Lee Reich's Blog

(Excerpt from The Ever Curious Gardener: Using a Little Natural Science for a Much Better Garden, available directly from this website, signed, or from the usual sources.)

How many families am I having over to the vegetable garden this summer? I have to plan their seating arrangements.

I’m talking about plant families. An example of a plant family is the Mustard Family, known botanically as the Cruciferae, and including among its members cabbage, broccoli, collards, and Brussels sprouts. Their similarly pungent flavors and waxy, bluish leaves might also have earmarked them as being in the same family. Then again, the different parts eaten—the swollen stalks of kohlrabi, the leaves of cabbage, and the flower buds of broccoli— might indicate otherwise. 

Most important in uniting this family, and the primary characteristic that botanically unites members of any plant family, is the similarity of their flowers. All members of the Mustard Family have flowers with four equal petals in the shape of a cross. Hence, the name: crux is Latin for “cross,” as in “Cruciferae” and “crucifixion.”

Not usually eaten but a pretty flower, Dame’s rocket is a Crucifer

Another prominent family that I’ll undoubtedly have over this summer is the Leguminosae, better known as the Pea Family. This family also includes beans, and if I step out of my vegetable garden into my flower garden, lupines. On the way, walking across the lawn, I’ll no doubt be stepping on another member, clover. Leaves of the Pea Family are usually made up of more than one leaf et, hence the 3- or, rarely, 4-leafed clover.

But here, again, the characteristic that most distinguishes all these plants as a family is their flowers. In this case, the flowers are irregular, having three different kinds of petals—two wing petals flanking an upper standard, and two lower keel petals.

Spanish broom, an ornamental Pea Family relative.

The flowers of another family, the Carrot Family, are described by their botanical name, Umbelliferae. An umbel is a group of flowers, all of whose stalks radiate out from a common point atop a thicker stalk, resulting in a flat-topped or rounded cluster. Like an umbrella. Except for dill, which I grow for seeds and leaves, I rarely see the flowers of carrot, parsley, celery, parsnip, and other members of this family because I grow them only for their roots or leaves.

Tansy flower heads

Five equal flower petals characterize one of the most-loved families in my garden, the Nightshade Family, botanically the Solanaceae. World famous members of this family include potato, tomato, eggplant, and pepper.

Eggplant flower

Tomato flower

A plant family is characterized by more than just the number and shape of its flower petals. Taking a look at the flowers of cucumber, squash, melons, and pumpkins, I see that their flowers also have five equal petals. But the flowers of this family—the Gourd Family or, botanically, the Cucurbitaceae—are either male or female, and the central stalk of the female flower is capped by three stigmas to receive pollen. (Nightshade flowers all have both male and female parts, and female flowers have a single stigma.) 

You may wonder: why all this fuss about plant families? Surely, the different families must be able mingle freely in the garden and get along. (After all, they’re not human!) Yes, plant families can pretty much mingle freely. 

The need for fussiness arises because members of a plant family usually share common pest problems. As examples, clubroot disease attacks the Mustard Family, blight attacks the Nightshades, and parsleyworms chew on leaves of the Carrot Family. 

Characteristic leaf damage from tomato early blight

Except where it is sufficiently mobile or has an appetite for a wide range of families, a pest can usually be starved out by not planting members of a susceptible plant family in the same location more often than every three years. This is one of the rationales for “crop rotation.”

My vegetable garden is laid out in beds, with eight beds on each side of the main path running through the garden. One year a bed might be devoted only to tomatoes. Tomatoes are a no-no in that bed the next year, and the same goes for peppers or eggplants. That bed could be home to corn (Grass Family, Poaceae) or broccoli, cabbage, and kale. That year, the tomatoes get planted two beds away, as does the corn or Mustard Family the next year. And so on, year after year, different vegetables march like slow soldiers around the garden, two steps each year counterclockwise around the garden from bed to bed, with no family returning to where it previously grew for three years.

Some Fun with Families

Crop rotation need not always be about pragmatism. Just for the fun of it, I’ve imagined creating a small, ornamental plot (but haven’t yet) to a single family, perhaps the Pea Family. Perhaps plantings of lupines and vining sweet peas three dimensional color to the dappled shade beneath a honeylocust.

I planted the honeylocust back in 2006. Thus far lupines still inhabit the heath bed in front of my house. This heath bed, incidentally, includes many members of the Heath Family, Ericaceae, grouped for their affinity to very acidic, organically rich soil I’ve created in front of my home. Lupine also demands such soil conditions.

And the sweet peas, which are NOT edible but are valued for their pastel flowers and delicious scents, still climb the garden fence on the outside of my vegetable garden.

The bugs is comin’! The bugs is comin’! Just as sure as the sun is rising higher in the sky each day, the hope of spring is awakening all sorts of pesky little buggers on houseplants. One by one, they are showing their faces: mites, aphids, mealybugs, scale insects, and white flies.

