The Big, Bad Book of Botany

by Michael Largo

  The plant has egg-shaped leaves that grow into a flowerlike pattern. The leaves can be very long, sometimes looking a lot like tobacco leaves. The color of the flowers can vary anywhere from white to purple, and the fruits look like small tomatoes and generally become ripe in the later months of summer. The plant needs almost no shade at all. The roots of the plant look similar to a human body, with a plump center, two lower roots (or legs), and two additional root extensions that look like arms.

  Every part of the mandrake is poisonous. If eaten raw, the fruit will kill, but if it is cooked and boiled, the toxicity can be neutralized. The name Satan’s apple arises from the fruit’s edible appearance, which tempts one to pluck it right off the tree for a bite—a nasty deception for an unsuspecting person. Unless truly desperate for food, one should avoid consuming the plant at all costs. The roots are the most poisonous part, as they contain a combination of dangerous chemicals such as atropine, scopine, scopolamine, and hyoscyamine.

  Satan’s apple played a role in the treatment of certain medical conditions in ancient times. One such potential benefit comes from a chemical extracted from the mandrake, which is a useful topical ointment to treat warts.

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  Some people used the plant to enhance the libido, claiming it could cure impotency in low dosages. In reality, it is dangerous in any dosage and is not fit for human consumption. However, ancient physicians (especially Arabian) used the plant as an anesthetic before performing surgery. It was also a well-recognized painkiller at one time. Today even alternative medicine shies away from Satan’s apple, due to its hazardous effects on humans. The root has narcotic and hallucinogenic effects as well—a possible explanation for the belief that the plant could cure impotency.

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  SKUNK CABBAGE

  Symplocarpus foetidus

  A Shrewd Stench

  Skunk cabbage, also known as meadow cabbage, is a foul-smelling plant that grows in wet areas. The odor emanating from the plant, especially when the leaves are crushed or broken, bears a stark similarity to the smell emitted by skunks. This plant is native to eastern North America.

  Skunk cabbage has large leaves, about 21 inches long and 16 inches wide. The plant first flowers in the spring and afterward grows its longer leaves throughout the summer. New cabbages appear as a small shoot or a spathe that emerges from the ground. The spathe is a brownish purple pod, which covers another part called a spadix that is covered with tiny yellow flowers. The plant is not poisonous to the touch, but its nasty odor gives a kick to the senses. The smell it generates is an effective adaptation to keep big animals away from foraging on it or damaging it in any way.

  Habitat and Life Cycle

  Skunk cabbage grows in freshwater wetlands, as well as near rivers and streams. It has an ability to generate temperatures up to 95 degrees Fahrenheit, which enables it to shoot out of the frozen ground. It is often the first flower that blooms during the late winter season. This unique ability to generate heat helps it to spread its odor in the air. The carrion-loving insects, which are also among the first to emerge in spring, are most attracted to the plant, fooled into thinking they have found something to eat and unaware the plant is duping them. Once successfully pollinated, the plant transfers its energies to its leaves. In autumn, these leaves fall to the ground and rot, but they do not dry up and crumble, like other leaves. They in fact dissolve into the soil, creating for the plant its own patch of fertilizer for next year’s crop. The leaves are poisonous to mammals.

  From midsummer to fall, an egg-shaped fruit, green in color, starts growing in the mud around the plant. This fruit turns black as it grows, with white flesh and seeds around the border. After growth, the roots contract, pulling the plant into the ground farther and making it sink deeper and deeper into the earth. They reproduce by hard seeds, which fall into the ground and are transported by animals or water—proving, perhaps, that this stinking plant is smarter than we think, having mastered every aspect of survival in its given environment.

  Medicinal Uses

  When boiled in oil, skunk cabbage leaves make an ointment useful in treating ringworm as well as sores and swelling. Tea made out of the roots and seeds can help improve the immune system by acting as an expectorant. Medicines made from the plant have proven useful in the treatment of arthritis, edema, and epilepsy.

