All in the Family (& Genus): Solanaceae & Solanum

Carolina horsenettle, aka: radical weed, apple of Sodom

I passed a "radical weed" growing by the side of the road which looked to be related to and in the same family of some potatoes I've grown.

How closely related is this plant, which according to Wikipedia is labelled a noxious weed in some states though a southeastern native,  to that purple flowered potato I grew pictured below? Well the Carolina Horsenettle's botanical name is Solanum carolinense and the potato's is Solanum tuberosum, so they share the same genus too.

The Grass Might Not Be Greener

The grass might not be greener on the opposite side of the fence but the wisteria flowering there sure looks dreamy and the scent was delicious. I would wear it but then I think the bumble bees would be chasing me everywhere.

Fothergilla: Plant of the Day This Early May

Petals? Who needs them. Just wave your stamens in the air like you don't care, I guess, is Fothergilla's motto. Aesthetically, this North American native's flowers are all about the male organs. Perhaps this is fitting, as the new lesson I learned about Fothergilla this spring is that the genus name honors a man named Dr John Fothergill (1712–1780), an English Quaker physician whose 18th-century Essex garden garden included one of the earliest, most extensive collections of North American native plants. (Essentially this plant is named after an old timey plant geek!)

Just like some other native members of the witch-hazel family (Hamamelidaceae) worth knowing, come autumn and its leaves will be the stars of the show.

Under an Umbelliferae and a A Blue Sky

 or next to a patch of some by the side of the road perhaps,

is where i want to be. To me there is something so lovely about the color of the curly dock as it browns and goes to seed this time of year among the Queen's Anne's Lace blooms. (This isn't the country, just the edge of Brooklyn, by the side of the road and above in an old airfield.)

More Pea Family Flowers in May

Baptisia in May

Are you tired of them yet? I know I'm not. I skipped peas as a food crop in the vegetable garden this year. When it was like 80 degrees in March I figured it wouldn't be a good year for them and just sowed some to fix a little nitrogen in the soil and turn in. But maybe I'll just let those few vines grow anyway, just to see those sweet flowers and harvest a bowl or two to eat.

One Pea Family Flower Blooming this Week

Ridiculously pretty dripping in long chains of those pea family flowers.

When You See It

Lamium galeobdolon in the spring, Union Square Park

you see it. If you look long enough and hard enough at plants, even if you never have before in your life, you will begin to recognize the similarities of family members. (Here two members of the Lamiaceae, the mint family.) But only one is native and a real lover of sunny dry spots like the lot we are planting in and that's the Monarda punctata below. We're waiting on some plugs and hoping to introduce this native to that dusty lot. The other is considered a thug in some parts due to its success as a ground cover.

Monarda punctata in July, Brooklyn

Baptisia Seed Pods in April

I'm a sucker for plants in the pea family (do you think they call the family fabaceae because it's so fab?) and a sucker for plants with pretty seed pods, so I'm doubly done in by our native Baptisia australis. Those rattling seed pods still looked beautiful standing stiffly after the winter before they were cut down this afternoon.

On Deadnettle

What to do with the Deadnettle (Lamium purpureum) one of the major blooming weeds en masse right now down at my community garden and by the roadside? Weed it out? Take it home to eat? Leave it for the bees and any other pollinators who might be hanging around in these cool temperatures? I lean towards the latter, removing it only where it's crowding my garlic or other bulbs. Throwing it in my compost later, most likely after is has seeded, probably isn't the best policy for trying to control a weed. But I like the look of this one, a low mass of purple in late winter/early spring and I'm pretty sure that like a lot of plants in its family (Lamiaceae), other herbs I grow in the garden, that it is a draw for pollinators. Right now most of the blooming things (there are a few others, yesterday chickweed, henbit and speedwell) in some places, like my vegetable garden and grassy patches by the side of the road, are weeds.