I’d actually consider whiteflies — the target of today’s hunt — to be cute if they weren’t plant pests. The same surely could not be said for drab mealybugs and scale insects, or for mites, the latter because you can hardly see them at all.

Whiteflies come as close to looking like Tinkerbell as does any creature. I hope you never see a whitefly, but if you do, look closely at how their oversize wings seem precariously perched on their tiny backs. And I do mean tiny; the fully grown insect is a mere one-tenth of an inch long. And what a color for an insect: chalky white from head to tail. When disturbed, the insects flit around like fairies so tiny you could at first mistake them for pieces of lint bobbing around in gentle air currents.

The charm soon wears thin. You tire of the whole family taking to the air like a snow squall every time you approach an infested plant. Don’t take too deep a breath, either, or you might suck some whiteflies into your mouth or nostrils.

Whiteflies are as bad for plants as are their near relatives, aphids. An adult female lays a few hundred minuscule, cigar-shaped eggs on the undersides of leaves, and once these eggs hatch, the equally minuscule larvae stick their beaks into the leaf and start sucking sap. Starved plants can turn yellow, wilt, sometimes (admittedly not often) even die.

As if robbing plants of nutrients were not enough, the larvae also excrete honeydew. This honeydew is not bad in of itself, except that it drips all over the plant, then is eaten by a sooty colored fungus which coats, but does not penetrate, the plant. Too much of this sooty mold can actually shade a plant, and, anyway, the sooty covering is not very attractive. It’s also sticky, and makes a carpet or the back of the couch or wherever else it’s dripped sticky and unpleasant to the touch.

Those larvae continue to eat and to molt, at one point even losing both their legs and antennae to become even more inconspicuous as they lodge on the undersides of leaves. No matter, though, it’s the adults flitting about in the air that alerts most people to the presence of whiteflies.

A whitefly may look like Tinkerbell, but she may have to go. I say “may have to go” because plants can tolerate a certain number of whiteflies without suffering significant discomfort. It then becomes more a matter of how many whiteflies we gardeners, rather than plants, can tolerate.

Outdoors, whiteflies rarely cause problems, although they did appear for the first time in my vegetable garden just a few years ago. And they’ve returned every year since to their favorite vegetables which, here at least, are kale and Brussels sprouts. Blasts of water dislodge them if repeated and thorough enough to reach the undersides of leaves included.

A rather droll way to deal with whitefly hot spots indoors or out is with a small vacuum cleaner. Get the bugs flying and then wave the nozzle in the air near them. Empty the vacuum cleaner outdoors (if the weather is cold) or into a bag in your freezer to kill the insects before they get their wits back. 

The usual arsenal is effective against this plant pest. Light oil sprays will smother her, insecticidal soap will collapse her cells, and an insect growth regulator — Enstar, for example — will keep her from growing up. When using any of these treatments, repeat them at intervals in order to target those insects that were not in a susceptible growth stage when you last sprayed.

Whiteflies are especially attracted to the color yellow, so the population can also be brought down with sticky yellow cards placed near infested plants. Buy these cards, or make your own by painting rectangles of Masonite or wood with Rustoleum Yellow No. 659, their most favorite shade of yellow. Coat the cards with Tangletrap or make your own sticky coating by mixing 2 parts of petroleum jelly or mineral oil with one part household detergent. The homemade coating is much easier to remove and replace than the Tangletrap. Whiteflies aren’t strong fliers, so traps need to be placed right near infested leaves.

Tinkerbell even has some of her own special enemies. One is a tiny wasp, called Encarsia formosa, available commercially but more useful in greenhouses than in homes because it needs high heat, humidity, and light to thrive. Ladybugs also enjoy eating them.

Cabbage whitefly & ladybug larvae

Another enemy is a fungus disease named Verticillium lecanii and sold as Mycotal. And finally, if we could only enlist the help of Hook, Captain Hook.

Ask for the real philodendron to stand up and you might be surprised at what plant does not rise. The still-seated plant I’m talking about is Swiss cheese plant (Monstera deliciosa), often called split-leaf philodendron.

Swiss cheese plant is sometimes called split-leaf philodendron, a common name it shares with a true philodendron (Philodendron bipinnatifidum) because both have similar looking, large glossy, incised leaves and aerial roots. Like the real philodendron, Swiss cheese plant also has a hardy disposition within the limitation of being tropical, and tolerates low light, dry air, and neglectful watering as well as do other good houseplants.

Philodendron bipinnatifidum 

Where the cousins part ways visually is in the “Swiss cheese” aspect of the plants. While both plants have split or deeply cut leaves, only the Swiss cheese philodendron also has, as might be expected from its common name, holes in its leaves.

There are also other differences: Swiss cheese plants is a climber while split-leaf philodendron is more shrubby, although it can climb some if placed right up against a tree.