  Other Uses

  The fallen leaves give shelter to ants and other insects. The heat generated by the flowers melts the snow in the soil and also gives warmth to other small animals around it. Birds such as the yellowthroat build their nests in the hollow of large skunk cabbage leaves. Native Americans have used skunk cabbage extensively—in medicinal remedies, as a talisman, and in their cooking. Today, some knowledgeable woodsfolk know how to dry out the leaves, boil off the toxins, and use the product in soups and stews.

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  Stinks on Purpose

  The skunk cabbage apparently realized that flies could survive better in the decaying wetlands than other types of insects. Hence it produced a chemical to imitate something dead to attract pollinators. In fact, the plant produces the same compounds, namely putrescine and cadavarine, found in rotting animal cadavers.

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  SPHENOPHYLLUM

  Reconstruction of a Fossil

  Sphenophyllum is a genus of extinct plants believed to have flourished at end of the Devonian and the beginning of the Triassic period—estimated at about 360 to 251 million years ago. Today, the plant is known only through fossils, so we only have reconstructions to give us a picture of this prehistoric plant. It’s now scientifically accepted that Sphenophyllum was a shrub or a creeping vine. It had node-internode architecture, meaning it had jointed stems, which has led current botanists to connect it to modern horsetails. Its branches and leaves were ordered in whorls at each node, similar to the later calamites, but it is obvious from the fossils that the Sphenophyllum leaves had a triangular shape. The spore-bearing cones are also considered similar to those of calamites and horsetails.

  Sphenophyllum lacked a central stem, which posed a handicap in transferring water to cells throughout the plant. Fossil reconstruction shows it probably grew in floodplains or swamps. These were small plants, growing to a maximum of 3 feet, with slender branches that were ribbed and joined by other stems, which gave it a vinelike or shrublike shape.

  The anatomy of the stems was protostelic, or rootlike, with a solid main xylem core and additional or secondary xylem tissue—basically, it looked like a root system but one above the ground. The leaves were less than an inch long and were wedgelike, linear, forked, or fan shaped. Scientists believe the reproductive parts of Sphenophyllum were long terminal cones and reproduced by strobili, or spores. It is unknown what kind of animals ate it, though, due to its abundance, it likely was a kind of Triassic-Devonian salad for the epoch’s many herbivores.

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  The first description of these prehistoric plants was made by the British geologist and botanist Albert Charles Seward in 1898. The word Sphenophylum derives from the Greek sphén, meaning “wedge,” and phyllon, meaning “leaf.”

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  STINKING ROGER

  Tagetes minuta

  Not All Sour

  Stinking Roger is popularly known as southern cone marigold, or black mint, and belongs to the family Asteraceae. The plant is tall, growing upright to 3 feet tall. It is actually a variety of marigold and has small orange and yellow flowers. It is found in all parts of the world, playing a part in prayers and weddings in the Hindu culture, because of its healing properties. Many even consider it a blessing and an omen of good fortune. The plant grows in abundance in South America, where it has many more medicinal uses.

  The plant gets its name from its seeds, which come from the flowers of the plant and do not smell very good. If accidentally harvested along with wheat or other grains, its seeds will contaminate the entire batch with an unpleasant odor. That’s why many commercial growers consider the plant a we
ed. However, its roots provide the soil with beneficial extracts that are helpful to a number of important vegetables, such as corn.

  As an herb, the plant has several uses: Its leaves, dried, are used as a seasoning; one can make a paste from an ingredient found in the plant, called huacatay, that is useful in making potato dishes; as a medicine, the plant can help treat colds and the flu very efficiently. It provides relief from respiratory inflammations and stomach difficulties. It is also used to produce an organic kind of dye. Stinking Roger is beneficial in loss of appetite, intestinal gas, colic or stomachache, and dysentery. Alternative medicine practitioners use it to treat intestinal worms, mumps, sore eyes, and sore breasts. Folk medicine employed the plant in the treatment of menstrual pain or cramps, and in pregnant women it is said to prevent miscarriage. However, pregnant women should always consult a professional herbalist or health-care provider before using the plant. Stinking Roger is considered safe as a food, but its side effects are not well studied. It’s best to stay on the safe side and not use this plant before consultation with an expert. Stinking Roger may lead to an allergic reaction in people who are sensitive to plants in the Asteraceae or Compositae family.

