Mormon Tea, or Ephedra

I saw this small, raggedy shrub all around the edges of the Grand Canyon and it was part of the reason I was compelled to quickly find some decent books detailing the flora of the region.  To me, it closely resembled Cytisus, but as it turns out it was an altogether new genus for me, Ephedra.

The genus name should sound familiar, since when one gets congested it's likely they are buying a product with pseudoephedrine in it.  Of course, if you buy too much pseudoephedrine, you may be flagged as a potential drug dealer, since the drug is often used to make methamphetamine.

The Chinese Ephedra (E. sinica) is perhaps the most notorious; it has the alkaloids pseudoephedrine and ephedrine, both of which have been marketed as 'herbal remedies.'  These products were often abused by athletes as stimulants to enhance performance.  Most notably, Ephedra was linked to the deaths of Baltimore Oriole Steve Bechler and Minnesota Viking Korey Stringer.  Many sports leagues, and ultimately the FDA, have banned the use of Ephedra.   

This native species E. trifurca is less potent than E. sinica, but was still used by southwestern settlers as a tonic, tea, diuretic and decongestant.  It was even used to treat syphilis (though I'm not sure how effective it was).  Mormons, who abstain from caffeinated beverages, often drank the brew made from this plant thus accounting for Ephedra's common name - Mormon tea.

Ephedra is derivative of the ancient Greek work for horse's tail - 'Hippuris.'  I have no idea what trifurca means!

Aronia arbutifolia

It seems a disservice to laud the best native trees for fall color, without highlighting a few shrubs, too. And so today I am sharing a few shots of Aronia arbutifolia (red chokeberry) that I took in Central Park last October. 

 

Aronia is a native shrub in the Rosaceae family and is similar to its relatives in its ovate, serrated leaves and the presence of small berries which somewhat resemble rosehips.  It readily suckers and spreads, and can survive in somewhat marshy areas.  The flowers look like many others in the rose family - they are small, with five white petals and showy stamens.  I've blogged about many rose family plants before, including crabapples, quince, cherrylaurels, cherries, hawthornes, and most notably the dreaded Bradford pear and the wonderful serviceberry.  

Like its relatives, chokeberry has exceptional fall color and its status as a native makes it an excellent alternative to invasive plants like burning bush (Euonymus alatus) or Nandina domestica. The fruit provide food for birds as well, though it isn't edible for them until a few frosts have fermented the fruit's flesh. (A lot of alliteration for a little laugh.)

Aronia derives from 'Aria' - the Greek name for Sorbus which has similar berries. Arbutifolia literally means that the foliage looks like Arbutus. Chokeberry is the common name because the fruit is quite astringent, though it can be rendered into jams, jellies, wines and teas.  It should not be confused with the similarly named chokecherry, which is Prunus virginiana.

Berberis and Mahonia

Here's a shot of the desert scrub outside of Sedona, taken during the jeep tour I mentioned in previous posts.  Exploring the desert plants growing here was a delight -- some were familiar, like the prickly pear and mesquite, some were new, like pinyon pine.  Other plants straddled between the two categories - they were vaguely familiar and in some cases I was able to make a guess at their genus or family.

This scrubby plant below was one such specimen.  The pinnately compound, waxy leaves reminded me immediately of Mahonia and when I returned to the East Coast, my bag a bit heavier due to a load of plant books I had bought, I started researching.

Indeed, the plant is in the same family as Mahonia but is actually Berberis haematocarpa, or red barberry.  Both genera exist in the Berberidaceae family, though the leaf reminded me far more of Mahonia.  One supposes that the structure of the small yellow flowers, which bloom from February until April, are genetically more similar to Berberis and that is why they are grouped as such.

 

After the plant flowers, small purple berries form and are evidently quite tasty.  They are quickly eaten by birds and small mammals but if leftovers exist they are often used to make jellies.  The plant has never been 'domesticated' however, because it is a secondary host for black stem rust, a disease that affects grains. 

