Latin Lingo - Rugosa

Rugosa

(roo - GO - suh)

"The specific epithet rugosa means 'wrinkled' or 'rough'. Generally descriptive of foliage when the veins in leaves are prominent beneath, with corresponding creases on the upper side. The Rugose Hollyhock, Alecea rugosa, is a good example. The wrinkled, rough foliage is distinctive and creates a good textural contest with the other plants in the border.

Visit Botanary for more botanical words, their meaning, and pronunciation help."

quoted from Dave's Garden E-Newsletter, January 2, 2012

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Prior to reading this article, I only knew of Rosa rugosa. Just goes to show that even when you've been in the industry for ten years, there's always something to learn!

It was tricky to find other plants with the species name rugosa. I did learn that in addition to plants, "rugosa" is also used in the naming of insects and coral.

Let's lead off with what is perhaps the most famous rugosa plant: Rosa rugosa. These roses are tough as nails and are my Go-To roses for harsh locations. There are many cultivars to choose from.

 

The rest of the plants are ones I hadn't heard of before. First is Solidago rugosa - Common Wrinkle-Leaved Goldenrod. The photo of the goldenrod in bloom is the variety "Fireworks", which is a recent new cultivar that I have heard of, I just didn't know it was a rugosa. I really like the horizontal presence and will give this one a try.

 

Below is Alcea rugosa - Rugose or Russian Hollyhock. There weren't any pictures that showed the wrinkled leaves on a full-grown plant, but the photo of the seedling shows the wrinkling very well.

  

Next is Agastache rugosa - Wrinkled Giant Hyssop. Sure to be a great addition to your cottage garden or natural planting.

 

Finally is a plant native to New England, the northern Midwest states and most of Canada: Alnus incana subspecies rugosa - Speckled Alder. This tree is listed as endangered in a few states, so I doubt you'd find it for sale in a garden center. As a native tree, it tends to be a scrubby shrub-tree and may be best used in large native plantings or prairie restorations where it can be free to be it's unkempt self. Unless you have a lot of time to devote to maintaining a tidy appearance.

 

all photos gleaned from Google Images.

Seems to be Flourishing

Last week we were looking through my in-laws' copy of Cologne: The First 100 Years, the book commemorating Cologne's history from 1881 to 1981. (The topic that started this trip through history is explained in a future link here.) After we thoroughly exhausted that topic, I casually paged through the book, enjoying the time capsule of photographs. Then I was halted by this:

Left to Right: Giant Bank Fern, bank employees Clara Morhbacher Eiden and George Bell.
Bank customers John Roufs and Hubert Tellers.

Holy giant fern, Batman! Just look at that thing! It's enormous! I've never seen any fern (this one is most likely a Boston fern) that huge unless it was in a conservatory! It won't be long before you hear an odd, faint "Feed me!" coming from it and the fronds start raising like tentacles. Poor Clara seems a little uneasy being so near it, Mr. Bell is leaning away, John is putting on a brave front but is ready to run at the first sign of trouble, and even Hubert with his impressive mustache is leaving a wide berth.

While I was still agog over the monster Boston fern, I glanced up at the photo above it:

Left to Right: George Bell, Baby Bank Fern.

Do you see it? Up on top of the tellers' cage? That monstrous fern started out as that little, spindly scrap of a cutting. And how long do you suppose it took that scrap of a fern to become Monster Fern? Twenty? Thirty-five? The photo with the young fern was taken in 1914, the other in 1925. Only eleven years.

Another thing I got a kick out of was the caption:
"....The first picture was taken about 1914. We call your attention to the fern on top of the tellers cage. The second picture.....was taken in 1925. Business, as well as the fern, seems to be flourishing."

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For added fun, look for other comparisons between the photos, especially the calendars, other flower pots, signs. Keep an eye out for the spittoon!

photos courtesy of Cologne: The First 100 Years, page 102.

Plant of the Week - The Barbed Wire Tree

"Osage Orange

Maclura pomifera

Maclura pomifera is a paradox plant. It is one of the most widely-planted trees in North America, especially on the plains, yet it has no commercial value as timber, lumber or even pulpwood. Instead, it was used to make high, think, thorny termite- and rot-resistant hedgerows. It did such an admirable job as hedging material, it provided the inspiration for the barbed wire fence that eventually replaced it.

Maclura pomifera fruit is known alternately as "Osage orange" or "hedge apple" and is inedible to almost every animal except squirrels. Bois d'arc (Americanized into "bodock") and bowwood are common names that hint back to the native American Indian's use of the wood to make bows.