Swiss cheese plant

Pretty much the only response of Swiss cheese philodendron to poor growing conditions will be for new leaves to be undersized and lack the deep cuts and holes found on leaves developing under ideal conditions. The philodendron called split-leaf philodendron, on the other hand, is more consistently split-leaved under poor growing conditions and even when young.

The genus name of Swiss cheese plant, Monstera, does not signify Monstera in a frightening sense. Instead of monster, think instead “monstrous,” because the plant’s leaves grow so large — even two or three feet across. Monstera is a close relative of philodendron, sharing the same family along with plants such as Jack-in-the-pulpit and calla lily.

Jack in the Pulpit

What unites all these plants into a common family are their unique flowers. Individual flowers are themselves inconsequential. What makes them striking is the way they are packed tightly along an upright, fleshy spike, the whole spike rising just above one or two broad, brightly colored bracts. (A bract is a modified leaf at the base of a flower, and is often more showy than the flower itself — the red bracts of poinsettias are another example.)

Monstera flower

You’ve probably come upon Jack-in-the-pulpit or calla lily flowers in the woods, a garden, or florist’s shop, but you may not ever have come upon flowers on a Swiss cheese plant. The reason is because Swiss cheese plant’s flowers develop only under nearly ideal growing conditions, which for this plant means high heat, high humidity, and high light. These are conditions found in either the tropics or a warm greenhouse. There, a young plant might flower as soon as two years after it has been propagated as a — incidentally very easy-to-root — stem cutting. The ten inch spike surround by a boat shaped, white bract is quite spectacular.

Another relative, this one called Amorphophallus

Fruits that follow such flowers make Swiss cheese plant even more interesting, and give rise to the species part of its botanical name: deliciosa. You’ll occasionally find this fruit offered in tropical markets, sometimes under the name ceriman. As the fruit develops, the spike looks like a long pine cone or an ear of corn covered with small, hexagonal plates of green rind covering individual edible kernels.

Monstera deliciosa, unripe fruits

Those kernels turn yellow as they sequentially ripen. You wouldn’t want to taste any kernels while they are still green. At that stage they are still high in oxalic which can cause a burning sensation in your throat. People vary in their sensitivity, at the extreme experiencing skin rash or anaphylaxis.

The fruit signals that it’s ripening by turning a lighter color, almost yellow, and by shedding bits of its rind. All the kernels do not ripen at once, but the fruit can be clipped from the plant when ripening begins, then wrapped in plastic and held at room temperature to finish ripening completely without falling apart. Bite into the individual, pale, juicy kernels, and what you would taste would be a combination of pineapple and banana, with a slight hint of apple.

Monstera deliciousa fruit, ceriman

Hear “bark” and I’ll bet “dog” or “birch” comes to mind. Well, foxes also bark, and the cinnamon brown, flaky bark of paperbark maple is every bit as eye-catching as is the more talked about chalky white bark of birch. Winter is a wonderful time to appreciate plants’ bark.

Shrubs never develop trunks thick enough to be swathed in broad expanses of bark, yet a few of them do have notable bark. The red or yellow twigs of shrubby dogwoods look stunning against snowy backdrops, and are bright enough to call attention to themselves even without that snow.

Red twig dogwood

Twigs of the variety of white willow called Cherisina have similarly colorful bark, orangish red in this case.

Only the young twigs of the dogwoods and the willow are brightly colored, so you can lop these plants right to the ground each spring as the flowers and leaves of other plants begin stealing the stage. The willow’s and dogwoods’ colorful stems fade as the weather warms, anyway.

Green is a welcome color in winter, and is served up by scotch broom as a fountain of slender, lime-green twigs. Come spring, will their color fade? Not a whit. Matter of fact, as spring draws to a close, the twigs get drenched in a mass of buttery yellow flowers. (Note: Scotch broom is invasive in certain parts of wester U.S.)

The young stems of kerria also stay bright green through winter. Only the young stems are green, so cut kerria back right after its yellow pompom blossoms — responsible for the plant’s also being called Japanese rose — wither away.

For a real rose with interesting bark, consider the omei rose. The plant grows quite large and has fairly nondescript white blossoms. But look at the younger stems: they are covered with translucent, ruby red thorns whose bases are so wide as to make the stems appear almost winged. One more shrub with particularly appealing bark is Nanking cherry. The bark naturally peels from the plant in delicate curls to reveal a shiny, reddish brown inner bark that is punctuated with tan lenticels. Nanking cherry’s bark develops character only on older stems.

Let’s move on to larger plants with notable bark. Yew is “yewsually” grown as a bush, but time and training can transform it into a tree. Time also is needed for the bark to take on a rich color and texture, deep reddish brown and peeling in long, thin strips. Training an older plant to tree form lets that beautiful bark stare back at you at eye level.

