Callicarpa and Penn Station (the good one)

It's always a good bet that when you see a plant full of untouched fruit in the winter, that said plant is not native. The subtext is that the non-native fruit is undesirable to the native wildlife. Things get a little muddy when you consider that some of our local wildlife is also non-native, or that deer -- a native animal -- will eat almost anything. But the concept has some merit, and if you assume the plant below is a non-native, you'd be right.



Here comes the part where I have to admit to a previous mistake (I hate that). When I last spoke about this genus, Callicarpa, I showed photos and equivocated on the species. I suggested it could be Callicarpa dichotoma or Callicarpa japonica and then I favored the latter.



Seeing these specimens at the NYBG last week, it's clear that the plant I posted on in September 2008 was Callicarpa dichotoma and this plant is C. japonica. The fruit set is decidedly different, the latter plant has fruit and flowers borne on longer cymes whereas the former has fruit set closely to the stem of the plant. Cymes, if you recall the post about linden flowers, are the small stems that connect the flower (or fruit) to the twig. Mea culpa.

Onward, to some fun models. The building below is a new addition to the NYBG train show but chances are it's a familiar building to most New Yorkers. Its familiarity is not because we see the building depicted in movies or postcards, but sadly because it was a beautiful building that the city foolishly demolished.


As you can see from the hand in the left of the photo, the model is massive. It's beautiful, too, though one has to look at some of the stunning black and white photos of the original structure to realize how lovely the building really was.



The model makers, as you can see, were very detailed. Though that man is evidently very, very tall.



Note the acorn cap on the column!

Idesia & Yankee Stadium

More photos of the Holiday Train Show at NYBG today, but first, Idesia polycarpa or the Igiri tree.


I had never heard of Igiri tree before, but I was stopped in my tracks when I saw its elegant shape and the lovely chandeliers of red berries, contrasting so beautifully against the blue sky and green pines.


Idesia is a dioecious tree which means the male and female flowers exist on separate trees (remember dioecious is Greek for 'two houses'). This accounts for the reason you rarely see this tree (which also has yellow fragrant flowers in June) outside of a park setting -- you simply need too much room for the male and female(s) needed to make an impact.



Polycarpa of course means 'multiple fruit' which is a bit of an understatement in this case. . Idesia derives from Eberhad Isbarnd Ides, a 17th century explorer employed by the Russian Czar Peter the Great.

Back to the train show, below we have the old Yankee Stadium -- the model is based on the stadium before the 1976 renovations:


I particularly liked the red leaves used as flags.

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.

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.