Woodland Harvest: Solomon's Seal

Solomon's Seal is one of my favorite woodland plants,
with its distinctively graceful arches hung with clusters of creamy bells.
Here in Pennsylvania it would be a common sight in our deciduous woods,
were it not one of the preferred foods of the overabundant whitetail deer,
but, alas, it is, and as a result is rarely seen hereabouts.
 Luckily, it flourishes under cultivation,
and can be a striking presence in the shade garden.

These stately Solomon's seals, tucked under a large dogwood in the side yard, have been here for at least 15 years. Now they are fully three and a half feet tall, despite competition from the English ivy.

I came across this drawing in a journal from 2007.
The text is from Tis Mal Crow

 

"Polygonatun biflorum  

According the Muskogee People, the top part of the plant is used for fatigue. It helps get your blood sugar back in balance, and provides a burst of energy from carbohydrates. The fresh leaves are tinctured in grain alcohol fresh in the fall.A small amount of tincture under the tongue can releave late afternoon fatigue, like coffee but without the post-caffeine side-effects."
 

The knobby rhizomes are soft and slice easily. Their taste is delicious and sweet!

Here the distinctive 'seals' are evident

 

The roots of Solomon Seal are a specific medicine for joints, muscles and tendons. A tincture of the fresh roots in 100 proof Vodka can be used whenever there is damage to the joints: dislocations, strains, sprains, etc. It is especially helpful for torn ligaments, ruptured discs and connective tissue damage.  In combination with lobelia, it works on carpel tunnel problems; as a warm fomentation applied directly on the wrist, and internally, as well.

Matthew Wood, in The Earthwise Herbal asserts that it can help adjust the tension on the tendons, as well as soothing the digestive tract in cases of severe intestinal inflammation. Solomon's seal is also said to tonify the sexual system, both male and female, and can strengthen the tendons holding the uterus.

Here the sliced rhizomes are steeping in strong 100 proof Vodka.  They will extract for about two weeks, and then be strained through unbleached muslin and stored in labeled brown bottles.

Replanted in my new side garden along with its cousin Lily of the Valley and shade-loving coleus, these Solomon's Seals will soon form a nice colony, ready to be sustainably harvested in a couple more years.

Back from A Week in Paris

It seemed to me unlikely that APRIL IN PARIS would live up to all the hype…

                    but, alas, I was wrong.     

                              

For  the seasons had sped up, or perhaps started early, but at any rate, Spring had, indeed, come to this most beautiful of cities, while Philadelphia was wallowing in its usual late-spring spate of cold weather. In Paris rough countrymen were already selling bunches of lilacs and lily-of-the-valley on the streetcorners, as they have been for years, and the walled gardens are festooned in wisteria. In all of the public parks and gardens, Parisians and tourists alike were lounging in the sun, like lizards soaking up the heat from the pavements, filling the benches with a tapestry of colorful characters playing musical chairs.  They arranged themselves around the forbidden grassy plots in appreciative admiration, chatting or greeting friends or tilting their chins to get a bit of sun.  They sat in pairs of all sorts along the quaysides, equidistant, each couple camped out in their own bit of sun, vying for the right to be as close as possible to the Seine, slapped by the waves of the passing tourist boats.

C'est charmante.  C'est Paris en printemps.  It's Spring.

David and Dory in Parc Montsouris

View towards Le Grande Gallerie de l'evolution, Museum on Natural History architect: Louis-Jules Andre

The grand allees of Sycamore/London Plane Trees at the Jardins des Plantes have been relentlessly pruned for centuries to achieve the perfect rectangular geometry apparent here.  Masters of "the grand effect" French gardening in the public arena is meant to impress, and the grand sweep of these wide paths is accentuated by a lack of benches -- this is a thoroughfare.  It is on the edges where one finds ranks of benches for the weary or for the thoughtful, arranged for watching the world go by.

The Jardins des Plantes is still, primarily, a teaching garden, as is evident by the arrangement of its many botanical wonders.  In one area, plants are arranged by botanical family, to allow the student to see the structural similarities that Linnaeus used to categorize the chaos of the botanical world.  By Linnaeus's time (roughly 1750) the garden had already been in existence for 100 years, as a teaching garden, a repository of rare and exotic plants, and as a living catalogue of medicinal plants.