The fruit is often used as a natural insect repellent, especially for cockroaches and crickets, as well as a dye."

quoted from Dave's Garden E-Newsletter, January 9, 2012

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The Osage orange is native to the mid-western and southern United States. A mature tree can be 40 feet / 12 meters tall and wide. It is not an orange at all, but part of the mulberry family.

The strong branches make a think interlocking tangle. The thorns are only 1 - 2 inches / 2.5 - 5 cm long, but they are stout, sturdy, and sharp. These features plus planting Osage orange in tight rows made the perfect impassable natural fence.

The specifications of the ideal farmstead hedgerow?
"Horse-high, bull-strong, and hog-tight."

The fruit is unusual and large. It matures to between 3 - 5 inches / 7.6 - 12.7 cm in diameter, and the rind is bumpy and lumpy.

The inside of the fruit is something like a meaty kiwi - plus milky sap. The Osage orange fruit isn't edible for humans, but squirrels, deer, horses and other cattle seem to like it. And they are welcome to it.

When the fruit ripens it falls off the tree. If you ever find yourself strolling under an Osage orange tree in autumn, be sure to bring your hard hat. The fruit shares some of the characteristics of the wood; it is heavy and hard.

Not the most desirable tree for the home landscape.

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The wood from the Osage orange was actually highly valued by the American Indians, specifically the Osage Indians from Arkansas and Missouri. Stronger than oak and tough as hickory, bows made from Osage orange were considered the finest and the best. If you were in the market for a bow in the 19th century you would need to be prepared to trade a horse and a blanket.

Having no commercial value isn't quite entirely true, at least in terms of being commercially grown for any specific purpose. But my Google Image search showed that in addition to bows, Osage orange wood is used to make a host of things: handles for knives, hatchets, and nun-chucks (yes, really!), rifle stocks, bowls, vases, canoe paddles, recorders, guitar faces (sorry if wrong terminology), snare drum binding, clothing buttons, and boomerangs.

Apparently dyes are still made from the Osage orange fruit. The resulting color is orange in various hues, but it is also used to make a variety of colors when applied over pre-dyed fiber.

all photos are from Google Images

Latin Lingo - Acer

Ever look at a plant tag and wonder what that italicized name means? And more importantly, how on earth am I supposed to pronounce it?

Those sometimes bizarre Latin words (atriplicifolia or tricuspidata, for example) actually describe an attribute of the plant. This new feature, Latin Lingo, will highlight some of these words in hope of shedding some light on the dead language used to name our plants. My first edition will be on the most easily recognized tree - the Maple.

"Acer

(AY-ser)

Acer is the Latin name for maple trees. The name means "sharp" or "pointed." This may be referring to the hardness of the wood, which Roman soldiers used to make spear and pike shafts. Or it may be a reference to the pointed leaves.

Known and used since ancient times, Maple trees have continued to play an important role in both the Old and New Worlds. In 1540, Jacques Cartier observed maple trees as he explored the St. Lawrence River. When the pilgrims arrived in North America, the American Indians had developed a process to extract sugar from the maples growing in the area.

By the 1700s, Quakers were manufacturing maple sugar from Acer saccharum, the sugar maple, as an alternative to cane sugar from the West Indies. Today, maple trees are grown both for their beauty and economic importance.

Visit Botanary for more botanical words, their meanings, and pronunciation help."

quoted from Dave's Garden E-Newsletter, December 5, 2011

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Below are some photos from a Google Image search showcasing the leaves of the most common maples in our area. Some species are annoyingly similar to each other, while others are very distinctive.

Acer ginnala - Amur maple

Acer negundo - Box elder

Acer platanoides - Norway maple

Acer rubrum - Red maple 

Acer saccharinum - Silver maple

Acer saccharum - Sugar maple

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Now for some of the more exotic maples that may or may not be hardy in Minnesota (Zone 4).

Acer palmatum - Japanese maple

Acer pseudosieboldianum - Korean maple

Acer triflorum - Three-Flowering maple

The Christmas Cactus

And now for something a bit more fun and colorful than my last post.....

I will share my Christmas Cactus with you!

This cactus is hanging out over the kitchen sink in an east-facing window. As you can see it has a tendency to take over said kitchen sink. That will be taken care of in another post (which will have a link when the other post actually exists).

I'm not really sure how old this cactus is. My husband got a cutting from a friend, which turned into this beast. It must be fairly old because it has several woody stems, and is heavy on one side causing the pot to be lop-sided in the macrame pot holder thingy. And a branch has decided to explore behind the decorative plate on the cabinet. You just never know where these things are going to go!

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But the thing Christmas cactuses.....no, wait... cacti are best known for are their flowers.

