Ranunculus, and a plaintive plea for spring

I am so, so very sick of this snow. February is, to me, the bitterest month. It's cold, it's bleak and this month, the snow has been relentless. I've yet to see even the tiniest bit of Crocus foliage sprout and the snow makes it hard to even spend much time outdoors.

But, the days are lengthening, ever so slowly. And there is always the Duane Reade official sign of spring, the Peep (TM):



It's getting me so rammy that I finally decided to take some snapshots of plants at a florist. So I walked over to Adore Floral in Noho to see what they had blooming in a climate-controlled showroom.



I'll post a few other shots later this week but today we'll focus on Ranunculus asiaticus, or the Persian buttercup. This species of Ranunculus is native to the Mediterranean region and is a protected flower in Israel. It prefers a dry light soil, hot summers and mild winters.



Because it comes in a wide variety of colors and the big flower heads (with rows and rows of petals), it's a popular favorite in the floral industry, though the blossoms are still quite fragile.



Ranunculus are commonly called buttercup due to the buttery yellow color of another Ranunculus species, R. acris. Ranunculus itself is Latin for "little frog" (Rana=frog) because some species of this genus can be found near wetlands, which are also frequented by frogs.



Speaking of etymology, if the species name acris caught your eye, you'd be interested to know that indeed it is given this name because the plant has a bitter acrid taste that can be fatal to livestock if ingested fresh. It's unlikely, however that a cow or horse would eat much of it, due to the taste and the mouth blisters that animals will get after eating only a little of this plant. If humans handle the plant too much, they will also get a case of dermatitis caused by chemicals that can be released from the plant.

Hedera helix

Well, it's been cold lately in New York. The past few days we finally broke into weather above 35° and it felt downright tropical (if only). Add this to the fact that I'm planning a big move and packing and well, at least for the time being, I have a full time job, so it's safe to say I've been awfully busy.

But that doesn't mean I can't post something up here. Even if it's as plebeian as English ivy (Hedera helix), seen here growing up Platanus x. acerifolia at the Marble Cemetery.


Everyone knows this plant. Over the past five years of teaching, very few students are unable to identify this plant as ivy when encountered with it. It's a very handy, practically-bulletproof plant that can be used as a climbing vine (as above) or as a groundcover (as below).



But there are probably things about Hedera helix that the average person doesn't know.



The name itself comes to mind. Hedera is simply the Latin name for ivy, but helix tells one more about the plant. Specifically that the leaves emerge from the stem in a helical pattern (much like the way DNA molecules are arranged in a strand).



Above you see the more recognizable form of ivy climbing the wall, then it balloons out into a shrub-like mass and starts to fall back down the wall. That's the adult phase of the plant. The form we see most often is the juvenile stage.


Here's ivy, in adult form, climbing a tree at Liz Christy Garden. The overall form of the plant isn't the only thing that changes. If you look more closely, you see the leaf changes from a three-lobed shape into a more ovate-shaped leaf - the lobes disappear.



You also see that, like people, this plant is able to reproduce once it is in the adult stage. Bluish berries fruit a year after minute flowers are pollinated. These fruits are mildly toxic.



The next obvious question is, why can some ivy plants remain at the juvenile stage for decades, while others enter the adult phase? The key is height. Generally, when the plant is more than 20 feet above-ground, and it is not being pruned or clipped, it enters the adult phase.

Christmas Rose & the Guggenheim

Recently the New York Botanical Garden invited me (or more accurately, they invited New York Plants & Other Stuff) to a sneak peak of their holiday train show.

If you haven't been, definitely check it out. I had been once before in 2003, but forgot how much fun it is to see these models of New York City sights made out of plant material. Paul Busse, a landscape architect and principal of his firm Applied Imagination, fashions hundreds of buildings, using only bark, seeds, petals and leaves, etc.. He even uses lichens. To wit, one of my favorites had to be the Guggenheim:


Of course, I also had to walk around the grounds and check out what was happening in the garden. Helleborus niger or Christmas rose or black hellebore, immediately caught my eye. Like Lenten rose, Christmas rose is named such due to the season in which it blooms. The common name black hellebore is applied becuase the rhizome (a long, flat tuber or bulb-like
structure) is black.