Back on the East Coast, in Central Park Zoo, we have the more refined looking Mahonia, possibly M. x media or M. aquifolium.  Commonly called Oregon grapeholly, the plant (the straight species, that is, not the hybrid) was discovered by Louis Lewis* and Clark during their expedition of the Pacific Northwest.  The plant is similar to the red barberry, not only in leaf type but in flower color and fruit as well.  However, the fruit on Oregon grapeholly, as the common name would suggest, are larger and look like concord grapes.
 

It is puzzling why the Arizonan plant is classified as Berberis considering how much more it looks like Mahonia.  Chances are you are familiar with other species of Berberis: B. thunbergii and B. julianae, though I would be hard-pressed to endorse the use of either; the former being invasive and the latter being prohibitively thorny.  

*Oof.  How embarrassing.  

Top Five Native Trees For Fall Color

Some time ago, I received a very good suggestion to have a few blog posts with lists -- let's face it, we all love a good top five or top ten list.  (Mostly, I think because it gives us a chance to take issue with the author, but such is life.)  Since I've largely neglected the plant life on the East Coast, in favor of the Arizonan plants I have been learning about lately, I thought I'd offer up my top five native trees for good fall color. 

Number 5: Yellowwood (Cladrastis kentukea)

I suppose regular readers of NYPAOS may recognize some of these photos (and certainly the sentiment) from posts featuring these plants more fully, but let's please revisit this lovely shot of yellowwood in Central Park, right near the Plaza Hotel.  The tree is an underappreciated native that has beautiful yellow foliage in the fall.  In addition to this, the white pendulous summer blossoms and the stately habit make this a wonderful alternative to maples or oaks.

Number 4: Witch Hazel (Hamamelis sp.)

Witch hazel, like almost all other members of the Hamamelidaceae family, has remarkable, mottled red, orange and yellow fall color.  These small trees (or large shrubs if you prefer) have a broad spreading habit and also bloom very early in the year, providing a welcome sign of spring.  Other family members include Fothergilla and Corylopsis.

Number 3: Serviceberry (Amelanchier sp.)

Well, I can't imagine a day when I won't fanatically endorse any species of Amelanchier.  Whether you want a spreading large shrub (A. canadensis), a native tree (A. arborea), or a showier hybrid (A. grandiflora, lamarckii), serviceberries are showstoppers.  I love the cultivar 'Autumn Brilliance' for it's deeper orangey hue, but even the golden-orange more common in the shrubs is lovely.  As I've said many times, in the fall it almost looks as if the tree has been plugged into an electrical socket somewhere.

Number 2: Sugar Maple (Acer saccharum)

 

Not including sugar maple on this list would be like talking about baseball and not mentioning Babe Ruth (that's a reference in honor of my struggling Yankees*). Sure, some people will say that Babe Ruth was overhyped or deserves some kind of asterisk due to the times in which he played, but I doubt most can truly deny the galvanizing effect he had on people, even those who would not otherwise identify with baseball.  Sugar maples have amazing fall color and their regular, broad, symmetrical habit is majestic.

Number 1: Black Gum, or Tupelo (Nyssa sylvatica)

Despite the love I may have for sugar maples (or the Yanks for that matter), I had to save my number one ranking for Nyssa sylvatica.  Tupelos are not used as often as they should, largely because the tree has a tap root and is thus difficult to transplant in large sizes.  But a relatively new cultivar, 'Wildfire' can be transplanted more easily and is also more resistant to leaf spot.  The loose, low-branching habit is elegant, perfectly suited for tree climbing and lights up a landscape each autumn. 

There are many more native trees that have exceptional fall color, which helps make the case against using a bradford pear or a Norway maple (as if you didn't have enough reasons for that already!).  Some honorable mentions include:

            Sweet Gum (Liquidambar styraciflua)
            Sassafras (Sassafras albidum)
            Franklinia (Franklinia alatamaha)
            Dogwood (Cornus florida)
            Red Maple (Acer rubrum)

What else have I missed?  Any suggestions for killer fall color? 

