There's Rosemary, that's for Remembrance

Species name: Rosmarinus officinalis

Common name: rosemary

Location: teaching lab at Western

Rosemary is an incredibly unusual plant in the mint family (the Lamiaceae) because of its almost cactus-like lifestyle. The Latin name of this plant actually comes from its unusual ability to acquire nutrients in a hostile environment: "ros" for dew, and "marinus" for ocean. Not only is this plant incredibly salt-tolerant (with much of its native range in marine spray habitat), but it can acquire almost all nutrients it needs to sustain life from the air, where droplets of dew condense on the hairs and waxy coating of the leaves, where they are absorbed and used by the plant to make energy. In fact, rosemary is so drought-tolerant it can go without being watered for months. This makes me seriously wonder how I managed to kill my rosemary plant in a single month; something tells me I over-watered and should only have been misting it. It was one of those strange rosemary Christmas trees, so it might have also been root-bound. Yep, let's blame it on being root-bound. Then it's not my fault. :) Rosemary is native to the Mediterranean, where it still commonly grows in the wild. It is also a popular ornamental species, and some rosemary plants are hundreds of years old.

Rosemary is one of the most popular herbs to use in cooking, especially in meat dishes because it has such a distinctive flavour. In fact, what most people don't know about rosemary is that the flavour is best brought out of the herb when you "spank" it (for a refresher on why you might want to spank an herb, refer to my blog post about mint HERE) and then burn it. Yep, that's right. Burn it. One of the best ways to use rosemary is on barbecued meats where you poke some sprigs of rosemary into the meat and just let them singe and burn until the meat is cooked to desired done-ness. Take the burnt pieces out of the meat with some tongs before serving (or just eat it. Burnt rosemary won't kill you), and voila! Smoky rosemary-infused meat. Yum, yum. Rosemary also pairs really well with mustards, because the acidity in the mustard also brings out the flavour in the rosemary leaves. Interestingly enough, mustard is native to almost the same geographic region that rosemary occupies. There might be something to this mustard-rosemary pairing...

As the Latin name suggests, rosemary has been used for centuries (some people have argued for many millennia, but the evidence for rosemary use only dates back to about 3,000 years ago. Yeah, "only.") as a medicinal plant, mainly to improve memory. It wasn't just used to improve "brain memory," either, but also to improve muscle memory. After someone suffered a stroke in the Middle Ages, a salve of rosemary leaves ground into wine was applied to the site of muscle paralysis as it was believed that doing so would help the body "remember" how to move the paralyzed muscles. It probably didn't work very often, but at least you would smell good :) That type of concoction was also consumed orally to treat gout (it was most famously used in this manner to treat the Queen of Hungary Elisabeth of Poland in the 1300s). Don Quixote also used rosemary leaves in his miraculous balm of Fierabras, which was reported to heal anyone that drank it. This very likely had at least SOME effect on the body, as the secondary compounds of rosemary are highly antimicrobial. Back in the 1100s and 1200s, before the discovery of penicillin, any kind of wound that got an infection would almost certainly lead to death. By either drinking this highly antibacterial (and antifungal) beverage or applying it directly to the wound, it would help protect it from infection. For some wounds it would have been irrelevant as they would be severe enough to kill you anyway. But for other more minor wounds, it might have made the difference between life and death. It's always nice to know when some of the folklore of popular tales is actually biologically possible!

Because of its historical medicinal use in improving memory, rosemary sprigs also play a leading role in wedding and funeral traditions around the world. In funeral bouquets that are scattered on graves, rosemary serves as a sign of remembrance for the dead and a way of honouring their memory. Across much of Europe, rosemary is still incorporated into the wreathes in Remembrance Day ceremonies, and also in war commendation ceremonies (especially if these are to commemorate the brave acts of a soldier who died in battle). In wedding ceremonies, they represent remembrance of loved ones that passed before the time of the ceremony and also to remember the life the couple spent apart before they were united in marriage. This eventually caused the evolution of rosemary from an herb of remembrance into an herb of love, and now sprigs of rosemary are considered to mean love and good luck in marriage. The sprigs of rosemary in the bride's bouquet would be planted in the ground, and if they grew it would be a sign of good prosperity and good luck. If they didn't grow...well, I guess it sucks to be you. Hint: dip it in some rooting compound first and problem solved. See, there's always a way to coerce luck into working out in your favour. Just takes some work!

