Jewelweed: Poison Ivy Cure?
Can jewelweed cure poison ivy? It’s been used for centuries as a poison ivy remedy, but results differ depending on who’s using it.
Read MoreDay Lily: Summer Schedule
Day lily. Hemerocallis, which comes from ancient Greek words meaning beautiful day. Day lilies are suddenly all over the place in early July. They start to line the roadsides as though waiting for the Fourth of July parades. The orange bursts of petals among the green are a kind of botanical fireworks. Why the name day lily? If you look on any day lily stalk, you’ll see half-a-dozen buds, each one slightly bigger than the next. With a punctuality that’s pretty amazing, they will open precisely 24 hours apart. So that on one stalk you have, so to speak, the entire schedule for the week. Today...
Read MoreMonticello: A Virginia Native
Recognize this house? You see it every time you spend a nickel. Thomas Jefferson knew from the time he was a little boy that he wanted to live on the top of this particular little mountain near Charlottesville, Virginia. He was still a youngster in his twenties when he got started on his goal. Using slave labor, he had the top of the mountain cleared, flattened to create a building space, and started building his dream house. And then he had to leave it. He had to go and do stuff like write the Declaration of Independence, and be President, and so forth, and leave the peace and quiet...
Read MoreMullein: Yellow Lights
Cruising along Route 81 in Virginia, and I just had to pull over to take a look at these yellow stalks. I have never seen such gorgeous mullein plants. Common mullein is an odd wildflower, like a fencepost sticking straight up out of the ground. Little yellow flowers bloom up and down the stalk, each individual flower opening for only one day. At least at home in upstate New York the flowers are little, but here in the sunny south they’re the size of roses. They’re not a native plant, but not generally invasive. They love dry open ground where nothing else is growing, and can’t...
Read MoreYellow Wood Sorrel: Inspecting a Lemon
It’s that time of year again–time to get the old car inspected. While I was nervously awaiting the verdict of the inspectors (lots of mileage on that baby) I prowled around Jiffy-Lube’s surprisingly well-tended garden, looking for something to photograph. The landscape was mowed and manicured within an inch of its life, and at first I couldn’t find a single weed. But there’s always one, if you look closely enough. Yellow wood-sorrel. In my childhood, I would taste anything—it’s a wonder I’m still alive, really—I sampled clover and grass blades and pine needles. Most of the stuff tasted...
Read MoreDame’s Rocket: Wandering Lady
She’s all over the place right now. Gorgeously attired in shades of white, rose-pink, lavender and purple. She wanders into gardens, meadows, landfills. She hitchhikes along roadways. She lines the pond, and the forest, and the parking lot at the mall. Dame’s Rocket is the name of this ubiquitous June beauty. The explanation for this odd name is complex. First of all, “rocket” is a very old name for the spicy, peppery-tasting plants in the mustard family (nothing to do with rockets of the twentieth century). Dame’s Rocket is one of many species in the Mustard family. (The yellow stuff we put...
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