The answer to today’s puzzle will depend on YOU! I have no idea what this is. (I’m not a mycologist. And did you know that fungi are more closely related to animals than to plants?)
Anyway. I found this on our wood chip mulch today. We always get interesting fungal fruiting bodies on wood chips – one year we even got morels. But I’ve never seen this type before.
If you can’t tell, these are round and furry. They really remind me of a mold.
Much as I am itching to continue the current discussion on cultivars of native plants, I’ve got to wait until next week (my seminar schedule has me hammered – doing my third one this week tomorrow). So instead I thought I’d throw out some suggestions for those nonscientists who blog and/or write about all things planted.
First of all, I do enjoy reading blogs, articles and books by nonscientists who venture into plant and soil sciences. But there are common errors that both interrupt the flow and – fairly or unfairly – can cause me to question the writer’s grasp of the subject matter. Here are some of them in no particular order:
Nomenclature:
1) Common names are not capitalized unless they contain a proper noun. (This is a general taxonomic rule for plants – and sorry, I didn’t write the rules!)
2) Scientific names are always italicized or underlined; the first letter of the genus is capitalized, the species name is usually not. (Also, they’re not “Latin names” – many scientific names actually come from Greek roots.)
3) While we’re on scientific names and in a nod to our discussion of cultivars, let’s address that one too. When a scientific name is followed by a cultivar name, the cultivar name is either preceded by cv., or is set off in single quotes. The cultivar name is capitalized. So this is how the weeping blue atlas cedar would appear: Cedrus atlantica ‘Glauca Pendula’ or Cedrus atlantica cv. Glauca Pendula.
4) Plant family names always end in -aceae, which literally means “family.” When someone writes “the Asteraceae family” they are being redundant. (This always reminds me of a scene from Mickey Blue Eyes, where the characters are discussing a restaurant called “The La Trattoria” – which, of course, translates to “the the restaurant.”)
Scientific information:
1) The word “data” is a plural noun (datum is the singular form). Therefore, “data” must take plural verbs.
2) “Proving” that a product or practice works. The philosophy behind the scientific method states that one can never definitively “prove” anything. Thus, we can have results that support a hypothesis, or we can disprove it. (Yes, marketers do this, but garden writers shouldn’t.)
Terminology:
1) “Pesticide” is a generic word that means “pest killer”. Herbicides kill plants, fungicides kill fungi, and so on. Many nonscientists incorrectly think that pesticide means the same thing as insecticide. It does not.
2) Flowers and fruits are reproductive structures of angiosperms (the flowering plants). Conifers do not have flowers, nor do they have fruits; their seeds are born on cones. Many scientists, as well as nonscientists, incorrectly label the cones of Ginkgo and Taxus (yew) as fruits.
I’m sure my GP colleagues can come up with some other ones, and maybe you can as well. Comment away!
A few brave souls dared to take on Friday’s puzzle. Here’s a more revealing photo; the "tongue" is actually the top of a pitcher plant:
Kudos to Hap for correctly identifying the genus (Sarracenia) of this carnivorous plant. This particular one is S. purpurea, which is distinctive in that it has dark red, open pitchers rather than hooded ones. You can easily see the downward slanting hairs in the throat of the pitchers. These hairs, as Diana pointed out, keep trapped insects from climbing back out of the pitcher.
This pitcher plant is part of my nifty bog garden that we put together this year. If any of them get big enough, I’ll have to try Hap’s unorthodox method of slug disposal.
Well, maybe it’s not a cat tongue (no way my cats would put up with this), but what is it? Name both the plant and the function of this tissue for full credit!
Answer and more photos on Monday – have a great weekend!
About a year ago I posted my thoughts about the nursery production practice of heading young trees (“whips”) to stimulate lateral branching or columnar form or whatever. (You can find this original column here.) A healthy discussion ensued, much of which revolved around the need for appropriate follow-up pruning to ensure the development of a stable crown structure of headed trees.