A fibre-filled way to start your day: Eid Mubarak!

Species name: Phoenix dactylifera

Common name: date palm

Location: first 5 images from Dave's Garden user palmbob, last image from Dave's Garden user QCHammy

Date palms are magnificent trees (although, they're not truly trees because they're monocots and can't produce true wood), and not just because of their genus name (seriously? How cool is the genus Phoenix?!). And to be named after a dinosaur (the pterodactyl)? Awesome! OK, so I don't actually know for sure the date palm was named after a giant mythological bird that can be reborn multiple times and a flying dinosaur, but a girl can dream. The date palm was likely first domesticated to be an edible palm species in Iraq (most palm fruit you do not want to eat; many produce pretty potent fruit that would make you very sick very quickly), although a closely-related species was also domesticated in and around Brazil. They are now becoming very popular ornamental species in tropical locations because of a few ideal characteristics: they are long-lived, they are drought tolerant, are highly wind tolerant, and are tolerant of salt spray on their trunks and leaves (even when young).

Dates have been eaten as fruit for thousands of years. There's even evidence of date fruit being left as an offering in ancient Egyptian burial sites and in mummy sarcophaguses (sarcophagi? You get what I mean). No one is quite sure what the symbolism of leaving such fruit represents, as date pits are present with some bodies but not others. There is the suggestion that it might have to do with the time of year the body was buried (more on this later). Date palms are dioecious, meaning they have completely separate male and female plants. In order to have a date palm plantation, one must plant both male and female trees in order to get a crop (the male tree only provides the pollen, the female tree is where the fruit are produced). Unfortunately, the male plants are simply a waste of space in the plantation and so are usually not planted (sorry to all the men out there!), and instead alternate pollination methods are used. In certain areas, date palms are such important crop species that male flowers complete with pollen are often sold in jars in outdoor markets around the time that pollination would be occurring. If you were a date palm farmer, you would buy a jar and sprinkle the pollen in front of a large fan that would blow it across your plantation. I'm sure seeing this in person would be absolutely wild; not to mention it would really wreak havoc on your seasonal allergies if you had them! There are other ways to hand-pollinate female date palm flowers; in Iraq there are highly trained pollination personnel that climb the trunks using only a rope and pollinate the flowers using either a hand-fan or paint brush.

The fruits of these trees are remarkably nutritious, and are one of the best sources of potassium of any edible plant. They also contain a surprisingly high amount of protein, are a good source of dietary fibre,  and a good source of zinc (an element very important in the proper functioning of many of the enzymes and proteins in the body). Aside from eating the whole fruit (which may be eaten stuffed with a variety of yummy things like almonds, cream cheese or a more savoury version with tahini or hummus), there is a beverage called "palm wine" that is produced from the sap of the plant in India. It is fermented using traditional methods dating back thousands of years (even today!), and consumed at special occasions. In Pakistan, there is a syrup-like substance that is harvested from the plants and used to seal leatherwares and to prevent pipes from leaking. The sweet sap of the trees might also be condensed and evaporated to produce palm sugar, also called jaggery.

Date palms also have a significant role in religious symbolism. Christians use the leaves of this tree to make crosses on Palm Sunday, a symbol to represent the palm leaves that were scattered on the ground for Jesus' entry to Jerusalem. But, of course, I wouldn't have chosen to profile this plant today if I wanted to talk about its symbolism to the Christian faith; I would have done that near Easter!

