Captain John Smith, 1580-1631

There are 412 years, as of Dec 20th, 2017, between the sailing of John Smith to the New World and spiderwort gamma rays, but they are connected including Pocahontas.

Smith was a colorful character. He went to sea at 16, was a mercenary, fought against the Turks, was wounded, enslaved by them, escaped, killed three Turkish commanders in separate duals, was knighted by a Transylvanian prince, and by December 1606 at the age of 26 was sailing to America.  It was not a smooth voyage. The ship’s captain had planned to execute Smith on arrival for his bad behavior during the trip. But, when they arrived they opened sealed papers from the Virginia company: The man who was to be hanged was put in charge. Now that’s a reprieve.

“Sedgeford Portrait ,” said to represent Pocahontas and her son, authenticity debated.

Life was rough for the Jamestown Colony. Food was scarce. Sailors were reluctant to farm, which prompted now Captain Smith to make one of his more famous pronouncements: He who doesn’t work doesn’t eat. That got the weeds pulled. Smith’s dealings with the natives — where he met “Pocahontas” actually named Matoaka — were as strained. They were the only grocery within thousands of miles and he didn’t always pay. Indeed at one point Smith was to be execute for bad credit. It’s a good thing he wasn’t killed because Smith had other tasks, besides evading executions, and that was to collect seeds for his friend, John Tradescant, the elder.

John Tradescant, the Elder

Tradescant, a decade older than Smith, had fought here and there as well but he was also always picking up seeds and items of interest. He was truly the first naturalist of record. Because of that, Tradescant began gardening for various nobles and in time was the gardener to Charles I, a position his son John, equally as talented and famous, would also hold.  The elder Tradescent introduced many plants into England including Cos Lettuce from the Greek isle of Kos, birthplace of Hippocrates. Think of that the next time you have some Cos lettuce, or Romaine as it is called in America. 

Flowers are only open for a day

Smith was able to return to England with seeds of what is commonly now know as the Spiderwort, which is still popular in English gardens. When plants were being named, the Spiderwort, because of its association with the Tradescant family, was given the Latin name Tradescantia virginiana (tra-dess-CAN-tee-ah vir-jin-nee-AY-nah (In the plant world, Virginiana means North America.) The Tradescantia is in the greater family of Commelinaceae, worthy of a separate article some day.

Why the Spiderwort is called that is in dispute. Wort is Old English for plant, so that part is not in contention. There are four reasons given for the “spider” part.  1) The viscous sap will pull out like a spider thread when a leaf or stem is broken. 2) The clusters of blossoms look like spiders hanging from a web. 3) The plant is leggy and in toto looks like a really huge spider on your lawn. (And my favorite, 4) dew on the plants stamen hairs look like drops of dew on a cobweb.

Flowers are always in clusters

The Spiderwort is sometime called a Day Flower, as is its cousin the much smaller Commelina, which is also edible,  Flowers on both stay open only one day. The Spiderwort has numerous family members, perhaps two dozen in the United States, many if not most of them edible. Check with your local expert because a couple of crawling siblings definitely are not edible and can also cause dermatitis — especially non-green and stripped varieties, Tradescantia pallida comes to mind. Most common edible on my postage stamp lawn is the Tradescantia ohiensis, though the truth is the species are harder to tell apart than twins in the dark. Here in Florida, the

Stems can be cooked like asparagus

height of its season is late in the spring but it also blossoms nearly all year, and more importantly, as it ages it does not grow rank. Its leaves do not change in flavor as the plant ages. The leaves are good for salads as well, or in soup and stews but they are mucilaginous. The stems can be braised like asparagus. Spiderwort remains a popular edible because they are one of the few salad greens that can take Florida’s summer heat. The flowers, at one time favorites for candying, make very pretty blue additions to back yard salads. There are white and rose blossoms, too, but they are too rare to eat. Also, Tradescantia fluminensis, which looks like a Commelina with a white flower is edible, too.

Radiation turns blue hairs to pink

Oh, and the gamma rays… The cells of the stamen hairs of some Tradescantia — the wispy hairs that look webesque when moist with dew — are “bioassays for ambient radiation levels.” Or said another way: The hairs are blue. When exposed to gamma radiation they turn pink. So if you think you’ve been near a nuclear explosion, just check your nearest Tradescantia.