If the bark of yew evokes a dark, cool, damp forest, the bark of sycamore — a patchwork of white, pale olive green, and light brown — evokes the opposite: a sun-parched landscape. Despite its sunny appearance, sycamore inhabits moist bottomlands along rivers and streams. London planetree is a sycamore hybrid with similar pale, pretty bark, and somewhat more symmetric form. Before planting either of these trees, be aware that they can grow to monstrous proportions, fast.

The barks of a number of other trees won’t jump out at you, but reveal their beauty and interest under closer inspection. Take a walk in the woods and pick out the aptly named shagbark hickory, its bark pulling free from the trunk at each end in long, fat strips. Take a look at flowering dogwood, its bark made up of little blocks fitted together like a puzzle. You will know and might come to love the gray bark of hackberry, whose smoothness is interrupted by corky ridges that cast crisp shadows reminiscent of photographs of the lunar landscape.

The more you look at bark, the more you appreciate this subtle beauty of trees. (For more about bark — its science, its beauty, and its uses around the world — see Bark by G. T. and A. E. Prance, and  Bark, A Field Guide to Trees of the Northeast by M. Wojtech.)

[The following is excerpted from my book The Ever Curious Gardener: Using a Little Natural Science for a Much Better Garden, available from the usual sources or, signed, directly from me at leereich.com/books.

The chimera of Greek mythology was a scary, fire-breathing creature that was part lion, part goat, and part dragon, and feasted on humans. Although Bellerophon killed that chimera, some still exist today. Perhaps there’s one in your backyard, even in your house!

A chimera is a composite creature, a genetic mosaic, and such creatures exist in the plant world. Don’t expect to find red apples dangling from marigold stems or gardenia blooms unfolding against backdrops of poinsettia leaves. Plant chimeras never are as genetically diverse as that lion, goat, and dragon combo. Nor are they as physically diverse, a plant usually broadcasting that it is a chimera only with splotches or lines of color different from the surrounding color of the leaves, flowers, or fruits.

A chimera might originate by design, more usually by chance. To picture the beginnings of such a creature requires a step back to thinking how any plant grows.

All plants elongate by division of cells at the tips of their stems. Zoom in to one of those stem tips, down to the cellular level and you’ll see that it has two or three well-defined layers which, as they divide, give rise to distinctive parts of the plant. For instance, the outermost layer of the tip becomes, logically enough, the outermost layer of a leaf. In most plants all the cells in their tips are genetically identical to each other and to those in the rest of the plant, with the exception of the pollen and egg cells.

Now just suppose that a portion of that stem tip — even just a single cell — was genetically a bit different from the others. Perhaps that cell and its offspring were colorless. Then whatever parts of stems, leaves, flowers, or fruits derive from that particular cell would also be colorless.

That oddball cell or cells could be the result of a natural mutation. Or, a stem tip with more than one kind of cell could be made by tissue culture, a laboratory procedure for multiplying plant cells and, hence, plants in test tubes before growing them large enough to pot up or plant outdoors.

Historically, gardeners have occasionally created chimeras when grafting if, by chance, a new growing point arose that incorporated dividing cells from the two parts of the graft.

Some of these so-called graft hybrids aspire to that chimera of mythology, not in fierceness but in creating a creature representing more that one species or even genus. The camellia Daisy Eagleson is a graft hybrid of two different camellia species. Graft hybrids have also resulted from grafting laburnum and broom plants together, which are in different genera although the same family. The resulting plant’s branches are usually draped in yellow flowers characteristic of laburnums, but occasional branches are covered with purple blooms of broom.

The plant chimeras that we gardeners are most familiar with are those that are visually obvious and look pretty — how else would we so easily identify them, and why else would we be so ready to propagate them? Thus we have the vinca varieties Elegantissima and Oxoniensis, the former with white margins bordering a dark leaf and the latter with dark margins bordering a pale green leaf. Another plant chimera is the sansevieria variety Hahnii Solid Gold. Chimeras are relatively common among geraniums.

Vinca major ‘Variegata’

Don’t assume that any plant with streaks or splotches of color is a chimera. A virus is often the cause as are nutritional or environmental problems. And sometimes — in lungwort or zebra plant, for example — certain cells naturally grow differently or take on a different color in certain areas of plant even though the whole plant remains genetically homogeneous. Perhaps such plants just want to look like fierce beasts.

[The following is excerpted from my book, The Pruning Book, available, signed, directly from me as well as from the usual sources.]

Suppose you’ve just created a bonsai plant, or you’ve just bought one, or been gifted one: Does the plant need further pruning? Most assuredly, yes! Bonsai need regular pruning both above and below ground throughout their life. The frequency of pruning depends on just how fast the particular kind of tree or bush grows, the size of the pot, and the growing conditions.

Roots eventually fill the soil in a small, bonsai pot, so root-pruning is needed to make room for fresh soil. Root-prune deciduous bonsai in early spring or late autumn, evergreen bonsai in early spring or late summer.