Dates are traditionally the first food eaten at the breaking of the fast at the end of Ramadan, a month-long religious fast from sun up to sun down performed by Muslims worldwide, consumed with a drink of water or weak tea. After morning prayers, it is the beginning of Eid al-Fitr (the Sweet Festival), often celebrated with Eid ul-Adar (the Feast of the Sacrifice, traditionally approximately 70 days after the end of Ramadan). The timing of Ramadan changes yearly, but is based on the lunar calendar. The first day of Ramadan is the first day of the ninth month of the lunar calendar, and the first day is determined by the sighting of the crescent moon (if the moon is clouded then by default the month starts the following day). During the month of Ramadan no food items (or other pleasurable things in life) are consumed between sun up and sun down. At the end of the month, the breaking of the fast is celebrated with a big feast and the day of Eid al-Fitr. You would go around wishing your neighbours Eid Mubarak, which (roughly translated) means "Happy Ramadan." Guess what today is? Eid al-Fitr! :)

Eid Mubarak, Happy Ramadan, to all of my Muslim readers!

Sandra's Garden: proof not all Phlox are created equal

Species name: Phlox subulata

Common name: moss pink, moss phlox

Location: Sandra's garden

Last year I posted a blog about moss phlox, a native species we have in our garden that gets a little out of control in really sunny areas. It's a species native to North America, and one that occurs relatively commonly throughout its native range in bright and sunny, damp areas (despite also being drought-tolerant). It is much more common in the United States than in Canada. I knew this species was a popular garden plant based on what I've read about it, but I had never seen any of the cultivars created in greenhouses aside from the "normal" light purple type. Well, here's a spectacular demonstration of the "hidden" morphological variation that some plants contain. This variety of moss phlox was not created in the lab, but is a product of controlled breeding. Despite this, you would never find this variety of phlox in the wild unless it escaped from someone's garden.

So how do we "create" morphological variation in plants that is not typically seen in the wild? The secret is some patience, and a lot of time on your hands (it helps to have a greenhouse because it speeds things up a bit). Natural mutations in the wild create different alleles, or copies of a gene, that can show different morphologies if they have a chance to be expressed. Most of these mutations are what we call "recessive", which means you have to have two copies of the gene in order to be able to see the effect. This is good for the plant if the mutation is detrimental, but bad for gardeners if the mutation is something we want to see. In order to increase the number of recessive mutations in a population you back-cross the plants (breeding a daughter plant with a parent plant), or force inbreeding (forcing a plant with the gene to pollinate itself; sometimes this isn't possible in plants). After enough generations, which can be anywhere from 10 to over 1000 generations to get a pure line, you have a plant that shows only the allele you want expressed. Most garden plants are created this way; you back-cross over a certain number of generations until you get the desired effect in nearly all seeds grown. A huge downside of this type of selective breeding and back-crossing is that you're decreasing the genetic diversity in a population by selecting the alleles you want expressed and eliminating all others. For most plants this isn't a big deal; the ones grown in gardens are hardly reflective of the population as a whole in most cases, and if a virus or fungus or bacterium evolved that could eliminate an entire population of ornamental plant because of the inbreeding and a lack of resistance it wouldn't matter much. You would replant the next year with a different variety and hopefully the problem is solved. The big problem occurs when we start doing this with crop species, as we have been doing for over 12,000 years. Corn, for example, is so susceptible to disease that it is completely unable to survive without human intervention (not to mention we have eliminated the corn plant's ability to disperse its seeds; this is a slight problem if you're a corn plant but a major benefit if you're a human wanting to eat corn seeds). Soybeans in North America right now are on the verge of a massive population collapse due to the fungal disease called the soybean rust. It has recently shown up in the southern United States and is attacking soybean crops that have all shown to be susceptible to the disease. We grow the same variety in Canada (bred to have an increased seed size with an increased oil store in the seed), but are only saved from the attack of the pathogen due to our much colder winters that the fungus can't survive. It's only a matter of time before an entire year's crop is wiped out which could be absolutely devastating to the North American economy.

The previous blog post I did about this plant (which you can read about HERE) mentioned the smell of marijuana that this plant supposedly has, and the drug busts that have occurred as a result of people innocently growing moss phlox and having the smell waft in the wind. I did pick some leaves and crush them up; if you use your imagination I guess it smells like marijuana. I have a hard time believing that it would produce enough of a scent to convince someone there's a drug op in their neighbour's back yard, and I also have a hard time believing that someone would mistake the smell of phlox for the smell of marijuana!