The Jardin had been actively acquiring exotic specimens since the time of Guy Fagon, the garden's director until 1718, who had sent collectors to the Antilles and the Levant armed with royal authority. Thus the garden acquired pistachio trees, maples from Crete and a cedar of Lebanon brought as a seedling from England by Bernard de Jussieu in 1734. When the pot the seedling came in broke, Jussieu carried the tiny plant in his hat; today the gigantic tree towers over the garden's labyrinth.

In light of new discoveries, the Ecole de Botanique was totally reorganized as early as 1774, when Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu, Bernard's nephew, replaced an earlier system in favor of one developed by his uncle and based on Linnaeus's system of binary nomenclature. Antoine-Laurent later went on to develop and publish his own scheme. (The arrangement in the Ecole de Botanique continues to evolve—a brand-new sign explains that it's currently being revised to reflect recent studies on molecular structure.)

                                                           Vivian Thomas, Le Jardins des Plantes: Flora: 2012

In fact, according to the French, the glory of developing a system of botanical nomenclature should  not belong to Linneaus, but rather to Jussieu:

 In his study of flowering plants, Genera plantarum (1789), Jussieu adopted a methodology based on the use of multiple characters to define groups, an idea derived from Scottish-French naturalist Michel Adanson. This was a significant improvement over the "artificial" system of Linnaeus, whose most popular work classified plants into classes and orders based on the number of stamens and pistils. Jussieu did keep Linnaeus' binomial nomenclature, resulting in a work that was far-reaching in its impact; many of the present-day plant families are still attributed to Jussieu. Morton's 1981 History of botanical science counts 76 of Jussieu's families conserved in the ICBN, versus just 11 for Linnaeus, for instance. (Not that its a competition, of course!)

The arrangement in the Ecole de Botanique continues to evolve—a brand-new sign explains that it's currently being revised to reflect recent studies on molecular structure.

Here, rangy and unkempt alongside the path, I find Woad, an ancient plant that is the second best plant source for a blue dye.  (Indigo being the first)  The process by which this unassuming plant yields up its dye is a urine-driven fermentation which is as unpleasant as it sounds, and a testament to the lengths people were willing to go to get this beautiful color.  Woad was the plant with which the fierce Celts used to paint themselves blue before going into battle -- as remarked upon by Julius Caesar himself -- and it has a reputation for provoking a hallucinogenic euphoria and inability to feel pain.  These both seem like very useful attributes if you were planning on battling the Roman Legions basically in the nude -- and may, in fact, be one reason why it was used as a body paint.

Sesquiterpenoids are defined as the group of 15 carbon compounds derived by the assembly of 3 isoprenoid units and they are found mainly in higher plants but also in invertebrates. Sesquiterpenes, with monoterpenes, are an important constituent of essential oils in plants. They are the most diverse group of isoprenoids. In plants, they function as pheromones and juvenile hormones.

Yellow Woad blossoms betray their relationship to mustard, another yellow member of the cruciferae family.
Like a cross, both have four petals set perpendicular to one another. 

The blossoms and stems of Primula veris, or common primroses, are a wonderful sedative addition to baths or to teas.  Some species are said to produce a localized contact dermatitis,  resembling eczema in susceptible individuals, but I have never experienced the effect.

At Pennsbury Manor (1701) we grew a variety illustrated by Gerarde in 1633, called "Hose in Hose" or "Two-in-a-hole".

Milk Thistle here is seen embracing its descriptive signage.  One of the plants essential in rebuilding the liver, it is a welcome discovery here, touting it virtues.  A tincture of the fresh plant has been part of my post-surgical liver regeneration campaign, and an important part of my recuperation from the removal of my colon cancer metastases. Needless to say, I love this plant.

The Gardens of Paris had  more treasures than revealed in this brief sojourn, so look for Paris: Part II, coming soon...

Thyme, Time and More Thyme; or a fine afternoon in Baltimore

I guess I had some time to kill.

I happened upon the George Peabody Library quite by chance, really.
I had the opportunity to accompany my husband to a professional conference held at the Hilton in Baltimore, and was looking about for something to occupy my two days of waiting around for the programs to be done. Luckily, the library is located in a stunning building -- enough draw in and of itself! -- that was well represented in the "Sights to see around Baltimore" articles that I'd looked at.




It was a grey and dreary late-start sort of a day,  perfect for a couple of hours in the library.   I had no appointment. While I had tried to make the requisite appointment, with some confusion and just a little humiliation, the day before,
I had never really gotten ahold of anyone, nor figured out exactly where to go to see the recipe manuscript and the Culpepers Herbal that I wanted to see. I called sheepishly in the morning, and was invited in, but then  I got carried away at Lafayette Market, a slightly sketchy rabbit-warren of a market, serving soul food lunches to a crowd gathering for a
lunchtime band.