Our Christmas cactus blooms somewhat reliably around Christmas, although some years it's a Thanksgiving cactus (did you know there really is a Thanksgiving Cactus?!), and other years it's a New Year's cactus. But this year it's a true Christmas cactus.

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If you look back at the photo from the beginning of this post

you may notice that our cactus only blooms on one side of the plant - the side that's pressed up against the window. Christmas cacti (Schlumbergera x buckleyi) require short days and cool temps in order to bloom. The glass of the window is plenty cold and the days are definitely short in our Minnesota winters, but what about the other side of the plant? What's going on there?

If you remember, this guy is in the kitchen directly above the sink where hot water is used frequently. What you can't see in the picture is that immediately to the right of the cactus is the stove. Lots of heat coming off of that thing. On top of that, the kitchen has a very efficient vintage hot water radiator that is probably too big for the kitchen and puts out way too much heat for a room that already gets heated up regularly by the stove. Therefore, anywhere more than a foot away from the window is too hot for Christmas cactus flowers.

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Having all the flowers are on the far side of the plant is something of a bummer because we can't really see the flowers without sticking your head under the plant. We've tried turning the plant, but the branching is too irregular and woody so it doesn't fit against the window and around the cabinet the right way. We nearly broke it on one attempt. So I guess we have to get used to sitting in the sink to admire the flowers.

Taking pictures of our Christmas cactus is also rather tricky, and not only because of the uncomfortable positions you have to contort yourself into to even get to the flowers. There is also a very short window of time to take pictures without the rising sun blowing out every picture. I decided to play around with the manual settings on my point-and-shoot camera and got some good shots and some not-so-good shots. But one setting and a half-hearted attempt at aiming gave me an unexpected yet awesome result:

The Christmas Cactus light bulb!

the Snowless Winter?

On my other blog site I wrote a post about Minnesota having a brown Christmas. Since then we've had very unseasonably warm weather - highs in the 40s* / 4*C and lows in the 20s* / -7*C. I think there was one or two days when it was 13* / -11*C. And no snow in sight. Yesterday we hit 50*F / 10*C.

This is not normal.

Reactions to this balmy, snowless winter range from love to hate. I can understand why some may love the safe travels to far off places for Christmas and whatnot, and not having to bundle up in countless layers until you look like the kid brother in A Christmas Story.

 

And of course those who hate this winter weather are skiers, snowmobilers, ice fishers, winter carnival planners, and the like. I mean, some people look forward to a good Minnesota winter so they can do those things.

But I think there will be an outcome to this strange winter other than safer travel and empty ski resorts. What about the effects to the environment itself? Now don't worry, I'm not going to get all eco-freakish on you. What I think many people don't realize is that we are in a serious drought.

Whether you love it or not, snow is actually very important.

1. It acts as a giant blanket, insulating and protecting the soil and plants from the dangerous sub-zero temperatures we see in a standard winter. Think of wearing a nice, puffy down coat as you run to warm up your car on a -24* morning with a biting 10 mph wind.
2. The winter months are actually a time of drought. Oh, sure it snows, but how is the rock-hard frozen soil going to use a pile of frozen water? The snow melt in spring is what replenishes the water tables, rivers and lakes.

Remember last fall? We had very little rainfall, a drought was declared, as well as fire hazards. I watched numerous ponds dry up. The ground was dry, powdery and cracked. Lawns dried up. The Minnesota River is currently at least 20 feet below its banks.

Now we have no snow.

The warm temperatures aren't helping either. One of our maple trees already has leaf buds swelling. If it continues to stay this warm, it's very possible the trees could leaf out in February!

My biggest fear is if we suddenly get the sub-zero temperatures that January and February are famous for with no snow cover. Remember Point 1 about snow being a blanket? Getting sub-zero temps without that blanket would be as dangerous to the plants as it would be for you to sit outside in the same weather wearing only shorts and a t-shirt. And equally as fatal.

Here's what I think will happen if we get sub-zero temps and no snow:

1. Any swelled leaf buds will die. The trees and shrubs will either set more and leaf out considerably later in summer, or not set anymore at all which will cause the plant to be weaker and more susceptible to diseases and insects.
2. The root systems of plants (trees, flowers, lawns) will be damaged significantly, making them weaker and slower to grow in the spring, or just outright kill them.
3. No snow melt will cause a spring drought, adding even more stress to the plants already damaged by the excessive cold.

Many people are singing the praises of this very mild winter. I disagree; we are potentially in a very dangerous situation. If this weather continues, those same people will complain the loudest about the inevitable drought.