The fronds have a pure, clear green color, with small leaflets. The plant can be propagated by spores - the ones on the youngest fronds are usually most fertile.



The fiddleheads are actually the size of real fiddle or violin heads. Much like other ferns, frying or boiling the heads is part of the local cuisine.


The plants' trunk can be edible as well, but is not very tasty. I read on one site that the trunk is considered "famine food."



In addition to the edible parts of the plant, the shaggy base of the trunk - or the pulu - has been used as a soft filling for pillows and mattresses. This use reached a peak in the mid 19th century and large swaths of tree fern forests were almost irreparably degraded. Much like I mentioned Monday in regards to Metrosideros, these forests are now more carefully managed.

Lobivia lonigispina

I wish I could say I was posting a photo of the Argentina landscape I took myself, but these were emailed to me last year. Friends had sent me these photos as well as the ones of Jacaranda mimosifolia that I posted last year.

I never got around to posting these cacti photos. They'd be in bloom again now, so they merit some attention. The plant at the bottom left is most likely Lobivia longispina. I write "most likely" because there's a fair amount of dialogue on the differences between Lobivia and Echinopsis, or whether the two genera are one and the same.

But based on the long spines, I'm hedging this is Lobivia longispina. Both genera thrive in the dry soil comprised of degraded volcanic substrates. They also most often occur naturally within a limited elevation (1800-4000 m) and on north, east and northeast faces (read: they don't like direct sun).

Apparently the pulp of these plants is quite tasty though I hope I'll never be thirsty enough to wrangle with one of these plants when on a Patagonian hike.

Veggie Garden, Rockaway Beach

I went to Rockaway Beach last week for the first time ever -- I was participating in a beach clean-up sponsored by the Surfrider Foundation. On my way from the subway to the beach, I fell in love with this garden.


It's completely ramshackle, but replete with ornamental perennials and vegetables.




The net fences indicated that, though the garden looked like it may have been abandoned, its owner is still actively involved. It has all the great bones of a potager; it just needs a bit of finishing school.



It's also a safe bet that the gardener in question knows a thing or two about natural pest control. Marigolds (or Tagetes species, most likely T. erecta, though Tagetes minuta also works) like the one below, have been planted throughout the garden. Marigolds are believed to have chemicals that deter pests such as aphids and have been a popular companion plant to tomatoes and other vegetables for years.

Hostas

Further down the block from the curious fruiting pear, there's a trio of raised planters housing a struggling perennial garden. The planters spend the summer under the dense shade of large Sophoras so few perennials thrive there.

However, hosta plants do best in the shade and one guesses that whomever takes care of this garden (maybe they're the same person who planted the pear?), has figured this out -- there are certainly a fair amount of cultivars planted there.


Most hostas are hybrids or cultivars of Hosta plantiginea, H. ventricosa or H. montana. Though the flowers, which are in bloom now, are lovely (and some are fragrant), hostas are sought after for their lush foliage, which varies widely in size, shape and color.

For example, the hosta above looks like 'Blue Angel' (or 'Blue Umbrella' or 'Blue Mammoth' or 'Blue Cadet' or 'Blue Jay'...I could go on), and is clearly cultivated for its color and large leaves. Alternatively, the hosta below is cultivated for its teeny-tiny size and chartreuse hue.



Here's another one, with a clear, jade-green leaf and white flowers.


And another, cultivated for its variegation (most likely this is 'Patriot').


As you can see, the variegated specimen is still leafing out and not nearly as full as the other plants. That can be due to an array of mitigating circumstances (bad soil, cigarette butts, who knows?) but variegated plants also grow more slowly because they have less chlorophyll. Chlorophyll, as you may recall from high school biology, basically runs the show in a plant leaf - on a cellular level. It's key to the process of photosynthesis, the process that produces sugars so that the plant can live and grow. Chlorophyll is also what makes a plant leaf green. So, on the white part of the leaves, there's no (or diminished amounts of) chlorophyll, thus less opportunity for photosynthesis, thus less robust growth.



Hostas are native to Japan and are named for a 19th Century Austrian botanist, Nicolaus Thomas Host. I've read that the young leaves are quite tasty and sold as greens in Japanese grocery stores. I know that deer certainly love them and that slugs will make quick work of a hosta leaf, too.

Fruiting Pear

Most of the pear trees I encounter in New York are Bradford Pears. And most of you know how I feel about the dreaded Bradford Pear. And even then, I've had to complain once or twice more. But I was actually surprised and even delighted to see this species of pear, Pyrus communis or fruiting pear, growing on East 5th Street.



I would love to know why a fruiting tree is growing here. Who planted it, and why? I was also surprised that it was even in fruit. Some fruiting trees, like cherries, cannot self-pollinate and I falsely assumed this was the case with Pyrus communis, but a quick google search attested that this plant can bear fruit individually. (Note: the need for a pollinator in orchard trees is not the same as a plant being monoecious or dioecious. Cherries, for example, do have male and female flowers on the same specimen, as opposed to hollies, which have male plants and female plants. Cherries just can't produce viable fruit without crossing with another cherry.)