By then
it was after 2 pm.

On Fridays
The Peabody
usually
closes at 3.

The Library
was an unspecified
cab-ride away and
was beginning to seem  like a lot of trouble.
Plus, I was more than a little reluctant to seem completely unprofessional by arriving late on a Friday afternoon, though in all likelihood I would never be here again, and who cares, anyway?

Sometimes
these library adventures have an aspect to them
of
     a

           grand

                          quest.


Here the dragon guarding the treasure was my own inertia.

My sense that there wasn't enough time.

I almost didn't go.

                                                                                            Journal entry: March 2014

The Peabody Library is a wonderment: tiers upon tiers of stacks are arranged around an airy atrium, lit by high skylights.   Fancy ironwork bannisters rise into the heights, illuminated by touches of gold: highlighting the layers upon layers of pattern: scalloping and friezes and columns; the coffered ceilings in each of the alcoves, the rows and rows and rows of books.  It makes one quite dizzy, this temple to books. The quiet hum of a heater somewhere below rumbles reassuringly. The desks are are set apart from one another in two long rows, for those of us who choose to settle in the middle of the room. Elsewhere, people have tucked themselves into the alcoves on either side where, perhaps, the redundant card catalogs once resided.

The flourishes in the tiny balustrade repeat a pattern of faintly Moorish onion arches & Christian crosses in relief.  I sketch it while I wait for my books.

As I wait, there is plenty of time to admire the scenery and soak in the ambiance.

A kind of awe settles in for the sheer elaborate magnificence of the library, made more approachable by its weathered shabbiness. All this knowledge! All stacked here systematically categorized, 

open for my inspection. 

They bring a stack of foam wedges to rest the precious books on, and two strings of weighted cord, filled with ball bearings. These are to hold the pages down as gently as possible. They unroll a great long extension cord and fix me a light, while up on the fifth tier a student is looking for my books. 

When they bring the books, I open the earliest first:
1689 … 1740 …1787  …1847

 Culpeper

The English Physician, Enlarged 1740

 Originally published in 1652 as The Englifh Phyfitian, Culpeper's work has been enlarged and improved, and published in multiple editions almost continuously right through the next three and a  half centuries.These posthumous productions are among the hundreds of works to which his name is attached, and you will find seemingly endless variations of the title, including an edition from Exeter NH in 1825 that blithely changed "made of English Herbs" to "made of American Herbs" and spelled Culpeper's name wrong! 

This 1740 edition, published 86 years after Culpepers death, contains beautifully colored plates, some oversized and folded repeatedly, that jump out of the pages. 

Notice the beautiful ghost image of the lily on the opposite page.

The hellebores are as splendid and popular now as they were in the past.  They bloom very early in the spring, and were featured in many exhibits at this year's 2014 Philadelphia Flower Show. Unfortunately, the hellebores are a deadly bunch, and have been implicated in the death of Alexander the Great, among others. Its a particularly nasty demise, too, though most people are put off by the acrid burning taste, and thereby avoid a toxic dose.

This was the most glorious rendering of Coltsfoot -- Tussilago farfara   Another dennison of the early spring, the flowers and the mature leaves, as shown here, do not bloom at the same time.  Instead, the flowers erupt now out of the leaf-litter, looking like little dandelions on felted stalks, and are only followed much later by the leaves.  These have a lush downy underside that the artist has tried to show here, too.  This was a very well-known plant in the 17th c, apparently, and tales of it being painted on the doors or apothecaries as an advertisement to the illiterate in France have underscored its fame as a cough remedy.  I love that its latin name quite sounds like a cough: farfara.   The tiny early leaves should be admired but are not to be used, as they contain pyrrolizidine alkaloids, that dissipate as they age. I have never much used any of it, preferring thyme and elecampane and horrid horehound for coughs.

The artist has captured perfectly the elegant nodding habit of the coltsfoot, and then the final exuberant gesture, as it flings its seeds aloft, each with its own silken parachute, right out of the bounds of the page!

Like thyme, borage has a reputation for stimulating courage. The beautiful pale line-drawing set behind these luminous borage blossoms, hints at its prickly nature. Although it has a lovely cucumber-y flavor, the prickles are prohibitively unpleasant for most people.