  SUNFLOWER

  Helianthus annuus

  Toward the Sun

  Sunflower is one of the few crop species native to North America, historically a kind of “camp follower” of some of the western Native American tribes who domesticated the crop in about 1000 B.C. They then spread it eastward and southward, taking the seeds with them as they traveled. Europeans first encountered the sunflower growing in Mexico, and introduced it to Spain in the sixteenth century. The plant was a gardening hit and a curiosity that had everyone desiring the seeds, even as far as Russia, where the plant readily adapted. Today the sunflower has high economic value, and is cultivated worldwide for its high-quality cooking oil.

  Sunflowers tolerate both low and high temperatures; the seeds germinate at 39 degrees Fahrenheit and are unaffected by cold in their early germination stages. Cotyledon-stage seeds have survived temperatures as low as 23 degrees. Optimum temperatures for growth are 70 to 78 degrees, while extremely high temperatures lower the oil percentage, or seed fill, and germination. Sunflowers can grow in different soils, from sands to clays, which have significant levels of macronutrients and good soil drainage. One of the best-looking mass-produced crops, fields of sunflowers, with their dignified large, circular yellow heads and broad, rough leaves, are simply a touching sight. The sunflower is an annual plant, with a large inflorescence growing atop a broad stem that is rough and hairy. The heads have hundreds of small flowers that later mature into seeds.

  Helianthus annuus has rich historical, cultural, and symbolic importance. Some Native American peoples, including the Aztecs, Incas, and Otomi, interpreted it as a symbol of solar deities. In the eighteenth century, the sunflower became very popular in Russia, especially for the Russian Orthodox Church, whose members were permitted to consume the oil during Lent and other fasting periods. The medicine men of the Zuni people used fresh or dried roots of sunflower against snakebite, applying a poultice on wounds, as well as in religious ceremonies.

  Other sociocultural aspects of the sunflower include its use as a symbol of “green” ideology, as well as by the Vegan Society. In the nineteenth century, the flower was a symbol of the aesthetic movement in art. The Spiritualist Church also used it as a symbol, mostly because they believed that sunflowers constantly turn toward the sun (proven only partially true by science, since the flower head can move slightly to face in the direction of the day’s most intense sunlight, though it cannot twist about on its entire stalk); still, the plant is a fitting representation of the notion that “spiritualism turns toward the light of truth” for the organization. Even now, modern spiritualists often use stylized sunflower heads on their jewelry. The sunflower is the state flower of Kansas, the city flower of Kitakyushu, Japan, and the national flower of Ukraine. In art, possibly the best representation of the flower is Vincent van Gogh’s series Sunflowers.

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  Nature’s Mathematics

  There is a pure mathematic calculation concerning the pattern of florets in the sunflower head. In 1979 H. Vogel discovered that sunflowers follow a mathematical formula. Simply, sunflower patterns form what is known as a Fermat spiral, relating to ratios and angles. Leonardo da Vinci called it the golden ratio and used this calculation to add dimensions in painting compositions. Scientists have shown that most sunflower floret patterns have exactly 55 or 144 seeds. The mathematical principles exemplified in sunflower formations are used in computer science, proving further the kind of secrets nature still holds and has yet to reveal.