Sandra's Garden: Vancouver's Centennial

Species name: Pelargonium x hortorum 'Vancouver Centennial'

Common name: 'Vancouver Centennial' geranium

Location: Sandra's garden

Geraniums themselves (not real geraniums, of course, but Pelargonium plants) are incredibly popular garden plants around the world. I've blogged about a red-flowering cultivar already, and you can read all about it HERE. This cultivar, however, is a special type of hybrid that has then been selectively bred for leaf shape and leaf colour. The first time I had ever seen this specific cultivar was in Sandra's garden. Since then, I've seen it literally everywhere I've looked. Isn't it funny how things like that happen? Someone brings your attention to something, then you start noticing it a lot more often.

Contrary to what you might think, this cultivar was not created in Canada (despite being named after Canada's famous Vancouver, not one of the United States' many, many Vancouvers) but in the United States. Rumor has it that it was named in honor of Vancouver's 100th birthday, which would have officially been in 1986 (the city was officially incorporated using the name "Vancouver" in 1886; prior to that it was Gastown which was settled in 1867 and grew to become the town of Granville until the renaming in 1886). I'm not sure if this is true or not, but a nice story. The leaf shape was selected by growers to minimize the "frilling" that can be seen in most geranium cultivars, and the leaf colour was selected based on the maximum amount of red that could be bred into the plant until it was no longer healthy and couldn't survive. Leaves are green for a reason; the pigments in the leaves responsible for photosynthesis (the creation of sugar from carbon dioxide, water and light energy) end up giving the leaf its green colour. If you maximize the amount of pigments other than chlorophyll you end up decreasing the plant's ability to make its own sugar, resulting in a weakened plant. At the end of the day, the amount of green and reddish pigment balance that optimized a visually-pleasing leaf but also enough green to maintain the plant's photosynthetic ability was about half-and-half: the green around the border of the leaf and the red on the inside. The decreased frill also ended up with a leaf that is strikingly similar to a maple leaf, giving this plant its other common name: the maple-leaved geranium.

Like many non-native plants, this cultivar of geranium is incredibly slow-growing (which is unlike many of its relatives which are fast-growing) and very sensitive to too much and too little water. Until the plant becomes established in the soil, periods of drought can be seriously detrimental to the health of the plant. Once established, flooding and standing water are its biggest enemies. Surprisingly, this cultivar is much more cold-tolerant than its relatives so will last further into the fall than the average geranium will. It is still frost-sensitive and definitely won't tolerate snowfall or freezing, so there is no need to worry about the potential for becoming invasive (at least in Canada).

Madagascar's elephants are plants

Species name: Kalanchoe beharensis

Common name: elephant ear kalanchoe

Location: UWO Greenhouse

Contrary to my wishes, the elephant ear kalanchoe (having Latin names as a common name can be incredibly confusing; Kalanchoe refers to the genus, kalanchoe refers to any plant that looks like it belongs to the genus, whether it does or not) is native to Madagascar. Based on the shape of the leaves, I figured that they looked more like an Asian elephant than an African elephant, and so I wanted badly for this plant to be native to India. Not so. Ah, well. This species of Kalanchoe was once widely distributed across the entire island of Madagascar, but now exists only in small areas (but in those small areas it is still very abundant). It has been introduced to many areas around the world including Mexico, South Africa, and the Himalayas where it has been naturalized and exists as an integral part of their arid, desert ecosystems. This plant is a succulent, meaning it is drought-tolerant and stores water in its leaves for use during times when water is not readily available. Succulents actually do better when you let the soil dry out completely between waterings, and over-watering is the leading cause of death of indoor succulents (that sounded very coroner-like...). In fact, if you are prone to neglecting house plants, this plant is definitely for you; it can survive for two weeks during the height of summer with no water, and at least two months during the winter!

