Bruce Chatwin in Songlines, this gem of a book (1987), has exquisitely recounted how the Australian Aborigines turned the whole continent into their museum, with…
A scientist and a writer
Botany, which I did study awhile in my youth, holds a continued interest.
Plants are remarkable organisms.
In writing about them, in these small vignettes I try to combine the scientific and the cultural, the bucolic and the utilitarian, and to convey some of my sense of wonder – in brief to try and emulate some of the eighteenth-century natural historians, with the information now available to us.
Bruce Chatwin in Songlines, this gem of a book (1987), has exquisitely recounted how the Australian Aborigines turned the whole continent into their museum, with…
Colors of flowers, generally speaking, are due to anthocyan pigmnts — sometimes to carotenoids. Leaves most often owe their green to chlorophyll.Fruit owe their reddish…
This tree is utterly toxic, from all parts; it was planted to protect and shade churchyards from the beginnings of Christianity, or even earlier; wielding…
About 70 species exist worldwide, mostly native to northern temperate and alpine regions of North America, Europe and Asia. They display colorful flowers — purple,…
This is a companion piece about the risks from use of herbal remedies. It shows how heeding word of mouth recommendations can hasten your demise.…
What makes the human brain attune itself to cults? Herbal remedies occupy a niche closer to cults than to commonsense. However, in our millenial time…
The name Artemisia clearly derives from that of Artemis, the Greek Goddess of hunting. It is known as a first name: who else comes to…
This plant, mullein its common name, can be seen throughout a vast portion of the Northern hemisphere including Europe, North Africa and Asia, from the Azores,…
The poppy The extensively cultivated opium-providing poppy, Papaver somniferum, is a close relative. The California poppy, Eschscholtzia californica, is a different although related species. This is…
The ragweed For an invasive plant to invade it is obviously advantageous to associate itself with other invaders. This is what happened, in the not-too-distant past…