Strabo's Plantlist

Walafrid Strabo (808-849) was, among many other things, the author of the gardening poem Hortulus, an account of the herbs he grew in his garden and their medical uses. As such it gives us the first plant list for a monastic herb garden, (extracted from):

Agrimony
Catmint
Celery
Mugwort
Betony
Chervil
Clary sage
Costmary
Fennel
Gourd

Horehound

Frankincense
Grape
Indian pepper

Iris
Lily
Lovage
Melon

Poppy

Pomegranate
Mint

Nettles
Pennyroyal
Radish
Rose
Rue
Sage
Southernwood

Tansy

Wormwood

Wild Plants and the escape from all vagueness and inaccuracy

In her Ilfracombe Journal (May/June 1856) we find George Eliot excitedly botanizing, she saw no plants only vivid ideas; to name the world is to own it. Compare with Gilbert White.

I have talked of the Ilfracombe lanes without describing them, for to describe them one ought to know the names of all the lovely wild flowers that cluster on their banks. Almost every yard of these banks is a "Hunt " picture — a delicious crowding of mosses, and delicate trefoil, and wild strawberries, and ferns great and small. But the crowning beauty of the lanes is the springs that gush out in little recesses by the side of the road — recesses glossy with liverwort and feathery with fern. Sometimes you have the spring when it has grown into a brook, either rushing down a miniature cataract by the lane-side, or flowing gently as a " braided streamlet " across your path. I never before longed so much to know the names of things as during this visit to Ilfracombe. The desire is part of the tendency that is now constantly growing in me to escape from all vagueness and inaccuracy into the daylight of distinct vivid ideas. The mere fact of naming an object tends to give definiteness to our conception of it. We have then a sign 'which at once calls up in our minds the distinctive qualities which mark out for us that particular object from all others.

Why look at Wild Plants

Flowers are for insects and the flowers you buy from the florist are eugenic monstrosities that in an entomological episode of Snog, Marry or Avoid would get a 100% avoid rate.

Street plants, real plants, have beauty not for their flowers but for the variation of their strategies, the history of their travels and the intricacies of their survival. You do not study urban wild plants to find rarities, though you wouldn't want to miss them, and you never tire of the common plants. The only goal is to learn about what is out there. 

Plants are outside and so must you be. 

Plants are everywhere and so can you be.

Early on I met a woman with verifiable botanical skills, "she knows her plants". This was at a plant finding expedition near a train station and after taking the first corner we came across a grassy sloped patch with a rosette she, Oh Shock, did not recognize. That is how enormous you can find the world in one little, secluded and everyday place. That is when I learned that the study of wild plants is a process that takes a lifetime. So I take it slow and don't worry about not knowing the name of a plant. It will come to me.

The study of wild plants begins with identification but that is only the way in. Once you know its name you know you can recognize it next time you see it. Once you have seen it twice you can enter into the history (where is it from) and the geography (why is it here) of the plant itself and the place it grows in. 


Plants watcher are a nerdy bunch and they have collected data, described places and wrote travel guides for centuries. You know things have gone wrong when you rate a book for the inclusion of plant lists. 


My favourite book is the "New Atlas of Dutch Flora" that gives the historic distributions for 1500 individual plants.

But I could not do without many other books, especially the books that take you back to the Utrecht of 1843 or to the Terschelling of 1886 or the Amsterdam of 1975. Often the archaic language alone works miracles.

To speak about plants as a way into something else is all good but the pleasure of seeing a plant is what drives it.

I have not yet used the words 'nature', 'environment' and 'ecology' but they enter the story as well, somewhere.

Plants are just a tiny aspect of urban life but their study gives so much context in so many ways to my surroundings  that I now can't imagine ever forsaking it. 