The way to root prune bonsai is to first lift the plant out of its pot, then cut the root ball back all around and underneath with scissors or pruning shear. (Not one you like to keep super sharp because those blades will encounter some soil particles while cutting.)

After teasing roots on the outside of the ball outwards, add enough soil to the bottom of the plant’s container to bring the ground surface back to its original height. Return the plant to its container and pack new soil in among the roots. Using a stick — a chopstick is culturally appropriate — to pack down the soil makes sure no large air spaces are left in which the roots would dry out.

The time to prune the top portion of a bonsai plant is now, while it is dormant, and again while it is actively growing. Bonsai plants respond to pruning the same as do full-size plants. Pinch the tips of shoots where you want to slow growth. Cut stems back to their origin where no or minimal regrowth is wanted — where, for example, too many stems are crowded too near to each other. Shorten a stem where you want the remaining portion to branch. Rub off buds or cut stems back to their origins where growth is not wanted.

Pinch back expanding new growth of junipers, and candles of pines and spruces, wherever you want these plants to be more bushy. 

Because you view bonsai at such close range, you’ll want to make all pruning cuts especially clean, more so than on full-size plants. So, to avoid damaging remaining leaves when you shorten expanding growth on spruce, for example, reach within a tuft of foliage with a pair of tweezers to tweak off all but a few new leaves. A small, pointed pruning shears works well on stems.

Then again — and this is only for bonsai, not for full-sized plants — stubs of older stems lend a wizened look to a Lilliputian tree.

Some bonsai benefit from having all their leaves pruned off just after they fully expand. Timed correctly, such leaf pruning forces a second flush of leaves which are smaller, and, hence, better proportioned to the size of the plant. You can get two seasons of development in one season with this trick. As an added benefit, that second flush of leaves often offers more dramatic autumn color than the first flush would have.

Leaf pruning is not the thing for a plant that has been weakened by disease or insect pests, or show off-color leaves from starvation. Such plants need, besides correction of whatever is causing weakness, all the leaves they can grow to sustain them.

On some trees, such as maples and elms, you can leaf-prune twice each season, as the first and second flush of leaves fully expand. With trees such as gingko, beech, and oak, timing is critical to get even a second flush of leaves. If there’s any chance of injuring buds at the bases of the leaf stalks, just cut off most of each leaf with a scissors. The stalk will come off, perhaps needing some help from you, as new leaves appear.

Leaf pruning is not for every bonsai. Don’t do it on evergreens or on fruiting bonsai that are bearing fruit. And leaf-pruning is stressful, so avoid this practice on any tree that is weak or sick.

The rigorous root and shoot pruning needed for bonsai is itself weakening, which is a good reason to take extra care in giving bonsai perfect growing conditions in every other respect. This means water and fertilizer, as needed, as well as good light. Most bonsai are dwarfed, cold-hardy trees and, as such, like to be kept as cool as possible this time of year.

Bonsai juniper, Longwood Gardens

This time of year, a slice of Key lime pie is the next best thing to walking along a beach in the Florida Keys. Okay, not the next best thing, but good eating anyway. Hold on a minute, though, before beginning your gustatory journey; the supermarket is not the place to begin.

What you are most likely to get at any market is a Persian lime (Citrus × latifolia), a hybrid of Key lime and lemon), and this kind of lime lacks the unique and potent aroma of a genuine Key lime (Citrus × aurantiifolia). Persian lime is more cold-hardy and less seedy than Key lime, and has a longer shelf life. Even commercial lime pies are sometimes made with Persian limes, one reason why a pie from a bakery or a slice in a restaurant might miss the mark in flavor.

Bonsai Key lime tree

You probably now suspect — and rightly so — that I’m going to suggest that you grow your own Key limes. Do it, but watch out that what you get is a Key lime plant, because most lime plants sold also are Persian limes, usually the variety Bearss.

To find your Key lime plant, you should know its aliases. It’s also been called Mexican lime and West Indian lime.

None of these aliases, even the name Key lime, is well-founded, because Key limes are native to India and Malaysia. Sure, they were planted in south Florida, but that was only after being carried to North Africa by Arabs, then to the Mideast and Mediterranean by the Crusaders, and then to the Caribbean, where the plants naturalized, by the Conquistadors. Key limes were widely planted in Florida only after a hurricane wiped out pineapples there in 1906; lime fruits pickled in salt water were shipped north where they were a popular snack for school children. (That doesn’t sound very appetizing to me.)

Another hurricane, this one in 1926, wiped out many of the Key lime trees in Florida, and the industry has faltered ever since. If your slice of pie has indeed been made with real Key limes, the fruit most likely was grown in the Caribbean.

Unless, of course, you grow Key lime yourself — not a difficult feat at all once you get a plant. I once grew Key lime but was disappointed with its production. Not that it was hard to grow.