To read about dayflowers, Commelinas, click here.

Green Deane’s “Itemized” Plant Profile

Bidens Alba: Medical Beggar Ticks

Some edible plants just don’t get any respect. If there were a contest for under appreciated plants, Bidens alba, would be a heavy-weight contender.

Biden alba seds, note the two teeth

Nearly anyone you ask about Bidens alba who knows it will say it’s a weed, not a pretty one, nor a useful one, not a nice one. Yet, honey production everywhere would be hurt without the Bidens family. In Florida, B. alba is the third most common reliable source of nectar. Quite an accomplishment for a weed growers and suburbanites are constantly trying to get rid of. Also, without the Bidens species many a butterfly would go to bed…ah…roost… hungry. (The second most common nectar producer in Florida is the saw palmetto and the top producer is the non-native, citrus which Greening might kill off.)

The B. alba aka Bidens pilosa (BYE-denz AL-bah, pil-OH-suh) also has an edible flower. It’s a tangy if not vigorous addition to salads. Bidens’ young leaves — a few at a time — are suitable for the salad. Shoots, tips and young leaves are good potherbs. It’s dried leaves are also a favored in Hawaii for tea. All of this, yet few guidebooks on wild edibles mention it.

TIMEOUT: Much confusion reigns whether B. alba and B. pilosa are the same or different species. One can find both references, and combinations as in B. pilosa var. alba. A 2006 genetic study showed they are separate species, even if

Bidens pilosa has shorter petals.

the difference is little. So, how can we tell them apart (though it makes little difference as both are eaten.) B. alba is the larger and better (I use “Big Al” to help me remember.)  Its blossom petals are usually a centimeter long or longer, and it has five to eight petals. Think of the B. pilosa as smaller and lesser. Its petals are under a centimeter in length, usually 8 mm or less. It has four to seven petals, or none at all. Some times the geography helps. In Brazil, for example, B. alba grows only on the coast and B. pilosa inland, at higher elevations. Realistically, the differences mean little to us as they are both edible.  Locally we have B. alba with B. pilosa occurring officially in only one northern county, Gulf County. We now resume our article already in progress:

As I  said on one of my videos nature doesn’t know the difference between a cultivated plant and a wild one: She only knows survivors. And Bidens alba — also called Romerillo — survives. It grows so happily in my yard I can’t keep up with it. Left to its own, it will take over any unmown spot and populate it with as many Bidens per square foot as possible. Now you know why it is called an “invasive” species. It can have up to 6,000 seeds per plant and the seeds can remain viable up to five years.

Bidens odorata

As for the edibility of the Bidens species, several are mentioned as edible. Find out which Bidens are in your area. The state of Florida does not list Bidens as a plant species that can cause harm, though it has had medical uses, and that in and of itself is a warning sign we shouldn’t ignore. There are at least two negative references I know of about Bidens pilosa. One is that B. pilosa is one of the few plants that can have a harmful effect on the skin because at least one of its chemicals reacts to light (some herbalists, however, consider that beneficial.) The other is B. pilosa (which is the most commonly eaten Bidens) may have a role in throat cancer in areas where opals are also found. This is because B. pilosa will uptake a form of silica — the same that creates opals — and that can have a topical cancerous effect. So if you have “Opaline Silica” in your area — they mine opals there — you might want to pass on the Bidens (I would presume B. alba would also uptake but I do not know.) On the other hand, however, Bidens is also shown anti-cancer activity.

Bidens is in the Aster family, a dicot with a root that goes vertical, not horizontal. That also makes it a composite and a relative of the sunflower. There are hundreds of species — authorities differ on the exact amount. The common names include beggar ticks, bur-marigolds, stickseeds, Spanish needles, tickseeds, tickseed sunflowers, and pitchfork weed.  This is because its seed has two prongs on it that (sometimes four) stick to almost anything. And in fact “Bidens” means two-toothed. Alba is white and pilosa means hairy, or the feeling of hairiness. The Bidens odorata, a frilly yellow version, is also edible though it is a diuretic.