The weeds in my Colosseum

In 1855 Richard Deakin published a study of the wild flowers growing in and on the Colosseum in Rome. It is available online. There was an earlier study and there has also been done a recent study and what it allows for is a study of place through the study of plants. Deakin's book contains a list of plants with descriptions. In the preface he writes: 

The object of the present little volume is to call the attention of the lover of the works of creation to those flocal productions which flourish, in triumph, upon the ruins of a single building. Flowers are perhaps the most graceful and most lovely objects of the creation but are not at any time, more delightful than when associated with what recalls to the memory time and place, and especially that of generations long passed away. They form a link in the memory, and teach us hopeful and soothing lessons, amid the sadness of by- gone ages : and cold indeed must be the heart that does not respond to their silent appeal ; for, though without speech, they tell of that regenerating power which reanimates the dust of mouldering greatness, and clothes their sad and fallen grandeur with graceful forms and curiously constructed leaves and flowers, resplendent with their gay and various colours, and perfume the air with their exquisite odours. The plants which we have found growing upon the Colosseum, and have here described, amount to no less a number than 420 species ; in this number there are examples of 258 Genera, and illustrations of 66 of the Natural Orders of plants, a number which seems almost incredible. There are 56 species of Grasses, 47 of the order Compositea or Syngenesious plants — and 41 of the Leguminous or Pea tribe.
The collection of the plants and the species noted has been made some years ; but, since that time, many of the plants have been destroyed, from the alterations and restorations that have been made in the ruins ; a circumstance that cannot but be lamented. To pre- serve a further falling of any portion is most desirable ; but to carry the restorations, and the brushing and cleaning, to the extent to which it has been subjected, instead of leaving it in its wild and solemn grandeur, is to destroy the impression and solitary lesson which so magnificent a ruin is calculated to make upon the mind.

Plants in & near Amsterdam

 
The backcover to mr. Joh. Bolman's 'Wild plants in and around Amsteram' (1976) informs us that at least half of the 650 native Dutch plant occurring outside nature reserves can be found in Amsterdam. The people of Amsterdam have always been fond of bragging about the biological richness of their city. Mr Bolman writes with the flamboyancy of an Austrian border-guard but he makes up for it with geeked-out precision. Each of the ten chapters deal with a specific family of plants or environmental condition and because of the detailed descriptions he has made it easy for the reader to go out and find specific communities of plants or even individual plants. He mentions for instance a common mallow for years growing behind the fence of the bicycle parking on the West side of the Amsterdam central, I am severely tempted to jump in a train to check if it's still there. The information in this book is very time-specific (summer 1975) but Bolman often refers to the 1852 'Flora Amstelaedamensis' to illustrate changes in the flora and he also relates plants to all sorts of man-made changes in the landscape. This is an old-fashioned book that is brimful with information. It also shows that urban botany also concerns itself with urban history in the most broadest sense.

Plant circumnutation [plant growth trajectories with Mr Charles Darwin]

Cassia corymbosa: A, plant during day; B, same plant at night.

Charles Darwin is usually only known for his theoretical work (which arguable remain of some significance) but he was also an experimentalist who worked on barnacles and earthworms with meticulous care and for extended periods of time. Another subject he took on is the movement of plants. Below are trajectories of the circumnutation of various plants. Yes I needed to look that up as well: "cicumnation: The successive bowing or bending in different directions of the growing tip of the stem of many plants, especially seen in climbing plants." It looks neat though, like GPS tracks, and the accompanying explanations, like the following, add to the flavour. Who could have though that plants grow with such sense of exploration.

Brassica oleracea: circumnutation of radicle, traced on horizontal glass, from 9 A.M. Jan. 31st to 9 P.M. Feb. 2nd. Movement of bead at end of filament magnified about 40 times.

 Brassica oleracea: conjoint circumnutation of the hypocotyl and cotyledons during 10 hours 45 minutes. Figure here reduced to one-half original scale.

Pinus pinaster: circumnutation of young leaf, traced from 11.45 A.M. July 31st to 8.20 A.M. Aug. 4th. At 7 A.M. Aug. 2nd the pot was moved an inch to one side, so that the tracing consists of two figures. Apex of leaf 14 1/2 inches from the vertical glass, so movements much magnified.

Sida rhombifolia: circumnutation and nyctitropic (or sleep) movements of a leaf on a young plant, 9 1/2 inches high; filament fixed to midrib of nearly full-grown leaf, 2 3/8 inches in length; movement traced under a sky-light. Apex of leaf 5 5/8 inches from the vertical glass, so diagram not greatly enlarged.

Averrhoa bilimbi: angular movements of a leaflet during its evening descent, when going to sleep. Temp. 78° - 81° F.

Oxalis carnosa: movements of flower-peduncle, traced on a vertical glass: A, epinastic downward movement; B, circumnutation whilst depending vertically; C, subsequent upward movement, due to apogeotropism and hyponasty combined.