Happy tree viewing!

Note: All of the photos in this post, except for the last one, were taken in Central Park.

*This post was written before game five.   Fingers crossed.

Mesquite

Below is a fairly elegant specimen of mesquite (Prosopis velutina) growing near town in Sedona.  More often than not, this shrubby tree has a much scrubbier appearance, but in either case it is prevalent in Sedona and the Sonoran Desert.  Prosopis is a member of the pea family and looks much like its relatives - it has pinnately compound foliage and, more to the point, it has bean-like fruit.

  

One of the common names is honey mesquite, because the beans themselves are incredibly sweet.  The tour I mentioned in yesterday's post also included a sampling of the mesquite beans and they tasted like sugary candy.  Indeed, the plant is eaten by livestock and has been key to survival of Native Americans during historically tough winters.  

The beans can also be ground into a flour called pinole and can then be used to make tortillas and cornbread, to name a few. They can also be fermented into a fizzy, alcoholic drink, though I didn't see this on the bar menus of any restaurants.

 

The Prosopis velutina is native to the Sonoran Desert, but other species of Prosopis include Prosopis glandulosa, in the Texas and Southern California deserts and Prosopis pallida, a South American native that is prevalent in the drier parts of Hawaii.  Below, a specimen of P. pallida grows on the Big Island. 

 

 Prosopis is the ancient Greek name for burdock and it's speculated that the genus was applied to mesquite due to some similarity between the flowers.

Prickly Pear

In addition to the saguaro, prickly pear must be one of the most recognizable American cacti.  This species is most like Opuntia engelmannii.  It's an invasive weed in Australia, South Africa and other regions that match the climate of the Sonoran Desert, as are many other species in this genus. 

I've seen this plant in Barcelona and New Jersey - both locations that are just not 'right' for the prickly pear.  But here, in the desert, it was a pleasure to observe.  The large, ping-pong paddle-like leaves are covered in long spines and in the spring, the plant has very large yellow flowers.  I was sorry to miss the floral display, but thrilled to see this plant in fruit.

We took an off-road jeep tour at sunset in Sedona - in the photo above our guide is harvesting a prickly pear for our sampling.   Even though the fruit appears to be spineless, it's actually covered in very small spines.  Grabbing this without the protection of gloves or a piece of paper would mean you'd be picking spines out of your fingers all day. 

Once you have a prickly pear in your hand, you can use a knife to cut away the skin, then scoop our the deep red, beet-colored flesh.  I wasn't sure what to expect but was surprised at how delicious the fruit is.  It's tangy and sweet, reminiscent of a plum, though it does have a grit to it from the seeds.

The fruit, which is commonly called 'tunas,' is used to make jams and, appropriately enough, to flavor margaritas. 

There are many species of Opuntia in the American Southwest.  The region I was visiting is most populated with O. engelmannii, but there is also O. phaeacantha var. discata (tulip prickly pear) and O. basilaris (beavertail prickly pear), which is spineless.

Opuntia is named for Opus, an ancient Greek city where cactus-like plants grow. 

Pinyon Pine

Below you can see a pic of the Grand Canyon, taken from the Bright Angel Trailhead, on the South Rim.  I was so delighted to finally see the Grand Canyon, to me - and many others, of course - it's one of our greatest national treasures.  The far side of the canyon - where the elevation roughly matches the ground I'm standing at when I took this picture - is 18 miles away.  To put that in perspective, Manhattan Island is only 13.4 miles long.  Lanai is 18 miles long exactly.  The Canyon's width is 277 miles, which is more than the length of the entire state of Maryland.  It's compelling to try to comprehend something so vast, particularly when you are standing at the edge of it.  The depth, by the way, tops out at a mile.