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  TOBACCO

  Nicotiana tabacum

  It Casts Its Spell

  Christopher Columbus famously discovered the tobacco plant, Nicotiana tabacum, on his monumental journey to the Americas. On October 12, 1492, in the Bahamas, the crew of Columbus’s ship brought reports of natives smoking dried tobacco leaves rolled in other leaves—the original cigar. According to historical sources, Columbus was initially unimpressed with the discovery (making him the first antismoking activist, too), but soon afterward, other Spanish and European sailors took up the practice, introducing it on their return to Spain and Portugal. The trend then caught on in France and Italy, as well. In Britain, after Sir Walter Raleigh demonstrated before the royal court the enjoyable taste of smoking the dried leaf, it wasn’t long before the whole of Europe was under tobacco’s spell. Always enterprising, the English immediately realized the potential dollar value of such an addictive plant. The scientific name of the plant—and the root of nicotine, its main psychoactive chemical—was bestowed in honor of the French ambassador Jean Nicot. He sent seeds to Catherine de Medici in 1559, praising the plant’s medical properties. Early European cultivators even attempted to market tobacco medicinally, as a cure for nervousness. Tobacco was first popular not in cigars, but rather as snuff.

  The history of tobacco smoking goes back more than five thousand years. Although the ultimate origins of the word cigar are unknown, some researchers argue it comes from sikar, a Mayan word for smoking. (Ancient Mayans considered tobacco a sacred plant.) The first truly for-profit tobacco plantations began in Virginia in 1612, followed by Maryland in 1631. American colonists smoked tobacco from pipes only, though cigars became more popular in 1762, when Israel Putnam, a British officer in Cuba, set up a cigar factory in Connecticut upon his return to the colonies. The first mass-produced cigarette, the French word meaning “small cigar,” began in the 1880s.

  Nicotiana tabacum is classified as a perennial herbaceous plant, originating in South America and the American subtropics, but today it’s cultivated worldwide. It is very sensitive to temperature, soil humidity, air, and type of soil. The best temperature range for good yields is 68 to 86 degrees Fahrenheit, with an atmospheric humidity of 80 to 85 percent, and it prefers a soil with lower levels of nitrogen. Tobacco is a little branched, robust annual plant, about 3 feet tall, with green leaves and trumpetlike flowers. The tobacco leaves vary radically in size, 2 feet long at the lower end, while those toward the top of the plant are only 3 inches. Flowers bear a 1-inch tube and are predominantly white-pinkish in color, though some varieties have pale violet or yellowish flowers. The seeds are very small, kidney shaped, numerous, and brown.

  Each part of Nicotiana tabacum contains the nicotine chemical, the concentrations of which will fluctuate based on the plant’s age. The total nicotine distribution in the plant is: 64 percent in the leaves, 18 percent in the stem, 13 percent in the root, and 5 percent in the flowers. The tobacco plant also contains the chemicals anabasine, naphthylamine, glucosides, propionic acid, and anatabine. Some of the tobacco plant’s ingredients have anesthetic, analgesic, antibacterial, anticonvulsant, antiglaucomic, and antioxidant qualities, as well as noted antistress effects. A rich, complex plant, tobacco suffers from the world’s forceful fixation on the carcinogenic as
pects of its use, rather than its other uses worldwide.

  The Coveted Cuban Cigar

  In Cuba, tobacco is usually planted in flat fields. After the planting process, farmers cover the seedlings with special cloth or straw to protect them from the sun, removing it once the seedlings start to germinate. After thirty-five days of growth, usually in October, the plant is transplanted to vast tobacco fields. The watering process uses natural rains, dew, and artificial irrigation, if needed.

  The all-important tobacco wrapper comes from the outer leaves, called the corojos, which farmers place under big sheets of gauze after harvest. For best effect, the plants should be strong, with broad leaves. This technique is called tapado (Spanish for “covering”) and helps the leaves become smooth. Cubans always harvest their tobacco by hand—they trust no machine to do this delicate work. They collect the leaves for the wrappers in bundles of five, named manojo. The first section is never used while picking wrapper leaves. A week must pass between each phase of harvest. The best leaves for smoking come from the middle of the plant. The corona, or top leaves, are too oily, so they make poor wrappers. The whole cycle of harvesting takes about 120 days of hard work. Each individual plant gets visited about 170 times by farmers, so it’s not surprising Cuban cigars are so expensive and considered the best among connoisseurs.