The great Neantherthal drug bust [updated]

Yarrow

The 60-70.000 year old Neanderthal flower burial known as Shanidar IV may be a case of mistaking two archaeological layers as one (the flowers unrelated to the Neanderthal remains), but what a joy to read Jan Lietav's 1991 article 'Medicinal plants in a Middle Paleolithic grave Shanidar IV?' in which the 'objective healing activity' of the six flowers found at the site are evaluated as substantial evidence that the flowers are not 'random'. Here are the six plants with some random bits from the article, from Wikipedia and from Sturtevant's Edible Plants of the World:

Yarrow

"...already mentioned by Homer and Plinius as being useful for wounds and Anglo-Saxons used yarrow as a panacea." Yarrow connects Greek and Chinese myth (Achilles and the I Ching) with Anglo-Saxon medicine with a plant growing along every motorway in almost every part of the world.
Sturtevant: "Europe, Asia and America. In some parts of Sweden, yarrow is said to be employed as a substitute for hops in the preparation of beer, to which it is supposed to add an intoxicating effect."

Yellow Star Thistle (also: St. Barnaby's thistle).

"employed for centuries in folk medicine. Plinius mentioned that Cheiron, the centaur, had used it to cure himself." The Wikipedia-entry is US-centric and deal almost exclusively with its invasiveness. Botanical.com writes:  "in agriculture the Thistle is the recognized sign of untidiness and neglect, being found not so much in barren ground, as in good ground not properly cared for."

Sturtevant:"Europe, north Africa and temperate Asia. The young according to Forskal, are eaten raw in Egypt."

Senecio

"The genus Senecio covers several hundred species. Historically, its earliest use has been evidenced in old Anglo-Saxon chronicles where its name was groundsels." It was used for gout, dressing wounds, and stomach sickness.

Sturtevant:"In Thibet, this plant serves and slightly acid liquor."

Muscari (also: grape hyacinth)

"We need more time to evaluate the objective value of this research properly." There are some online references to herbal uses of this plant but not very specific. Not the strongest case.

Sturtevant: "Mediterranean and Caucasian region. The bulbs are eaten in Crete, Zacynthus and Corcyra, as well as in Italy, according, to Sprengel."

 Ephedra

 "...believed to have been used under the name ma-huang by the mythical Chinese emperor Shen-Nung in the third millenium B.C." Our deceased Neanderthal friend wouldn't have passed a drug test with all that Ephedra.

Sturtevant: "China and south Russia. The fruit is eaten by the Russian peasants and by the wandering hordes of Great Tartary. The fruit is eaten by the  Chinese and is mucilaginous, with a slightly acid or pungent flavor. The fruit is ovoid, succulent, sweet, pale or bright red when ripe. It is eaten in some places, as on the Sutlej." (The Ephedra found at Shanidar is probably another plant from the genus.)

Althaea

"... a highly appreciated plant in both traditional and official medicine since Hippocrates’ times, and it has kept its position to this day. At present, Althea of’- cidis is noted in pharmacopoeias of 26 countries." The root has been used since Egyptian antiquity in a honey-sweetened confection useful in the treatment of sore throat.

Sturtevant: "The plant is found wild in Europe and Asia and is naturalized in places in America. It is cultivated extensively in Europe for medicinal purposes, acting as a demulcent. In 812, Charlemagne enjoined its culture in France. Johnson says its leaves may be eaten when boiled."

So: Yarrow and Ephedra have an extremely well-established, medicinal history of use; Muscari is a unconvincing example; Althea, Senecio and Yellow Star Thistle were used extensively in the past but less obvious so today. Personally I just like the idea that a weedy plant was already used by a Neanderthal 60.000 years ago, it adds history to common plants growing in every street and park. What is interesting is that Neanderthal studies have made a giant leap in recent years and the old brute is becoming ever more human which makes the idea of ceremonial burial by the Neanderthal more likely. We also now have a good idea what they were eating and cooking.    

  

(The Lietav article kindly provided from behind the behind the great academic firewall by a reader).  

(This post rambles what else do you expect? I was looking into this because I wanted to verify Wikipedia's claim that the hollyhock was also found in Shanidar, but from Wikipedia itself I learned that the some plants classed as Alcea (hollyhock) are now part of the Althea family.)