The ability of the pear to self-pollinate is one of the reasons this plant makes a great orchard tree for the dilettante farmer. The plant is not nearly as high-maintenance as an apple, peach or plum. Fruiting pears thrive without much attention and don't get the blights, rusts and mildews that may attack their other relatives in the Rosaceae family.

And finally, below, a clue:


But who, or what, is Reine Valoir? A google search came up empty on anything specific to this tree or block. Reine is 'Queen' in French of course, and valoir is a verb that means 'to be worth.' So perhaps, this in fond memory of a Worthy Queen... Elizabeth? Victoria? Or maybe someone who worked at the nearby Lucky Cheng's?

Lonicera japonica

Coming back from the Astoria Beer Garden (the old one, not the new one), I encountered this fragrant honeysuckle thriving on an iron fence.


I have a soft spot for this plant, Lonicera japonica, primarily because I remember it from when I was a kid and, for a few years, was living on the Jersey shore. Our house abutted a salt marsh and was in a yet-t0-be-totally-developed area. We had an empty lot between our house and the neighbors' and a large honeysuckle had taken up residence there, growing on top of itself in massive heaps.

I'm not sure who told me, but I knew that you could pull out the stigma and, if your hand was steady enough, taste the droplet of nectar that came with it. It's incredibly, dizzyingly sweet. Of course the flowers, which slowly change from white to gold, have a wonderfully heady fragrance, too.


And yes: this plant is indeed quite invasive. You certainly would not want to plant it in an area where it can invade woodlands (or empty lots for that matter). But I don't think it's too sinful to enjoy a nostalgic moment in Astoria, when this particular specimen is unlikely to cause any larger environmental damage.

***

Then again, maybe not. After a bit more reading on invasive.org, I read that the original Lonicera japonica was brought to the North American continent via Queens. Oops.

Lonicera is named for a 16th century botanist, Adam Lonitzer.

Chives

First of all (since it's Friday), let me pat myself on the back, please? I wanted to google the botanical name for chives to make sure I had the correct spelling, suspecting that there was no way I'd get it right on the first try. But it turns out that I still remember the correct spelling for Allium schoenoprasum. Who knew?

In my magic-wand world, some of you regular readers (of which there are many, many -- *countless* -- droves of you) are reading this and thinking, Allium? Didn't she post on an Allium genus recently? (Hey, I can dream.) And in fact, I did post on this genus a few weeks back, showcasing the lovely Allium giganteum specimens in the New York Botanical Garden.



Allium schoenoprasum is clearly a smaller plant than the giant onion, actually A. schoenoprasum flowers are the smallest of this genus. And unusually, the species we see planted for ornamental purposes is no different than the one you grow with culinary goals in mind.

In addition to being a lovely ornamental flower, and a tasty herb for cooking (chives belong to the select group of plants that the French categorize as 'fines herbes'), chives dry beautifully and have some ability to repel unwanted insects in a garden.


While the word chive itself is derivative of the Latin word for onion, cepa, schoenoprasum has Greek origins. Schoinos means 'rush' (the plant, not the verb) in Greek and refers to the chives' grassy habit -- it looks like a rush. Prasum means 'leek'. Thus the species name can be translated as 'rush-like leek.'

As I mentioned in the previous Allium post, these plants share their genus with garlic (Allium sativum).

Aquilegia

Columbine, or Aquilegia, is in bloom right now. The white one below (most likely a cultivar of A. hybrida) is growing just near the courts at Tompkins Square Park.




Many columbines are native to the Rockies and other mountainous areas in the west. They grow best at high altitudes, but are very popular perennials elsewhere. They self-seed readily but are not invasive. A spring ephemeral, the foliage will die back in late June, when the weather gets quite hot.


I suspect part of the reason the plant is so popular in the nursery trade is due to the very showy, very unique flower structure. The petals form into nectar spurs. That alone may be hint enough that one of the pollinators of this plant is a moth -- moths have long proboscises to access the nectar. Native Americans would often use the flowers as an edible garnish, but other parts of the plant are highly toxic.

Aquilegia -- of which there are over sixty species -- is in the Ranunculaceae, or buttercup, famliy, and is a relative of the also-toxic Aconitum.

Edible Plants

A few weeks ago, I went on an 'edible plants' tour of the west side of Central Park, led by an ethnobotanist. I was familiar with some of the edibles, but these two were very pleasant surprises:

Chenopodium album, or lamb's quarters, or fat hen. This is a common weed and you can encounter it not just in the park, but growing out of tree pits on the sidewalk (not that I'd recommend you sample that particular specimen). The leaves were mildly bitter, like a mellow arugula. Really tasty.



Below is the flower bud of Commelina communis, or day-flower. The buds tasted very much like sugar-snap peas, though they were much smaller. This weed is also quite common and is easy to recognize due when you realize it's related to Tradescantia, a genus that includes the perennial spiderwort (T. virginiana) and the houseplant commonly referred to as wandering Jew (Tradescantia zebrina).



Like those other plants, Commelina will grow in sprawling heaps, the weight of the foliage too heavy to be supported by the fleshy stems. When the plant sends out a new branch, it looks distinctly like an elbow, with a knobby leaf indicating the point where the stem sends out new growth.