My Key lime tree

The lime I’m looking for now is the finger lime (Citrus australasica). This lime is unique in that its small, elongated fruits are filled with sprightly flavored juicy vesicles, each one separate like small beads which give rise to its sometimes being called “lime caviar.”

Red finger lime

Finger limes are evidently causing quite a buzz of their own. Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) has livened things up by breeding varieties of various colors, sizes, and shapes, the colors also carrying over to the lime caviar within. It’s also been bred with Key limes to produce some unique varieties.

Selection of native lime hybrids

If you ever lay hands on a fresh Key lime fruit, you could start a plant by rinsing the seeds and then immediately sowing them. It’s a satisfying (and inexpensive) way to get a plant, but you will have to wait longer — five to ten years, depending on growing conditions — for your first pie with this method than buying a plant. Come upon a Key lime tree somewhere, and you could also make new ones by taking cuttings or, if the tree wasn’t grafted, digging root sprouts. Trees grafted or from cuttings typically fruit within two to three years.

Once you have a tree, all you need is a flowerpot filled with any standard potting mix. With annual pruning of both stems and roots, you could keep the plant as small as a couple of feet high. Of course, larger plants yield more fruits and more pies.

Key lime revels in heat. Keep the tree in the sunniest window you have in winter, then move it outdoors to a sunny location once warm weather settles in in spring. Key lime is among the most frost sensitive of citrus, so move it outdoors early summer, then indoors in early fall, well before any hint of frost threatens at either end of the growing season.

Expect your first harvest within a couple of years of planting the tree. Allow the fruit to turn pale green or yellowish for full flavor, then squeeze away for your pie. Too many fruits at once? Store them in a cool room in a plastic bag or under water, or make some juice, jam, jelly, or marmalade. And don’t waste the flavorful peel: recreate a popular sweetmeat of Java by chopping the peel with coconut and milk.

Back in 1995, Robin Williams starred in a rather bizarre movie, Jumangi. The rhinoceroses charging through the living room and the crazed, great white hunter caused more terror than did the bizarre plant that kept threatening Robin Williams. After all, rhinoceroses and great white hunters, even crazy ones, are real enough, but that plant surely had to be no more than a moviemaker’s fantasy. Well, let me tell you, that odd looking plant bore an eerily strong resemblance to a real plant.

Jumanji

The moviemakers did not have to stray too far from botanical accuracy to make the real plant, called welwitschia, bizarre enough for the movie. Picture, if you will, a barren, coastal desert in western South Africa. Now every so often, drop a plant from the sky, a plant with a stubby, top-shaped trunk up to about three feet across off which grows two — and only two — strappy leaves. The fall from the sky frays the leaves, sprawling them out in an unkempt heap. Austrian botanist Friedrich Welwitsch, who found the plant in Angola in 1859 and is its namesake, wrote, “I could do nothing but kneel down […] and gaze at it, half in fear lest a touch should prove it a figment of the imagination.”

Welwitschia, Male

Weird in All Respects
A welwitschia plant doesn’t get to where it is, of course, by dropping out of the sky fully grown. It just looks that way. And its conical trunk, looking like a wrinkled, brown clam, isn’t perched on the soil, but buried with only a few inches protruding above its deep taproot. This helps the plant conserve watering and access. 

The desert wind, not the fall, is what knocks the leaves about so that there appears to be many more than two growing from around the rim of the trunk. Most plants would continue to grow new leaves. Not welwitschia; it never grows any more leaves and, also in contrast to other plants, those two leaves just keep on growing. Besides the usual function of any plant’s leaves, welwitschia’s leaves also help quench this plant’s thirst, collecting morning dew, then dripping it onto the ground. This supplements water sucked up by the plant’s deep tap root.

Every once in a while, a welwitschia will flower, sending up short, branched stalks from atop the stem. In female plants, flowers are followed by seeds, which would be the way to propagate the plant.

Welwitschia with male & female flowers. Thomas Baines, 1863, Curtis’ Botanical Magazine

I don’t recommend propagating welwitschia as a houseplant, though, unless you’re very patient. Seedlings grow very, very slowly. So slowly that the curator of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew was still bemoaning the slow growth in 1916, thirty-six years after the seeds had been sown. On the flip side of the coin, a welwitschia plant can live for thousands of years, sprawling out into a five foot high, twenty-five foot circle.

Okay, if you want to grow the plant, perfect soil drainage is a must. If you grow from seed, heat speeds germination, often to a mere one to four weeks. (Some seeds may take considerably longer, some never germinate.

You’re probably going to be growing the plant as a botanical curiosity rather than for its looks. Joseph Hooker, director of the Royal Botanic Gardens in the latter half of the 19th century, Kew, described welsitchia as “out of all question the most wonderful plant ever brought to this country – and the very ugliest.”

