Ilex verticillata

Since we are well into December and Soho streets are getting thronged with tourists, it seems appropriate to do a post on Ilex verticillata or winterberry holly. Here's one in full fruit on the High Line.



Ilex verticillata (sometimes called fever bush, as is Lindera benzoin -- both species have been used as antiseptics and astringents) is an incredibly tough plant with a vast range - it can grow as far north as Nova Scotia and as far south as Florida. It thrives in wet soils and like most hollies, it prefers a slightly slightly acid pH.



Of course, the bare stems are beautiful and make frequent appearances in holiday floral decorations. I remember seeing fields of these hollies being grown in rural Virginia during college and stunned at the plants' beauty.

Like most hollies (but not all) this plant is dioecious, which means you'll need one male plant in order for the females to fruit.

Equisetum hyemale

There are a fair amount of wetland plants listed on the High Line's plant list, one of which is Equisetum hyemale, or giant horsetail.


Now, at this point I have to pause to explain a bit about how I write this blog. I take my camera with me everywhere and if I see something that interests me, I take a photo of it. Most of the time I know what I'm looking at, but if I don't and I have the time, I try to identify the plant. After that I google it, trying to find some more information about the plant. If you're a regular reader, you know I have a soft spot for etymology or unusual things regarding plant morphology, lineage or ethnobotany.


I knew the plant above was Equisetum but you can imagine my excitement when the first hit on google reads as such:

Equisetum hyemale is not a rush however. Nor is it a fern. Equisetum is the single surviving genus of a class of primitive vascular plants that dates back to the ...

To the what?! Well, after reading on, I find that this species dates back to the mid-Devonian period (of course) which was about 350 million years ago. And little facts like that really make my day. (To assure you that I don't take the first google hit as gospel, know that I try to verify a fact like that on a few other reputable sites before regurgitating it on this blog.)



Equisetum is also lumped into the category of fern ally -- it means that while the plant is not a fern (another ancient primitive plant type), it is similar in that the plant doesn't flower, nor has seeds and instead reproduces with spores. Other fern allies include Lycopodium and Salaginella.

High Line, Rhus & Cotinus

The palette of shrubs on the high line made a lot of sense to me. They are primarily tough plants and while not all are native, most of them are associated as colonial plants; plants which can inhabit a difficult environment.


Rhus typhina or staghorn sumac, definitely belongs in this category. You've probably seen this plant on the sides of highways or growing in craggy areas where few other plants succeed. The plant is called staghorn sumac because of the fuzzy stems -- they almost resemble the hairy antlers of a stag.



Below is another Rhus, Rhus glabra or smooth sumac.


Like most Rhus species, the plant has a characteristic red seed head, which as you can see, is quite beautiful.


Finally, a third Rhus, Rhus aromatica or fragrant sumac. I love this plant. It's tough, has great fall color and it emits a spicy aroma when the leaves are crushed. Of course, it's important to know the difference between this plant and it's more aggressive cousin, Rhus dermatitis, or poison oak.


I've spoken about Cotinus coggygria two times in the past. It's a plant I don't really love, since it seems so alien in almost any landscape. However, the small whips of this tree (or is it a shrub? It seems to occupy the no-man's land between these two categories...) that dotted the High Line seemed right.


And it's hard to deny the brilliance of its autumn color.

High Line, Perennials

Even though it was late November when I visited the High Line, there was still a fair amount of perennials in bloom.

If you didn't know plants well, you may pause when seeing this plant, thinking it's a spring crocus. It is a crocus, but it's Crocus pulchellus or autumn crocus. Like the word 'pulchritude' pulchellus is derived from the Latin word for beautiful. I only saw one of these plants in the whole park and I wonder if some of them didn't survive since most bulbs are planted in the fall and not spring.

Aster tataricus, or tartarian aster, was a new plant for me. I recognized the flowers instantly as an aster or aster-like plant, but the coarse, dentate foliage was unlike the leaves I usually associate with the genus.

It turns out that Aster tartaricus root has been used by Chinese cultures as an expectorant, antifungal and antibacterial for over 2000 years. There is also a cancer-fighting chemical in the root though its success is not clearly documented.

The photos below are that of Knautia macedonica, or pincushion plant. You may recognize it as similar to the more ornamental Scabiosa, also called pincushion plant, and indeed the two are closely related.

Knautia is named for a botanist, but I found myself wondering what the root word was for its cousin, Scabiosa. Turns out that the rough leaves of Scabiosa were thought to be a cure for scabies and the name Scabiosa was applied.

Later this week we'll look at some of the grasses, shrubs and trees.

More High Line

I promised to post more photos of the High Line last week, before delving into the plants in the park, but between deadlines and Thanksgiving, I never got around to it.

So, without further delay...



The High Line, as you may know, was a commercial rail track that ran along the lower west side of Manhattan. It was built in the 1930's and abandoned in the '80s. Remnants of the train rails remain, presumably as a reminder of the park's industrial past.


Long concrete "rails" cut swaths into the naturalistic plantings. I have heard some designers consider them trip hazards, but that seems a bit stodgy, considering children live for the chance to walk along balance beams of any kind.


This seating area takes good advantage of the framed view of the Statue of Liberty.


While the amphitheater seating that faces north on 9th Avenue gives pedestrians a chance to spy on the street level drama below.


Finally, an ingenious water fountain that recycles excess water by sending it into the plants' root zones.


More on the actual plants to come in the (deadline & holiday free) week to come!

Finally, the High Line

I visited the High Line shortly after it opened in June. I went once again towards the end of summer, but both trips were spontaneous and I was camara-less. Yesterday I was determined to get some pictures of this new park, designed by a team led by landscape architects Field Operations, collaborating with Diller Scofidio (architecture), L'Observatoire International (lighting) and a slew of other consultants. For the purposes of this blog, of course, I was mostly interested in seeing Piet Oudolf's work -- he did the planting design.

And when I arrived at the park yesterday, I realized that it made perfect sense for me to delay so long in taking some photos. This is the time of year where Oudolf's work starts to galvanize into the painterly winter landscapes for which he's best known. Oudolf's work has always celebrated how plants look in the winter, rather than ignore this season altogether. He focuses on grasses and plants with distinctive, persistent seed heads.

Tomorrow or Wednesday I will show some more general shots of the park, then after Thanksgiving, we'll look at some of the plant species on display.