On Cornus

Cornelian cherry buds just opening, Brooklyn Bridge Park end of February 2012

Seeing the Cornelian Cherry buds up close yesterday at Brooklyn Bridge Park (for more of what's happening there - a Bluebell photo contest even- visit the link to Brooklyn Bridge Park's blog or take a walk to see spring unfolding there for yourself in person) was kind of an aha moment. I knew the Cornelian cherry was related to the Cornus florida, the spring-blooming dogwood native to this area. Same genus. But the resemblance between the two only finally caught my eye clearly yesterday and it was in the buds.


Cornus florida winter buds at NYBG last January


Blooming Cornelian Cherry Dogwood, Prospect Park, mid-to-late March last year

It's less easy for me to see that resemblance when the flowers are open. But I rarely get up close and personal with the Cornelian cherry. Mostly, it just appears to me in the distance as this lovely haze of yellow in the empty canopy of early spring. Our native Dogwoods most anybody recognizes and could draw, (but it's the petal-like bracts and not the actual flower clusters that catch the eye) and they are the image that will forever come to mind first whenever I hear the word Dogwood. You know I love them the most.

If It Looks Like a Pea

                            Seed pods of Albizia julibrissin (Silk Tree, Mimosa), Park Slope, Brooklyn

then it just might be related. When you start out to know the names of plants and identify the things growing around you, the task can seem overwhelming. If you've never paid attention before, you might find yourself bewildered at every corner, even in a densely urban area like New York City known more for its steel skyscrapers and architecture than for its teeming plant life. But there are street trees everywhere and landscaping plants around apartment buildings and a lot to see if you keep your eyes open and focused on more than the pavement. So you start with what you've got in the way of knowledge and make associations based on what you know. It's pretty likely when you see something above your head that reminds you of a snow pea pod that you are looking at a tree in the same family as the pea. If that's only as far as you get, it's not so bad. It's a big world with a lot of plants and you can't learn everything at once. In this case, the pea pods belong to the Albizia julibrissin, which has more than one common name in the US. And while it is planted for decorative reasons, it is also a tree that has naturalized in Brooklyn and more southern parts of the US, and in some places it is labelled as an invasive species.

Something Witchy This Way

Fothergilla (Aka Witch Alder)

Two witches to watch in the fall. You can't always tell that plants are related simply 

by looking at their leaves, but with these two members of the witch-hazel family (Hamamelidacea), you can.

Hamamelis (aka Witch Hazel)

On The High Line Now

with Susan and Pat in Mid-August, thinking about the plant families we ought to get to know better. We settled on the Lamiaceae (mint family) and Asteraceae (composite). With something along the lines of 30,000 species between the two, that ought to keep us busy for a little while. And it will give us a good excuse to take walks in beautiful New York City spaces looking at flowers and call it studying.

Street petals

There's a New York City street tree blooming nearby. The Chinese Scholartree is the common name listed in my New York City Trees book. The bees seem to love these late blooms so much they will dive into them where they are lined up on the road or on the tops of cars after falling from the tree. Looking closely at the blooms reveals their resemblance to pea flowers and indeed, this tree is in the legume family. In six months, when it is cold again, there will be pods dangling from the Chinese Scolartree and it will still be recognizable. But I'm not looking forward to winter already. I feel almost the opposite. That another summer is slipsliding away too fast.

If You Can't Stand the Heat

Sea Rocket (Cakile edentula) on the beach in New York City

you've got to get out of the kitchen or in the case of plants down by the seashore, off of the beach and the sand. It's a hot week in New York City and though we've been blessed this year with a cool slow spring and early summer, mother nature's been kicking it up a notch since around the 4th. It's a good time to look around and appreciate those plants that grow in the cracks untended and without supplemental watering, or in the case of the Sea Rocket above, right in the sand at the beach. If you're a foodie or a forager or a foraging foodie, perhaps you admire this plant for reasons other than its ability to thrive in sand. But there's a long distance bike trip in my very near future and I'm looking at this plant for a little inspiration on what it takes to endure and thrive in an unforgiving environment.