A Man Eater?

Now that I think of it, though, this slow growth would be preferable to having the plant grow as it did in the movie. Robin Williams had to run to keep the plant from grabbing onto his leg or arm.

The plant in the movie seemed ready to gobble up anyone that it held onto long enough, but real welwitschias are not supposed to be carnivorous. I say “not supposed to be” because periodically, over the centuries, there has been talk of “man-eating” trees, and some of them bear a resemblance to welwitschia. For instance, the Madagascar “Sacrifice Tree” reputedly has long tendrils, each about as thick as a man’s arm, that can capture a human in its viselike grip, then digest away all the flesh until only a skeleton remains.

And take note: Madagascar is not that far from western South Africa, and the strappy leaves of welwitschia are as wide, if not as thick, as a man’s arm even after time and wind has repeatedly split them. What’s more, welwitschia did once go under the more ominous name of Tumboa.

It has been about 100 years since an expedition set out to search for and photograph the Madagascar “Sacrifice Tree.” No further reports on this, or any other man-eating plant have appeared.

What more hopeful way to go into winter than with a plant named wintergreen? Wintergreen. The word conjures up an image of lush greenery against lily white snow, a congenial juxtaposition of the living and the nonliving, both pristine.

Wild wintergreen in Maine

If the word wintergreen brings to mind, instead, a refreshing aroma or flavor — yes — that’s the same plant. Oil of wintergreen has been used as flavoring for teas and beers, both alcoholic and nonalcoholic, as well as straight up, as a leafy nibble. The plant’s berries also provide a nibble, one that might make you start moving your feet. Wintergreen is also known as teaberry, the flavoring in a chewing gum that was featured in popular TV advertisements in the late 1960s that showed the gum inducing a jiglike dance, the “teaberry shuffle,” to a catchy tune.

As if two common names were not enough, wintergreen, botanically Gaultheria procumbens, also has been called checkerberry and partridgeberry (Mitchella repens). Checkerberry comes from the resemblance of the fruit to that of the checker tree (Torminalis glaberrima), a kind of wild mountain ash of Europe, whose fruit has been used to flavor beer. And partridgeberry because, of course, partridges are so fond of the berries.

Besides being used as a flavoring, oil of wintergreen has been used to soothe fevers and ease the pain of arthritis and rheumatism. Native Americans used wintergreen leaves for this purpose either as a tea or poultice. The active ingredient is closely related to aspirin, so oil of wintergreen, like other natural or synthetic drugs, should be used with discretion.

Wintergreen does live up to its name, doing its part to help keep a snow bare winter from looking like a wasteland of gray and brown, or peeking through the snow to break the achromatic monotony of a snowy winter. The plant grows only about six inches high, creeping along the ground by means of underground stems. New leaves are yellowish green, soon turning glossy green, then taking on a bronze tinge through winter, the colder the weather the bronzer the color.

Leaves are only part of the display. All summer, they are accompanied by solitary, pinkish white flowers.And then red berries, ripening in late summer, add to the show and carry it on through fall and winter. A variety called Macrocarpa is known for its prolific berry production.

Macrocarpa wintergreen planted as ornamental, Bryn Mawr

All these qualities meld together to recommend wintergreen as an evergreen groundcover plant. In its native haunts, which cover much of the eastern half of the country, the plant grows in moist, acidic soils in the shade of evergreens. Why not do the same in the garden, letting the glossy greenery spread over soil beneath, for example, a shrubbery of rhododendrons and mountain laurels, or beneath a group of hemlocks? The taller plants will appreciate the protection wintergreen affords their roots, keeping the soil from washing and insulating it against summer’s heat and winter’s cold. Wintergreen will actually grow over a wide range of light conditions, tolerating deep shade at some expense to growth and fruiting, and sun, if the soil stays sufficiently moist.

Wintergreen in fall

Do pay careful attention to the soil before you plant wintergreen. Add plenty of acidic peat moss or well-ripened compost, as well as sulfur if the pH still goes above about 5.5. Use little or no fertilizer, though, because fertilizer can damage the plant’s fine roots, and because the plant just doesn’t need it. With soil prepared, plant seeds or potted plants.

If you buy wintergreen from a nursery, order by botanical name because a number of other plants also go under that common name. Species of Chimophila and Pyrola, for example. Of course, if all you want is the smell of wintergreen, any these “wintergreens” would do.

Then again, so would sweet birch (also know as black birch or, botanically, as Betula lent), which was the commercial source of oil of wintergreen until it was superseded by synthetic, but identical, methyl salicylate. My firewood pile once included sweet birch from which a heady aroma of wintergreen wafted for months every time I went near it.

Mmmmm, how I like to bite into a cultivar. And look at the beautiful petals of a cultivar. And admire the autumn foliage of a cultivar.

A “cultivar?” What an ugly word for a plant with so many qualities.