An annual, easily and enthusiastically grown from seed, it prefers quite warm soil to germinate on its own, but can be coaxed early in the greenhouse, where it gets a robust start. When happy, one tiny seed can give rise to a prodigious plant fully three feet across, each succulent stem an inch or more thick.  Let to luxuriate in its blue abundance, it managed to dwarf and kill a couple of the lavender in the row next door, much to my chagrin.

Thyme has an ancient reputation as a specific for throat strain caused by overuse or strenuous singing. A strong decoction of fresh or dried thyme, stabilized with brandy and sweetened with honey, makes a delicious cough syrup.

Though Culpeper demurs to describe an herb so commonly known, the artist has rendered a loving and precise portrait of this garden favorite, trailing beautifully across the page.

Potions and Lotions

The pleasures of home
production, for me,
consist of the orderly
rows of bottles,
the final careful
compounding, the
careful writing
in my 'batch' book
to preserve the recipe,
and, finally,
the lovely
waterproof
labeling

Bottles
and
jars :
clean
and
ready
to be
filled

Elderberry steeped in 100 proof vodka is decanted through fine muslin,
and either bottled as an effective anti-flu tincture,
 or sweetened with honey or simple syrup to make an excellent after-dinner liqueur

always fill my

heart
with
joy

Notice the labels marking
each batch -- even as they
are being shifted around
the kitchen :
IMPORTANT!

 This year I made some wonderful herbal vinegars: so simple!

Ephemeral blossoms like chive blossoms, sage blossoms,
and lavender flower vinegar
can be piled into quart mason jars
(or larger!) and set to steep in the sun, shaking daily.  After some days, the vinegar will take on color and
fragrance, and can be strained through a muslin drip-bag,
bottled and labeled.

Deep Healing Salve
Infused St John's Wort blossoms yield a red oil traditionally used for
  deep cuts and burns with nerve damage.

Its always important to taste your liqueurs while adding sweeteners,
as each batch of infusion will have its own sweetness.

When sweetening a liqueur,
 start by adding half the recommended amount of simple syrup at first,
and gradually add more
until it achieves a pleasant taste.

Everyone's tastebuds are unique,
like every batch of fruit,
so its a good idea to share with friends and get their opinions!

The Growing Season in Retrospect

The lovely geometry of the spring garden, when beds are newly turned and planted.

A little later in the season, trellises provide vertical interest.

I seeded calendula, an annual,  into the new lavender bed where it will share the space this year.
Hopefully, next season the lavender will need the entire 4' wide bed. 

Elecampane
a stately perennial
with large composite yellow flowers, makes a good show in the early garden.

Later in the season,
they will get rangy and unkempt
and need cutting back,
leaving some huge downey leaves
to collect strength into
the roots.

In the autumn,
I will lift the whole plant,
replant the side shoots,
and harvest the roots
for a sweet and effective
cough syrup.

Hops flowers.

 Hops, a climbing vine with prickly, clinging stems, is another good addition to the garden. I discovered a tangle of young hops vines when I first started cleaning up the herb garden. They had been allowed to sprawl along the side of the garden for a couple of years, where they made an impenetrable and unwelcoming mat. Hops only produce flowers and fruit (the strombiles used in medicine and beer- brewing) when trained up on supports, so I construct some simple bamboo tripods, and gently encourage them to grow upwards.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, when hops began to be produced in quantity for european beer production, acres of hops vines were trained onto 'poles' -- usually tall "T" shaped trellises. At the end of the season, the hops were cut, and the poles were pulled out and laid on sawhorses, where the papery 'fruits' could be picked off by hand. Deforestation in Europe was already a problem, and so "an acre of hops poles' was valuable enough to be listed in period inventories.

Echinacea purpurea
in bloom in June.

Here, again, the root is
primarily
the part used -- along
with the seed heads --
and so this  is enjoyed
all season
and dug, separated,
and harvested
in the fall.



My garden this year was a combination of about a 1/2 acre of established (and formerly allowed to languish) garden, and another 1/2 acre of new 4' wide herb beds, newly planted.The older section of the garden mostly need sorting...curbing the enthusiasm of some plants -- motherwort, catnip, sage -- while weeding and giving a little space to others -- like butterfly weed.  A bed of chives, lifted and separated, became regimented into a long 30 foot row, more easily harvested by our CSA members.