Some botanical facts about Sea Rocket (Cakile edentula not quite sure how to pronounce the botanical name, but is there a reason to use it when the common name is so supercool?): It's a native and it's in the Brassicaceae family like Arugula and Radishes.

Name That Bloom

It's Arugula. Flowering in Brooklyn. Another benefit of letting some of your vegetables and herbs go to flower is that you can often observe a family resemblance. Arugula and Radishes are related and you can see that in their flowers. Below, a flowering Daikon Radish from the community garden pumpkin patch in early October of last year. Both the Arugula and the Radish are in the Brassicaceae family, which contains a lot of food crop plants that are producing this time of year, like Broccoli and Cabbage, to name just a few.

Unmistakable, Tulip Tree of Prospect Park

There are a lot of reasons to be excited about the Tulip Trees (Liriodendron tulipifera) of Prospect Park, not the least of which is that the species is a majestic towering native with spectacular blooms. What I particularly like is that this tree is unmistakable, identifiable with obvious characteristics in all seasons. Below, the flower reveals its lineage clearly and anyone who has ever looked closely at a Magnolia flower could at least guess that the trees are related. (In fact, they share a family, the Magnoliaceae.)

Outside the City

The weeds are familiar, although I can't say I've ever seen Wild Turkeys in an open lot in the city like we did on our way to Wappingers Falls. Above, the flower of the Narrow-leaved Plantain, (Plantago lanceolata). Like other plantains, one of its medicinal uses was to treat insect bites. I think the flowering heads are charming, weedy as the species is.

We did find a beautiful native plant in a nursery we passed on the way, Lupinus perennis, and brought it out to Joe's brother's. I'd recently seen this Lupine blooming in the Native Flora Garden at Brooklyn Botanic and was happy to find it at the nursery. Its bloom is lovely, like most blooms in the Pea Family, but I'm mad for its foliage too. I hope it thrives in Wappingers Falls.



Fantastic foliage of Lupinus perennis, our native Lupine.































Tip of Lupinus perennis' raceme of blooms at Brooklyn Botanic's Native Flora Garden, mid-May.

All in the Family

Hardenbergia violacea flowers

When I saw the Hardengergia violacea blooming today in the Warm Temperate house at Brooklyn Botanic, it didn't immediately call to mind lilacs, (one of its common names is the Lilac Vine) but rather it immediately made me think of Apios americana (groundnut vine). I didn't know what plant I was looking at, but I had a feeling it shared a family with the pea, just as the native Apios americana does. When I realized I was right and indeed this was another plant in the Fabaceae family, I was pretty psyched because it means something is sinking in from looking at all these plants.


Apios americana flowers

These plants that come from different places are related (the Hardenbergia is Australian) and just like you can with some members in human families, you can see a resemblace right away. They are currently classified in the Fabaceae family, which is huge, just like the snow pea vines I grow in my vegetable garden. Of course, you can't assume plants are related just because they remind you of each other, but seeing similarities between species is a good enough start when you're trying to learn about plant families or just trying to ID something.





















Snow Pea flower

Potatoes vs. Eggplant

An early red potato flower (70 to 90 days)

In New York City, it's all about real estate and so it goes in a city garden as well. I'm faced with a big decision this year, in a bit of a crop rotation quandry with the solanaceae family. There's not enough room in my garden plot for both potatoes and eggplant this year, so one will have to go. Tomatoes and peppers are a must. Right now I'm leaning towards growing potatoes because I love the surprise of digging them up and I'll probably be able to get a nitrogen-fixing crop in after they are pulled. But if the zuchinni bites the dust again due to borers and disease, I might regret that decision. (I know eggplant and zuchinni aren't the same thing, but they can be used so similarly for a summer meal.) I'm pretty sure most people would go with growing the eggplant over the potato, but I've got a sweet spot for growing the spuds. It makes you feel like you could be a farmer.

















White Eggplant, Summer 2008