Different species of Kalanchoe are known not for their foliage or for their flowers, but for their method of reproduction. Unfortunately, this species also didn't read the book about rules kalanchoes have to follow so it very rarely reproduces this way. Most kalanchoes produce structures called foliar embryos at the edges of their leaves, in the indentations or margin waves. These foliar embryos are produced asexually (they are clones of the parent plant), and develop on the edge of the leaf using resources from the parent plant until it is ready to grow on its own. Depending on how much water is around, this could even be until the embryo has four or five fully-developed leaves and a handful of roots. It's quite a spectacle to see, and I'll profile another species of Kalanchoe another time that produces spectacular amounts of these foliar embryos. They are often sold in nurseries and greenhouses, which I never understood. Why buy the plant if you can get the embryos for free?! I'll admit, guilty as charged--that's how I obtained my Kalanchoe that we had in a south-facing window until we moved. Various species of Kalanchoe can reach heights of up to 12 meters, and regularly grow indoors to 6 feet or more if given a big enough pot. Even in a 6" pot, my kalanchoe was enormous, and produced so many embryos they would regularly be all over the carpet. If you want a clean houseplant, this one is not for you!

The dense surface hairs on the leaves and upper stem of these plants serve two purposes. The first is a method of decreasing water loss from the leaf of the plant. The hairs create a micro-climate at the leaf's surface that is humid and warm, ensuring that any water around the leaf condenses on the hairs and can be used by the plant. Creating a leaf micro-climate is common of succulent and other desert species since losing too much water from your leaves will definitely lead to the death of the plant in such a harsh climate. The second reason for the leaf hairs is to serve as a defence system for the plant. Since the leaf tissues are so juicy, any herbivore looking for food and water would target succulent plants first. They cannot afford to be eaten, so they produce surface hairs that are more like spines or daggers to a small insect. This is actually incredibly effective; if you mutate the genes responsible for producing surface hairs on the leaves, the plant is completely consumed by insects and other small herbivores (and even some big ones like omnivorous lizards). The surface hairs themselves deter about 95% of all predators, and the additional chemical they pack into the hairs deters the rest: silica. If you've ever had an accidental mouthful of sand, you'll understand why nothing would ever want to eat these plants!

Doesn't look like a donkey tail to me!

Species name: Sedum morganianum

Common name: burro's tail

Location: UWO Greenhouse

As you may or may not be able to tell, the group of plants for my last few blogs were all native to Mexico and the surrounding area and this plant is no different. Burro's tail is native to southern Mexico and into Honduras, where it is incredibly common. This plant is also a very popular houseplant in hanging baskets (as is growing in the greenhouse, but it can also grow along the ground), and can survive in some areas in the southern United States. It is drought-tolerant due to its fleshy, water-storing leaves, and can actually be damaged very quickly by over-watering. Watering once a month during the non-flowering season and once a week or every two weeks from spring to summer is more than sufficient. I tried growing this plant once and managed to kill it in 7 days; a record for me. It was sitting on a heater in the window, one of the only places I had in my apartment to grow plants. Ironically enough, if I hadn't of watered the plant almost daily because I thought the soil was getting too dry being on the heater, it probably would have thrived and taken over the entire living room! Lesson learned: when you get a new houseplant, look up how to care for it on the internet!

This plant is an interesting lesson in Spanish and English translations. The other common name for this plant is "donkey tail", and "burro" is the Spanish word for donkey. There is another cultivar that is very commonly grown as a houseplant called the "burrito" cultivar. Did you know that a burrito is a baby donkey?! You can probably imagine how this cultivar is different from the species growing in the wild. I will never be able to look at a burrito while eating dinner the same way again...

As with many of the plants featured from the greenhouse so far, please exert extreme caution should you choose to grow this plant indoors and have cats. The plant is incredibly toxic to humans and other animals alike, but due to its growth habit this plant looks especially like a cat toy hanging off a table. Even ingesting one leaf of this plant could seriously harm the digestive system of a cat or small dog, and the plant is prone to losing leaves on its own.

A Frankenplant or the real thing?