Yes, but what about the plants???

 

Above you can see that, despite the rocky, soil-poor subgrade, trees have managed to create footholds in the cliffs.  Perhaps one of the most iconographic in this landscape is the pinyon pine, or Pinus edulis. 

 

Like all pines, the leaves are needles and occur in fascicles.  Pinyon pine has two needles per fascicle.  The needles are short and rigid.  The nuts - pinyon or pine nuts - they're the largest nuts you can gather from any pine. These are different from the Italian pignolis, which are the nuts of Pinus pinea.

 

Pinus edulis is one of the key species in the Pinyon-Juniper Belt - an ecosystem defined by the presence of the pine and Utah Juniper that occupies the region north of the desert but south of the colder canyons to the north.  Annual rainfall is limited to around 20 inches, so plants are adapted to drought.  The photo above shows the scrubby habit of a pinyon pine-dominant forest as seen from Cathedral Rock in Sedona.

  

Edulis literally means edible.  The nuts are in high demand by locals.  At times, people have even raided the nests of woodrats, gathering a yield of as much as 30 pounds. 

Saguaro

I spent this past holiday weekend in Arizona and took hundreds of pics of the beautiful ecosystems there.  Our home base was in Sedona, but we spent time in the Grand Canyon and Phoenix as well.  Phoenix is in the northern limit of the Sonoran desert - known perhaps best for its most famous inhabitant, the Saguaro cactus, Carnegiea gigantea.
 

 

The saguaro is endemic to the Sonoran Desert, which stretches from Phoenix to northern Mexico.  Some occur near the lower Colorado River in California as well.  It's a massively tall tree, reaching heights up to fifty feet.  When you encounter one that tall, you can speculate that it's lived for as long as two hundred years. 

 

The tree's structure is not like a typical woody tree - instead the interior is comprised of wooden rods.  This allows the plant to expand and contract based on the amount of water it is storing.  Roots are shallow and stretch as far as fifty feet away from the trunk - this maximizes the amount of water the plant can capture during the rare rainfall.

 

The saguaro provides habitat to many desert birds, including gila woodpeckers and flickers, as well as desert raptors like elf and screech owls.  In addition to the many bird species found in the Sonoran Desert (350), there are 60 mammals, 20 amphibians, 30 fish and 100 reptiles.  In this little roadside park, I saw dozens of desert cottontails and greater roadrunners.

 

Here a younger saguaro is in the foreground to the right.  Saguaros must reach fourteen to sixteen feet in height (age 75, approximately) before it begins to branch.  

Saguaros are by far, one of the most iconographic American plants.  It's easy to overlook how big they get.  For precisely that reason, here's a shot illustrating its massive size.  For the record, I'm about 5'-3"!!

Prickly Alyxia (Alyxia ruscifolia)

Here in Australia it’s spring and I have chosen an often overlooked plant, the Prickly Alyxia or Chain Fruit (Alyxia ruscifolia) a member of the Dogbane family Apocynaceae, as the theme.

Commonly found growing as an erect shrub of around two or three meters tall in the understorey of many of the rainforest types in the high rainfall areas that stretch from southern New South Wales to New Guinea; and from sea level to the mountain ranges.

As a general rule plants in this family exude a milky sap if bruised and many species are poisonous if ingested.  The sap is one of the defence mechanisms, which in effect deters herbivores from feeding on the plant.  Apparently the common family name refers to the plant's toxic nature and which has been described as poisonous to dogs.  Derived from the Greek words where apo means ‘away’ and cyno refers to ‘dog.’  The family includes many garden ornamentals such as Golden Bell (Allamanda), Periwinkle (Vinca), Oleander (Nerium), Yellow oleander (Thevetia) and Frangipani (Plumeria).