Fast forward to last month, where a column I wrote for NPM (Nursery Production and Management) magazine hit the web. And then the fan.
I made some people very unhappy with this article. I had a lengthy and productive conversation with one such person last week, during which we agreed on many things, including (1) trees that are headed develop multiple leaders; (2) multiple leaders, however they’re created, need to be thinned to one central leader; and (3) uncontrolled multiple leaders can create hazardous conditions. The bottom line, from a nursery production perspective, is that headed trees require regular pruning to create and maintain natural, structurally sound crowns.
And here’s my problem: how many homeowners are going to perform this regular pruning? Furthermore, how many homeowners KNOW how to perform corrective pruning? We all know that number is going to be abysmally small. Even for those situations where competent arborists could do this regular pruning, how many communities budget for this activity?
More troubling for me as a scientist is the lack of peer-reviewed scientific papers on this practice. Though there are numerous papers documenting the effects of pruning, I can’t find any that specifically look at the long-term effect of heading trees during nursery production. You’ve heard all of us GP’s say it before – unless you can show us the data in a published and peer-reviewed format, we can’t regard anecdotes as anything but.
The nursery industry has invested a lot of time and money in a practice that leads to problems for which no one will claim responsibility. Production nurseries wash their hands of the issue once the trees leave their facility. Many retail nurseries don’t perform the necessary follow up pruning while the trees are in their care (do any retail nurseries do this? Are they aware of the problem?). Homeowners don’t receive information or training on how or why to perform corrective pruning.
What I’d really like to see the nursery production industry focus on is consumer education. The metamorphosis of a sapling into a maturing tree is a wondrous thing. Rather than interfere with the process, we need to cultivate patience as well as a respect for tree physiology.
Now I feel a little guilty. You tried to answer Friday’s puzzle so seriously, and I was taking liberties with photography:
I think this is the coolest garden stairway I’ve seen yet. The buffalgrass tolerates moderate foot traffic, and it lends a fluid look to the otherwise hard edges of the steps. And you can’t tell from looking, but it both felt and sounded silky. Best of all, it doesn’t require mowing. (This is the Rolston/Cohn garden, part of the garden tour put on by the GWA in Dallas last week.)
During my trip to Dallas last week, I saw several low-water lawns, including this one using buffalograss (Bouteloua dactyloides):
The question is – why does have this wave structure?
Another revealing picture and answer on Monday!
Alert reader Matt Wood pointed out a recent article in the NY Times on mulching with newspaper and wondered about my take on the topic.
For use on landscapes, I do not like sheet mulches of any stripe. They tend to hinder to air and water movement, most especially in unmanaged landscapes like restoration sites. A classic example is the use of cardboard or newspaper covered with wood chips. The chips are easily dislodged, exposing the sheet mulch which quickly dries out and becomes hydrophobic. Thus, the roots of desirable trees and shrubs lose out on the water, while the weeds surrounding the edges of the mulch benefit from the runoff:
Published research on sheet mulching in landscape settings confirms the drawbacks of sheet mulching. But the article in the NY Times is about vegetable gardens. This is a different situation – more akin to agricultural production than to landscape horticulture. Vegetable gardens are routinely managed during planting, thinning, weeding, and harvesting. Newspaper sheet mulches in these situations rarely dry out and, when kept buried and moist, do break down quickly.
So – keep the sheets on the (vegetable garden) bed where they belong!
Friday’s puzzle scared you off! Matt was correct – this is an African violet (Saintpaulia spp.). But unlike other African violets, this one never opens its flower buds (Sandy nailed it!). Originally cultivated in Germany, these plants are marketed in the US by Optimara Violets. That’s all I can tell you about this quirky little cultivar.
I’m in Dallas for the next 4 days attending the GWA (Garden Writers Association) annual conference. (I get to give a talk on Horticultural CSI on Sunday!) Tonight we had a slew of vendors to explore, and among the offerings I found this plant:
So today’s question – what is this plant? And what makes it so unusual? The first question might be easy – the second one, not so much.
Answer and more info on Monday!