Celandine: A Cozy Microhabitat
This little green plant is thriving, as so many weeds do, in the crack between brick and blacktop. Somehow a seed got in there, and found enough soil and moisture to sustain life. The dainty scalloped leaves are a non-native wildflower called celandine, a member of the poppy family. In summer it has a pretty yellow, buttercup-like flower. It also has a vivid blaze-orange sap that is quite toxic, but is a tried and true folk remedy for warts. Just dab it on. (It worked for me, but be cautious, the sap is quite caustic and could irritate the skin.) The amazing thing is how this little plant...
Read MoreHoney Locust: Something Missing
Ever see these weird wiggly worm-like seed pods lying around in a parking lot? They come from a tree, Honey Locust, Gleditsia triacanthos. The seed pods are a little sweet to taste, that’s where the honey part of the name comes from. They’re occasionally nibbled by deer and squirrels, and were even used as a sugar substitute long ago. The best thing about them, though, is that when you shake the dried pods, they have this great rattly maraca sound. Honey locust is the classic parking lot tree—it flourishes in this odd environment of cement and blacktop because it’s a particularly...
Read MoreMoss: City Green
I’ve lived within spitting distance of Albany NY for most of my life—and yet it’s a place I never go. Oh, I might go to the outskirts, the mall or the movie theater, but I rarely venture into the city itself. So the other day I decided to be a tourist and explore a bit. There are some beautiful old brownstones, and interesting shops and restaurants (a terrific Jamaican restaurant well named the Hot Spot). But as usual, I was on the lookout for plants. However, the prospects were dim for greenery—we’ve had over a foot of snow and the day I picked for my stroll was about 10 degrees with a wind...
Read MoreMoss as Metaphor
A nearly manicured office building. Trimmed lawn, weeded garden, paved walkway. Not much chance for weeds to sneak in here. Except for the moss. What, you don’t see any moss? Moss–soft, green, fuzzy. It’s a plant everyone can identify, and yet no one can identify it. I once took a course on moss identification. And what you had to do to figure out which species of moss you were looking at was to detach one moss leaf. (One moss leaf. Do you know how incredibly small a single moss leaf is?) Then you had to use a razor blade to slice a cross-section of the moss leaf. Then you...
Read MoreThistle: A Visit From a Poet
For those of you who celebrate Christmas, a certain poem was probably part of your upbringing, along with Frosty and Rudolph and all that sort of thing. You know the one I mean. You heard it, I heard it, we all heard it a zillion times in school, at home, on TV. “Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house not a creature was stirring not even a mouse…” But although I heard the words enough times that they embedded themselves in my memory, I really had only a hazy idea of what it all meant. I mean, I got the general drift of Santa bringing the good stuff, but what, exactly, were...
Read MoreLondon Plane Tree: Sidewalk Art
When you go to New York City, you expect to see great art. There are world-famous museums on every streetcorner, it seems, with paintings from all over the world. Modern art can be a challenge, I admit it. Stuff by artists like Miro or Pollack or Kandinsky. Sometimes it just looks like, well, blobs. Of all the great art I’ve seen in Manhattan, this is one of my favorites. Beauty courtesy of a sidewalk artist: a London plane tree. One of the commonest street trees of New York City. It has this strange bark thing going on: the outer bark peels off to...
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