Green Deane’s Newsletter 8 November 2011
Elderberry leaf: Note veins either peter out or end at the tips of the teeth
From the Village Green
“Are there any look alikes?”
It’s a simple and direct question I hear often. The answer is “yes” and “no.” If you look closely enough the answer is no. If you don’t look closely enough the answer is yes. To some folks the plant world is green and they all look alike. When I encounter a plant that makes me think it looks like something else I take a closer look until it does not look like something else. That said, it’s quite understandable that students learning about plants would see “look alikes.” I have also learned some students groups certain plants together that would never occur to me. One such confusion is between the edible Elderberry and the deadly Water Hemlock. Complicating the issue is the fact they both like their feet wet and can grow next to each other. For the record, their differences are many:
Deadly water-hemlock leaves. Arrow indicates veins ending at the notches of the leaf margins.
The Water Hemlock, to the right, is herbaceous, two to seven feet. It has a green main stem with purple splotches, or is entirely dusky purple particularly when young. The sectioned, hollow stem has vertical grooves on the outside. It produces a fire cracker-like explosion white blossom made up of many smaller umbrella-like blossom. Those produce seeds, not fruit. It has alternating, compound leaves, coarse, toothy. On individual leaves most, not all, but most of the veins clearly terminate between the teeth. See the arrow on the picture t right.
The Elderberry , Sambucus canadensis, pictured above, is a shrub with bark, to ten feet or more. Woody. It’s blossom is a dense flattop. It produces, locally, black berries about BB size. It has opposite compound leaves, feathery. Most of the veins on the leaf either peter out or terminate at the tip of the teeth, not between the teeth. If you have a #10 magnifying glass you can see tiny veins terminating at the tips of the teeth.
Where I run into a look-alike problems is when the original identification is wrong. I was asked by mail if there were any local plants that can be confused with Pennywort, Hydrocotyle bonariensis. That genus is peltate (see Botany Builder below.) There are other genera locally that I know of that are peltate like the Pennywort. One is the American lotus, Nelumbo lutea, which is also 10 times larger or more, the other is the Water Shield, Brascenia schreberi, which grows in deep water and is covered with a clear gel. So the quick answer is not really but only within the extent of my knowledge. As no photograph was sent that brings up a second issue. The question I am being asked might be right but the plant all wrong. In other words the person asking the question might have a good question but about the wrong plant so the answer is wrong even when right. Photos with inquires are always good, particularly of where any leaf meets a stem.
The other problem is misinformation. In my email this week I got an inquiry about two different cherry trees. A person had been told there were only two cherries locally, A and B, both edible. He asked me how to tell them apart. Not only are there numerous way to sort them out but one is very toxic, not edible. Fortunately he included the genus name. Had he not I would have said the cherries in his area are edible, it never occurring to me that the toxic cherry would have ever been taught as an edible.
There are also details. Red is not pink. Red is red. Pink is pink. If a plant is described as having pink leaves red leaves will not do. If leaves are supposed to have a notch at the end it must be there no matter how well the description fits otherwise. Botanists, for all their failings, usually describe plants well. Indeed, their major disputes usually lie in one botanist describing the plant in more detail than the other botanist. Sticking 101% to the details can keep you from making a trip to the hospital. Details eliminate “look alikes.”
In college — which was admittedly back in the Dark Ages — I had a communications professor who had the very irritating habit of answering exactly what you asked whereby one quickly learned that what you were asking was not what you wanted to know. I sometimes feel that way about some questions I receive. I can only answer accurately when I am asked accurately. If you have a plant question please try to include a picture.
♣ Teaching in Ocala this weekend there were some interesting finds. For me the biggest surprise was finding Henbit, Lamium amplexicaule, this early. Although I live only 80-some miles farther south there is a big meteorological line arcoss the state. Ocala is temperate and I am subtropical/temperate. Locally I won’t see Henbit for another six to eight weeks, or at least I have never found it this early locally. Young Henbit resembles young Stinging Nettle, Urtica chamaedryoides. You have to investigate a siting carefully in that locally Stinging Nettle is also a fall/wintertime plant… and our little Urtica, called the Heart Leaf Stinging Nettle, is reported to have a sting that is among the worst on earth. It’s botanical name means “Stinging dwarf.” Having been stung I can say it’s no fun. For me the intense sharp pain does not moderate and lasts for several days… yes, I tried all the remedies. I also sat on them once by accident while making a video.
We also found a Milkweed Vine, Morrenia odorata, that the grounds keeper had failed to kill. It had one young fruit on it but was covered with blossoms. It will blossom and fruit until a freeze knocks it out. Most of the plant above ground is edible though its fruit and flowers are the most commonly consumed. The fruit, more like a squash, is high in Vitamin C — higher than citrus — and tastes like a cross between a zucchini and a potato, after you cook it which you must. The state has spent literally millions trying to get rid of the vine, which covers citrus trees.
Not an unusual find but a pleasant one was a fruiting Wild Cucumber, or Melothria pendula. It’s always popular with foraging students. Folks like finding miniature cucumbers in the wild. Also several oaks were masting so we got to try a few acorns, the amount of tannins varying greatly. An acorn with less tannin to start with means less work to get an edible product. There is reportedly a new oak in Idaho that produces an acorn without tannins — a natural hybrid and a first. But then the report says the acorns are leached… Botanists like to make things confusing.
A peltate leaf
♣ Botany Builder: Peltate, (PEL-tate) a round leaf with the stalk stuck in the middle. Strictly said, having the petiole — remember last week’s Botany Builder? — attached to the lower surface instead of the margin (leaf’s edge.) Like so many things, the past is woven into our knowledge. Peltate comes from the Greek word pelti, πέλτη, in English pelte or pelta. A pelte was a small, round wicker shield covered with leather used by foot soldiers in Ancient Greece. A peltast was a soldier so quipped and probably has something to do with the verb to “pelt” to attack with thrown stuff or repeated blows. The cultivated Nasturtium is peltate.
Guizotia abyssinica
♣ Did You Know? When you buy thistle seed in the United States to feed birds (or yourself) know they are not thistle seeds, despite the label. They are seeds of the Guizotia abyssinica, the Niger Seed which is really from the highlands of Ethiopia. Often sold as finch food the seeds are fried, used as a condiment, dried to make a chutney, or mixed with honey and made into sweet cakes. The oil is a substitute for Ghee. Imports of the seed became dicey after the U.S. government in 1982 said untreated seeds were adulterated with seeds from at least nine noxious weeds five of which are edible. The first five of the nine are edible: African couchgrass, red rice, kodo millet, onion weed, and mesquites. A 2001 law required that imported niger seed be heated to 248 °F (120 °C) for 15 minutes. A variety of G. abyssinica, EarlyBird Niger, was developed in 2002 and adapted to the United States. It is now in commercial agricultural production in the U.S.
♣ Lastly, in the “for what it’s worth” department I must be doing something right. The new site — still ugly — is getting nearly 200 pieces of spam a day, and that’s with a spam filter.