Species name: Hydrangea quercifolia

Common name: oak-leaved hydrangea

Location: Ontario

Those of you who have never seen this plant before probably looked at the leaves and thought "hey! I recognize those! That's an oak!" and then looked at the next two photos and thought "gee, she's awfully good at photoshop. Those leaves and flowers don't belong together!" Well, you would have been in good company in that boat of confusion; when I first saw this plant a couple of years ago I thought someone had created a Frankenplant by grafting two completely different species together (which is possible, but usually they're at least in the same or closely related families. Hydrangeas and oaks are nothing alike, and don't share a recent ancestor). The oak-leaved hydrangea is a real plant, "created" as a product of evolution and natural selection, not garden novelty and artificial selection. It is native to North America as far north as Tennessee and as far south as Florida, from the eastern seaboard all the way west to about Louisiana. It can grow quite happily in southern Canada despite our cold winters as long as it is either drastically cut back in the spring to prune off all the dead growth (the winter will kill any overwintering buds; most of the new growth comes from the rootstock in Canada), or planting it in a very sheltered area from the harsh winds and the weight of the snow. Building a "burlap teepee" to put over the plant to protect it during the winter would be a good thing if you plan on keeping it around for a while; if not just a good hard prune in the spring and you'll be good to go. Just don't expect many flowers since those only grow off of at least one years' growth.

The oak-leaved hydrangea is a perfect example of phenotypic plasticity; that is, a plant's ability to modify its appearance based on environmental conditions. Often, this is a slow process involving changing growth patterns over weeks or even months, but in the oak-leaved hydrangea during peak growth times it can be in as little as hours. During times of drought, the plant actually has the ability to reabsorb nutrients from its flowers to put back into the leaves and sustain its basic life functions: making sugars from water and carbon dioxide, then breaking down that sugar again into energy. The flower buds will look completely healthy, but if the plant is experiencing a prolonged drought then all of a sudden it seems like the buds are withering and they turn brown. Those buds will never develop into flowers, but if you give the plant a good watering as soon as you notice it, new ones might form if you're lucky. The plant can also modify the appearance of its leaves; after a prolonged drought the leaves will be more prominently lobed with less leaf area. If the growing conditions are ideal, then the leaves will be much fuller with more tissue between the main veins. You can almost think of it like the difference between a pin oak leaf (which you can see HERE) and a white oak leaf (which you can see HERE). A pretty drastic change!

Sticks, sticks, sticks

Species name: Acer saccharum

Common name: Sugar maple

Location: Ontario

So this isn't your typical thoughts when it comes to a maple tree. And this probably isn't the kind of image you want to see when promised that spring is "right around the corner" (aren't we promised that every year at the end of March?!). But it's a fact of life that trees lose their leaves in the fall, overwinter as a bunch of upright sticks, then grow new leaves in the spring. But do all trees do that?

Unfortunately, nothing in Biology ever has a rule for which there are no exceptions. We can say that all trees lose their leaves then regrow them at some point in their life cycle, but that would be just plain false. An important concept to introduce is the difference between evergreen and deciduous trees. Evergreen trees are exactly what they sound like: always green. They never lose their green parts, and they're always biologically "active", even when it seems like all that they're doing is sitting there. In elementary school you learn that conifers are evergreens, and everything else loses their leaves. In reality, this is false. MOST conifers in Canada are evergreens, but there are some clear exceptions like Dawn Redwoods and Larch (and a few others, but those are extremely uncommon in Canada). Deciduous trees are those that lose their leaves in the fall to regrow them in the spring, and are often thought of as being the leafy plants. This is also not entirely true, since there are many tropical leafy trees that are considered evergreens since they never lose their leaves.

Another misconception is that the way the seasons work in Canada is the way they work everywhere. In reality, almost every country in the world has "seasons". Even tropical countries right on the equator that have no clear distinction between spring, summer, fall and winter still have a wet and dry season. In fact, we have the same thing in Canada: winter would be considered our "dry" season since the only form of precipitation (snow) is biologically unavailable to plants. The soil is also too cold to allow for water absorption, so the trees go dormant. Same thing in the tropics: during the dry season, many deciduous trees will lose their leaves and enter dormancy to regrow them during the wet season. There are some plants in the tropics that take this to an extreme, and any time there's a period of drought (anywhere from 7 to 14 days without rain, and it doesn't matter what time of year it is) the tree will shed its leaves and regrow them all after the next rain. A neat example of nutrient cycling in the tropics; nutrient recycling in temperate countries could never happen this quickly, and so if a tree shed its leaves any time it didn't get water for a prolonged period it would never be able to grow them back fast enough and would die.