Alyxia ruscifolia also produces milky latex if any part is broken.  One unique feature is the foliage, with shiny stiff leaves that can be arranged oppositely or in whorls of from three to six.  The leaves are usually not toothed around the edges but have a very sharp pointed tip, hence the term ‘prickly.’  Another interesting aspect is the arrangement of the fruit, a drupe, which may come singly, in pairs or other numbers as an orange/reddish chain; thus ‘chain fruit’.  The plants may be pruned and shaped; and perhaps used as a hedge, or a prickly deterrent along the border of your property.

In the evening, the small white flowers, which besides reflecting the limited amount of light available, also emit the sweetest of perfumes.  By these means the Prickly Alyxia attracts night flying insects for pollination; and as a bonus enhances the surrounding environment for us to enjoy.

For those who enjoy a nightly dose of the sweet taste of spring then the Prickly Alyxia is a must have for the garden.

Bougainvillea

Today I finally delved into some much-overdue photo management.  I'm not sure how many of you are mac users, but I always struggle with iPhoto.  It's fantastically convenient for uploading photos to the computer from your phone, but I can't quite seem to find a good system for organizing them.  I was getting lazy about placing pics in the right folder and too often the folder name just wasn't generic enough.  Today I threw out all my albums and resorted from scratch.  I used only the following labels: people, places, plants, projects.  

This pic below went into three of those folders.  This is a cultivar of Bougainvillea growing at a plant nursery in Waimanalo, Oahu.  I was photographing it to discuss its use on the project in Hawaii.  (Places, projects, plants).  

When I returned from Hawaii after my most recent August site visit I had every intention of *immediately* blogging about Bougainvillea.  Primarily because it was one of the first plants that had every caused me actual physical harm.  You see, depending on the variety, Bougainvillea can have modest or horrifyingly big thorns.  One of the plants I was handling was of the latter category.  My right index finger got pierced pretty badly by one of the thorns my last day on the site.  At the time, it just felt like a splinter, nothing to worry about.  But the next day I called Honolulu poison control, after waking with a finger that was swollen to about twice its usual size!  I was told to take some benadryl and see if it got better as the day progressed.  I did just that, and tried to ignore the horror stories I had stupidly read online. 

I am happy to say that my finger is just fine - it seemed to get back to normal after about two days.  And despite this medical hiccup, I am still a fan of the plant.  Bougainvilleas were discovered Brazil in the late 18th Century during a voyage captained by Louis Antoine de Bougaiville.  Their hardy habit and their ability to mutate quite easily has led this plant to be a popular favorite in any tropical or warm-Mediterranean climate.  The flowers are generally pink, red or purple, though white hues exist as well.  The pic above was taken at the nursery so the various designers on my Hawaii project could confer on the best shade of pinkish-red for the site in question.

You notice above that the showy part of the flower - the papery pink "petals" are actually bracts.  The true flower is small and white.

Oreta rosea

Normally when I have a scientific name in the title of a blog post, there's a safe bet that I'm going to discuss a plant.  But take a closer look at the image below and then see if that's the case today.

No, I'm not going to talk about the grass in the pic, or the pine tree at the top of the photo.  Instead, Oreta rosea is the moth in the photo that is doing a pretty good job of mimicking a fallen leaf.

Oreta is a leaf mimic moth and like many other species in the order Lepidoptera the insect disguises itself for protection from predation.  Perhaps the most famous case of a moth disguising itself is that of the peppered moth.  The peppered moth was primarily white, with gray and black spots, and blended in with the lichens on trees in England.  After the industrial revolution, when soot stained all the lichens to a darker color, the darker colored of the species survived with greater ease and thus became prevalent.

 

Here you can see the fat belly of the insect, a good telltale sign that this is considered a moth and not a butterfly.  Moths also usually have fuzzy antennae whereas the butterfly's are slender.  Most moths are nocturnal, but butterflies generally are active during daylight. There are other differences such as wing couplings and coloration (and the pupae are different), but the antennae and body type are the easiest ways to distinguish butterflies from moths.