Violet: A Spark of the Divine
The cathedral of St. John the Divine. This is the chapter house, a smaller building next to the immense cathedral, one of the largest in the world. It’s a magnificent building, like a medieval fortress. But nature manages to sneak in somehow, finding a crack in the most impressive monuments. One little spark of green in the corner–a spring violet. Violet is a genus, not a species–it’s like saying, “Oh, look, there’s a duck.” But is it a mallard, a wood duck, a black duck? There’s a zillion kinds of ducks. There are hundreds of species of...
Read MoreRamps: Spring Vegetable
Ramps. A strange name for a plant. It’s a pretty spring wildflower, with flat green leaves. I’ve seen them sprouting in earliest spring, popping out of the dried leaves on the forest floor along with trout lilies, anemones, and hepatica. Wild leeks is another name for them. Odd to think of the pretty spring flower as a vegetable. There were baskets of them for sale at the Greenmarket in Union Square, New York City. They’re quite delicious–a spicy, oniony taste, but light and delicate. I’ve nibbled them raw, and I imagine they’d be delectable when...
Read MoreCinnamon Fern: Summer Plumes
Cinnamon Fern. Osmundastrum cinnamomeum. (At least that’s the Latin name as of the moment, they seem to keep on changing names and reclassifying plants more often than I change my socks.) Many thanks to Frank Knight for this lovely photo–what a nice birthday present! Delicious as it looks, the brown stuff isn’t really cinnamon, of course. In fern-speak, the fuzzy brown stalks are called fertile fronds–leaves whose function is to help the plant reproduce. The fertile fronds grow sori, which are containers for dust-like brown spores. The green leaves are called sterile...
Read MoreThistle: No More Waiting
Last December, I was at the Beacon train station, and I noticed a really magnificent specimen of a thistle. It was growing, still green in December, thriving among the gravel so carefully placed to keep weeds down (see Thistle: Waiting for the Train). Well, today I happened to be at the Beacon train station again, waiting for the New York City train, and there was my prickly friend. The thistle has weathered the winter, better than I did–no colds, flu or dry skin–and is in fine shape. No more just a flat basal rosette of leaves–now it’s time to spring into action....
Read MoreYew: Life and Death at the Mall
Sears department store is better known for tractors and washing machines than for floral arrangements. The landscaping around the Sears in Colonie Center Mall, Colonie, NY, is pretty sparse. Actually, once you get up close to these plump round balls of bushes, the foliage is quite nice–soft and green. This is Yew. Planted in almost every American shopping mall and housing development. It’s also planted on zillion-dollar estates and world-famous historic sites, like Windsor Castle and Versailles. Because yew is an obedient plant. You can shape it into almost any shape you...
Read MoreSpring on Wheels
Spring is on its way! Being trucked in specially at the Carrot Barn in Schoharie, NY. I went there for a welcome breath of spring in this month of endless cold. In their vast greenhouse, the air is moist and warm, and there’s a promise of flowers to come. It has to warm up sooner or later! By the way, if you’re looking for a holiday plant as a gift or whatever, think about daffodils. Don’t buy tulips unless you enjoy battling mice and chipmunks–tulip bulbs apparently are very sweet (people used to eat them, sugared.) Daffodils may be the one species of plant on the...
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