The Big, Bad Book of Botany Read online

  DEDICATION

  To Joe Largo.

  Thank you for your help and for being a son who makes a father proud.

  EPIGRAPH

  What is a weed?

  A plant whose virtues have never been discovered.

  —Ralph Waldo Emerson

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Introduction

  A

  B

  C

  D

  E

  F

  G

  H

  I

  J

  K

  L

  M

  N

  O

  P

  Q

  R

  S

  T

  U

  V

  W

  X Y Z

  Acknowledgments

  Sources

  About the Author

  Also by Michael Largo

  Back Ad

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  INTRODUCTION

  What is green and allows you to breathe? That life-sustaining lungful of air you just took had to come from somewhere. Without plants, and the oxygen they produce, there could be no animal life on earth. These were our planet’s pioneering organisms, who first learned the tricks of adaptation to survive on our once-sterile rock, and who turned it into the vibrant, blue-green home we know today. They are both our forerunners and our contemporaries in life—but what do we really know about plants?

  No one has cracked the encrypted language of plants. Insects chirp, bees buzz, animals growl, hiss, hum, and even transmit low-frequency sound waves. But plants, as far as we know, never say a thing. Fields of tall summer grasses waft without agency, moving whichever way the wind blows. Roots stay where their seeds originally sprouted. A rose makes no announcement when its bud opens in full-petal bloom. Pine trees in a forest stand like silent sentries. A bent coconut palm owes its haphazard arc to the ocean winds and sea mist; it is silent on the changes its species needed to learn in order to survive where it does. There are trees living today that are estimated to be eight thousand years old, and nearly microscopic phytoplankton that live and die within an hour—but neither will divulge their history or the secrets they contain unless we look. Without plants, we would simply not be here.

  Plants have no brains. We can be certain they have absolutely no way to perceive this world in any way remotely similar to our view. But is there another level of “consciousness” we have yet to understand? Plants do everything possible to survive and to reproduce toward the continuation of their species. This is no easy feat, particularly as disadvantaged as plants are to alter the environment in which they find themselves. The seemingly magical biochemistry these entirely stationary organisms acquired to survive and thrive is astonishing. Much has come from looking at the chemistry within; for example, we now understand how a plant produces oxygen via photosynthesis—an amazing process we would never be able to duplicate—and there are countless other techniques plants employ that even the smartest computer could not match.

  The primary goal of every living organism is individual survival and the preservation of its species. As more complex plants arose, new ways to procreate came into play. Plants had to find a way to attract “helpers” to transfer male pollen to a female ovary in order to make a “baby”—what botanically we call fruits, or seeds. The collection of means they devised to accomplish this all-important process was and still is diverse. What we admire as a flower is basically a billboard, grown with the sole purpose of saying “Hey, check me out” to bees, beetles, or birds. Some enticed with sweet nectar, others chose toxins and traps, yet all methods proved to be marvelously diverse and interesting.

  Most of what our earliest ancestors knew of plants has been forgotten. The first attempt to catalog plants is found in sacred Indian texts from 1100 B.C., known as the Avestan Writings. Aristotle’s student Theophrastus compiled a book, Historia Plantarum, sometime during the second and third century B.C. that included information on 500 different species. The most important book about plants was written by first-century A.D. Greek physician Pedanius Dioscorides, titled (when later translated into Latin) De Materia Medica, which remained the standard and most extensive book about plants for nearly sixteen centuries. These books treated botany more like herbalism, and were meant to reveal the best plants for medical purposes. There was no science, no medicine, no pharmacology for early peoples; the kinds of things we depend on from science were found in plants, and survival depended upon knowing the properties and secrets each species held.

  In this book, I try to combine the reference-like quality of these early texts and the most fascinating folklore of the past, with descriptions, life cycles, advice on cultivation, and the benefits these plants provide. But more important, I hope to capture the incredible diversity of plants and marvel at the vast plant kingdom’s many wonders. We need to look at the amazing greenness about us in a new way—with not only awe and respect, but also renewed curiosity. Likewise, we must protect the incredible flora we are fortunate to still have among us, lest our own actions cause them to disappear forever.