The flower structure you see above is a bit unusual. The white parts that look like petals are sepals. The larger, stringy yellow parts that look like stamens are actually nectaries, petals that have been modified to hold nectar. Pollinators are usually bees and flies.


Hellebores have a rich history of medicinal use. The plant's roots contain two chemicals, helleborein - which can be considered a cardiac poison, and helleborin, a narcotic posion. Highly toxic, the plant can be used as an emmenagogue, cathartic, diuretic or cardiac stimulant in low doses. Higher concentrations of Helleborus niger can cause death allegedly by relentless spasms and exhaustion. Wow, right? Apparently in ye olden times the plant was used to treat such outdated afflictions as hysteria, insanity and my new favorite word: dropsy, which is sort of like an extreme bloatedness.

Next week I'll be posting more photos of Busse's models along with some new plants.

Brugmansia

Central Park Zoo has a great collection of moderately hardy plants - the horticulturist there who oversees the grounds is always pushing the zonal limits for different species. I always love to see what he has growing there.


Brugmansia is one of these plants. Native to South America, this plant typically thrives in frost-free climates but has tolerated the Manhattan climate, for now.


Of course, it thrives in a warmer climate. For comparison to the above Central Park plant, here's shot of one growing in Barcelona:

Brugmansia is in the Solanaceae family, or the nightshade family. It is related to tomatoes, potatoes and some peppers. But, it's also related to some highly toxic plants and this species can be fatal if ingested in the wrong doses.


It's poison can have psychotropic effects, but it's toxicity makes ingesting the plant a very dangerous gamble. It has been used in shamanic practices by people from Peru and Amazonia.


Brugmansia is named for a botanist, Sebald Justin Brugmans.

Castor Oil Plant

Sitting next to those hollyhocks in the Tuileries I had mentioned a few weeks ago, I found an infamous plant by the name of Ricinus communis, or castor oil plant.


When processed, the seeds of this plant produce an oil that has been used for a wide variety of homeopathic uses. However, the actual seeds, if ingested raw, can be lethally toxic. The deadly ricin gas is also harvested from this plant.


Above you can see the showy seed pods. The seed inside resembles a kind of Mediterranean sheep tick , which is why the plant is called Ricinus (ricinus, in Latin, refers to ticks).

Lupinus perennis

More perennials from the 91st Street Garden. Today, we have Lupinus perennis, or lupine.
Lupines are easy to identify in a garden, due to the large, palmately compound leaves and the tall spikes of pea-like flowers. Indeed the flower structure is a clue as to which family this plant belongs: Fabaceae, or the pea, or legume family.


Like most plants in the Fabaceae or Leguminosae family, Lupinus can fix its own nitrogen. Most of the nitrogen in the environment is released into the atmosphere as a gas when organic matter dies and decays. Plants generally need to have this nitrogen 'pulled' out of the atmosphere in order to benefit from the element. Legumes are unusual in that they have bacteria on the roots that form nodes. These nodes are able to harvest nitrogen from the air.

(An aside: this is why clover and alfalfa, other legumes, are used in crop rotations. Those nitrogen-rich plants can provide extra fertilizer in the soil when they are tilled over.)


The plants ability to fix nitrogen also accounts for its botanical name. Lupinus is derivative of the word for wolf. The belief was that this plant was stealing nitrogen from the soil, like a hungry, greedy wolf.

The flower itself, like other pea family plants, has two upper 'standards' and two lateral 'wings.' The lower petals form together to make a 'keel.' The overall effect is that the plant looks much like a bonnet, which accounts for another common name for Lupinus: bluebonnet.



This red cultivar above is from the New York Botanical Garden.

Lupines have seeds that are highly poisonous. In fact, there has been a historical problem with cowboys and ranchers seeing their livestock die in massive numbers when the unknowing cows and horses grazed on the native lupines so prevalent in the west.

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.