Actually, a cultivar is any cultivated variety of plant. Get it? “Cultivated variety” contracts to “cultivar,” a word that was originally conjured about 100 yers ago, then codified  in the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants (ICNCP) in 1959. Some horticulturalists, myself included, avoid the word. As I wrote, the word is just too ugly.

Brassica oleraceae var. botrytis, B. oleraceae var. gemmifera (with Homo sapiens), and B. oleraceae var. acephala.

Before the word “cultivar” was invented, gardeners used the word “variety,” but some people objected that this confused a “cultivated variety” with a “botanical variety.” The latter is merely a way to split up a plant species, warranted when a population of plants within a species is sufficiently different from the remaining members — but not so different as to warrant its being a separate species. A good example of botanical varieties is found among cabbage and its relatives. They all are Brassica oleraceae, oleraceae being the species name, but all cabbages are Brassica oleraceae var. capitata, all Brussels sprouts are Brassica oleraceae var. gemmifera, and all broccolis are

Botanical Splitting Hairs

Actually, species sometimes are pared apart to a level different from botanical variety. If a group of plants within a species is different from the rest, but not quite different enough to warrant variety status, they may be placed within a “subspecies.” An example would be the grandifolius subspecies of the ionanthus species of African violet, the whole name written as Streptocarpus ionanthus subsp. grandifolius. From the subspecies name, you probably guessed that this group is notable for having larger leaves (“grandifolius” means “large leaf”).

At least two subspecies must exist if it’s going to be separated in subspecies. (If there was only one, it would be elevated to be a species.) Subspecies are distinguishable, geographically separate population. If they weren’t they would interbreed, erasing the differences between them.

A botanical variety, exemplified above by cabbage and its close relatives, is a finer distinction than subspecies. In the cabbage example, there are no subspecies of Brassica oleraceae, just botanical varieties.

Had enough? Hold on, there’s yet another, even finer differentiation. Sometimes. That’s “botanical form,” denoted by “f.”. It could be at the level of species, subspecies, or botanical variety. The botanical form is only a slight difference, often the result of the local environmental conditions. A familiar example would be the spineless forms of honeylocust tree, Gliditsia triacanthos f. inermis. If you’ve ever seen or been poked by the three-branched thorns of honeylocust, G. triacanthos, you’d be pleased with the botanical form inermis, inermis meaning “unarmored” or “toothless.”

To sum up levels of differentiation: species, subspecies, cultivar, botanical variety.

A cultivar (ughhh!) can be a botanical variety, subspecies, or form, or even an individual plant that is repeatedly cloned to make a whole population of identical, new plants. What distinguishes a cultivar is this: The group of plants has certain similarities, and the plants are intentionally cultivated. You might notice their similarities merely by sight, or the differences might be more subtle, in the plant’s physiology or chemistry.

The reason that you would intentionally cultivate a group of similar plants is because they have some desirable quality. Which is why I like to bite into a cultivar — of ‘Spitzenburg’ apple, for example.

Homegrown Spitzenberg apple

A wild apple tree growing along the roadside is not a cultivar, unless you happen to like the fruit and start making the tree into new plants. (The chances of a wild apple tasting as good as some cultivar is less than one in 10,000, though.) Similarly, ‘October Glory’ red maple has better autumn color than its wild siblings. And you won’t find a wild begonia with flowers as flamboyant as ‘Rosebud Double Giant’ begonia.

The way that any cultivar is reproduced depends on the particular plant. Cloning, which I mentioned previously, is just one method. Some old varieties, errr . . . cultivars, of tomato, such as ‘Belgian Giant’ and ‘Bonny Best’, are self-pollinating, and reproduce true from seed now that they have been inbred for so many generations. (Plant, not human, generations.) Cabbages readily cross-pollinate, but an old cultivar like ‘Early Jersey Wakefield’ is maintained by growing it for seed in isolation. And then there are cultivars such as ‘Big Boy’ and ‘Big Girl’ tomato, which are hybrids, the result of a deliberate mating of two specific parents.

Before closing, I’ll give you some full names. Reach for a packet of Early Jersey Wakefield cabbage and what you’re getting is Brassica oleraceae var. capitata ‘Early Jersey Wakefield’. And I am very proud of the red-leafed, thornless honeylocust I planted 20 years ago. But what a name: Gliditsia triacanthos f. inermis ‘Ruby Lace’! Just asking for Ruby Lace honeylocust at a nursery would get you one there also.

Gliditsia triacanthos f. inermis ‘Ruby Lace’

Now, don’t get the idea that all cultivated plants are cultivars. In some cases, a whole species is outstanding and worth growing, with no distinctive groups within the species. You rarely find any cultivars of such garden plants as arugula, climbing hydrangea, four o’clocks, burnet rose, or beauty berry. The run-of-the-mill species do just fine.