A partial list of the produce from the herb garden for 2012 includes:
Echinacea, peppermint, spearmint, lemon balm, catnip, mountain mint, french sorrel, chives, marjoram, oregano, thyme, lemon thyme, lavender, witch hazel, rhubarb, lovage, feverfew, motherwort, valerian, borage, bugloss, wood betony, elecampane, marshmallow, joe pye weed (queen of the meadow), nasturtiums, rosemary, corn flowers, elder blossoms, elder berries, calendula, hyssop, anise-hyssop, tulsi -- both krishna tulsi and rama tulsi -- lemon basil, purple basil, parsley, roman chamomile & mexican 'lemon gem' marigolds.

Edible/medicinal weeds include: chickweed, purselane, dandilion, yellow dock, red clover, white clover, mallows, & violets.  Appreciate the volunteers!!!

Herb: A - Z : A Trip to Russells Gardens' Herb Houses: Lavenders

Few things
are
as
sweet

as a greenhouse
on a rainy day.

Russell Gardens, growers par excellence in our area, has a rabbit-warren of herb houses to poke through, one treasure after another: the extra-warm basil house and  the hidden scented-geraniums-- masters of mimicry: rose, lemon. grapefruit.  The rest of the offerings, alphabetized, present a scratch-and-sniff wonderment, serenaded by the drip and splash of a misty rain, seeping through the seams of these patchwork buildings. Ah.  The fragrance of heaven!


                                 Its always good to remember to bring the photographer,
                             and hope for a few             great           shots from the master.

The orderly precision of trays and trays of the hardier English lavenders.  The secret to these is drainage, drainage, & more drainage in a sweet sandy soil mix, with each planting hole (space them 12" - 20" apart) amended with pea gravel or course construction sand.  Raised beds, or placing the lavender rows at the top of the hill will also provide better success in our Bucks County clay. Here in the greenhouse,  each flat must be perfectly level to hold just the right amount of water.

The fringed french lavenders are too tender to survive the winter unprotected in my Pennsylvania gardens

Hurrah!

I have come in search of
more lavender for my sunny
next-door garden, where some four year old english intermedia  lavenders, Grappenhall, have been growing into sturdy shrubs. In the greenhouse, these look unimpressive now, but I add them to my purchase, along with some flashy-sounding "Elegance Purple" lavenders that bloom July - September and three woody lemon-verbena that will go in pots on the porch.

Its really to early yet for the warmth-loving plants to be happily transplanted into the soil -- I'll wait to put in the basils and tomatoes and dipper gourds from seed another tw week, perhaps.  They can languish here in the care of these experts better than in my makeshift protections at home or at the CSA farm, and will provide another reason to stop on my way home from chemo.

http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/fletcher/programs/herbs/crops/culinary/lavender_mccoy.html   More excellent information on the intricacies of lavender  hybrid may be found on this website from North Carolina. (and another Jeanine at work!)


Its not yet raining in earnest when I get home, so I water my flat of new babies,
              --   never trust the weather report  --
knowing that they will need a couple days for hardening off -- getting used to the great outdoors,
as they have been cosseted inside up til now.  I'll sit them outside, but bring them in if the evening turns cold...pampering them for a bit more while readying their permanent homes in the garden.
I think its mostly the wind and the pelting rain that makes them grow stronger.  I remember reading some amazing dry science paper on how the pressure of the wind stimulated both root and stem modifications:  http://www.amjbot.org/content/93/10/1546.full.  Ah.  Wonders of the Web!

The gist of it was that the environmental stressors unleashed specific chemical changes the created structural modifications as a response.  And that these plants are then less likely to be uprooted in areas where they are grazed, or to top-kill in drought situations: cool. huh?   Anyway, being a philosopher/scientist sort leads me to see this as a metaphor, is not an actual hint,  as to the effects of stressors on the production of adaptable and resilient offspring, generally.  As in children... perhaps these hovering parents (helicopter parents) that are overinvested in their children should be called greenhouse parents... and we should be given "hardening-off" instructions for our  teens to twenty-somethings, as well... eh?

The preparations for perennial beds should be more extensive than the prep for annual beds.
The Grappenhalls, after all, will be in their new home for years, growing to a robust 4'.  They are  hardy to zone 5, as is Munstead, another English favorite, and given proper soils and drainage will lay in those beds for decades. They will produce more essential oils in a sand or stone mulch, rather than a vegetative mulch,  which tends to hold moisture. All lavenders appreciate a Ph of 6.5 - 7.5., so test and lime as needed. Try to give them a sweet, sandy, sunny spot, for they will not suffer wet feet gladly.