Vanessa cardui, the Painted Lady

By the way, Bidens are “zoochorous” which means the seeds are spread by animals, like the burdock. While the combination does not loose in translation from Greek, it does suffer in pronunciation. “Zoo” is not said like a collection of animals. Rather it is  zoh-OH, which means “animal.” And “chorous” does not sound like a singing group. It comes from the verb score-REE-zoh, which means “I disseminate.” So, if you want to use that word and be close to the original Greek, it is five syllables: zoh-oh-score-REE-zoh.

Several Bidens are food for the caterpillars of some Lepidoptera, such as the Hypercompe hambletoni and the Painted Lady (aka, Vanessa cardui, the brush-footed butterfly). It is said only Sulphur Butterfly feeds off the B. alba as it has phytosterin, which can be a central nervous system depressant and lowers blood sugar.

As for the medical implications, in 1991 Egyptian researchers documented Biden pilosa had antimicrobial activity against a wide array of bacteria including Salmonella, Staphylococcus, Neisseria Gonorrhea, Klebsiella Pneumonia, and against Tuberculosis. It is also good for malaria, snake bite and has anti-leukemia activity.  Research shows it lowers as mentioned blood sugar and blood pressure, stimulates the immune system and is anti-inflammatory. The powdered seeds are a topical anesthetic and aid clotting. There are also some reports the seeds might be good for prostate issues and use for lungs affected by COVID. And after all this the Bidens still gets no respect.

These’s between 240 and 280 known Bidens. Why they don’t know exactly how many Bidens there are is because of multiple and perhaps unnecessary names and or varieties. The nutritional composition of the Biden pilosa (and presumably the B. alba) per 100 g edible portion is: water 85 g, calories 43, protein 3.8 g, fat 0.5 g, carbohydrate 8.4 g, fiber 3.9 g, β-carotene 1800 μg, (Leung, W.-T.W., Busson, F. & Jardin, C., 1968). Another study found 111 mg of calcium and 2.3 mg of iron. These researchers also recommend you don’t eat the leaves raw because of a high saponin content. As a potherb they are excellent with many fine qualities: They are available all year round, keep very well, and don’t reduce in size when cooked. If they are a bit tangy, just let them sit cooked a few minutes. They store well. Cooked texture is good. Wine made from Bidens is called sinitsit. Incidentally, dried leaves of the B. Alba also make a good tobacco substitute. In 1962 Professor Julia Morton, who wrote many papers for the Journal of Economic Botany, recommended Bidens become a commercial crop.

B. pilosa also has 60 identified flavonoids including Quercetin and Luteolin. Among the micro nutrients are beta-carotene 1800 μg (which is pre-vitamin A) calcium 340 mg, phosphorus 67 mg and 2.3 mg of iron when dried. (Food Composition Table for Use In Africa, Leung, W.-T.W., Busson, F. & Jardin, C., 1968) Interestingly the dried plant has less calcium (111mg) and phosphorus (39) than the raw material. Usually dried “tea” material increases concentrations. 

There are many edible Bidens and they grow just about everywhere so check out your local species. Those with edible leaves include Bidens bipinnata, Bidens frondosa, Bidens odorata, Bidens parvifolia, Bidens tripartita and Bidens laevis.  Leaves of the Bidens aurea and Bidens bigelovii have been used for tea.

Synonyms for the Bidens Alba/Pilosa include:  Bidens abortiva, Bidens adhaerescens, Bidens alausensis, Bidens chilensis,  Bidens hirsuta,  Bidens leucanthus, Bidens Montauban, Bidens odorata, reflexa, Bidens scandicina…. and….Bidens leucantha var. pilosa, Bidens pilosa var. alausensis, Bidens pilosa var. bimucronata, Bidens pilosa var. minor, Bidens pilosa var. pilosa, Bidens pilosa var. radiata, Bidens pilosus, Bidens pilosus var. albus, Bidens scandicina, Bidens sundaica var. minor, and Coreopsis leucantha

 Green Deane’s “Itemized” Plant Profile