  ABSINTHE

  Artemisia absinthium

  Green Madness

  Along ancient dirt roads and on the hillsides of England, in most of Europe, the Middle East, and in fact all the way to the edge of Asia, a brilliantly green, pointed-leaf plant once grew in abundance. It flourished in bushy clusters, reaching about three feet in height with a thin, nonwoody stem. From early summer until the last days of autumn, its yellow, button-size flowers bloomed up and down its stalks like miniature strobe lights, creating an inviting, colorful landscape.

  Absinthe, commonly called wormwood, is a perennial plant. Like other perennials, absinthe loses its flowers, leaves, and stems each winter, withering to nothing. However, its sturdy, fibrous roots remain dormant in the soil, springing to life each year when the snow and cold weather cease. It grows rapidly, and because it relies on the simplest method of seed disbursement—allowing gravity to simply spread its seeds around the base of the parent plant—wormwood once dominated landscapes for miles. Due to its speedy germination and quick growth, it killed (often smothering with its shade) all other plants that attempted to occupy its ground.

  A common practice in early civilizations was to “field-test” every plant people found, including absinthe, in order to discover what use it might have in aiding survival. Absinthe, despite its vast availability, was thought to be rubbish, particularly after it was deemed inedible. Extremely bitter in both taste and odor, wormwood became such a widely recognized synonym for something nasty, unpleasant, and even poisonous that the Bible refers to it that way more than a dozen times. For example, in the book of Revelation: “A third of the waters became wormwood, and many people died from the water.”

  Still, despite its reputation, people did eventually find uses for absinthe. The ancient Greeks named the plant apsinthos, sometimes referring to it as “Artemisia” after the goddess of medicine, Artemis. They believed the plant could be used in an elixir to kill intestinal worms. In medieval times, doctors and alchemists recommended it as a last-ditch cure for tapeworms and other stomach aliments—although it was likely to poison the patient as well—a practice that would lead to the nickname wormwood. Looking to the plants around them almost as we would a vast supermarket or drugstore, early civilizations believed every plant was put on earth with a purpose, that often being to help humankind. Wormwood’s sap found use as a salve to repel fleas and ticks, and the ancient Egyptians even used it as an additive to certain wines as early as 1500 B.C.
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br />   Absinthe’s real heyday would eventually derive from our unceasing desire to find new intoxicants. Historians have even argued that human beings moved from a nomadic species to one that stayed put—ultimately creating cities and civilizations—primarily out of a desire to guard and nurture the plants that made wine and other inebriating tonics or ale. In the mid-1600s, after naturalist Nicholas Culpeper included a recipe for a drink made from wormwood in his book The English Physician, people began eyeing the plant anew. Culpeper described the end result as a bitter drink, although one that when sipped “with prudence” brought on a “stream-of-conscious . . . unlike anything else in the herbal world.” Subsequently, many tried to make the absinthe concoction in their cottage kitchens—though far from tripping pleasurably, most ended up fatally poisoning themselves.

  The true origin of the liquor absinthe—known also as the “Green Fairy” and all the rage for the latter half of the nineteenth century—is clouded in mystery. While a refined formula for the spirit (which primarily is made of sugar, fennel, anise, and leaves and flowers of the absinthe plant) appears in The Complete Body of Distilling (G. Smith, 1731), a pair of Swedish sisters is rumored to have perfected the recipe years before. The pair used it as a “medicine” before selling the formula to another doctor. Whatever the real story, a nonfatal recipe for a wormwood-based alcohol eventually landed in the hands of a professional distiller, Henri-Louis Pernod, who would go on to establish the first commercial absinthe distillery in 1798. The finished product, called “Pernod Fils,” was a leprechaun-green liquor at a super-potent proof of 136 (for comparison, a bottle of beer might be 8 to 12 proof, a measuring of its ratio of water and other ingredients to its alcohol content). Pernod’s drink also contained thujone, a chemical found in some species of the plant and eventually discovered to be the source of absinthe’s infamous hallucinogenic qualities.

  Surprisingly, it was the strength of the alcohol and mixture of other herbs—rather than the trace amounts of thujone—that transformed this once-bitter plant into the rapidly soothing and ultimately very popular drink it became. By 1900, 36 million liters of absinthe were sold annually in France alone, the high sales continuing until it was outlawed in 1915. The drink, if taken in excess, can cause blindness, cramps, nerve damage, and mental disturbances. Absinthe was actually the main catalyst behind the American temperance movement, which brought about the Volstead Act, otherwise known as Prohibition, banning the production and sale of alcohol in the United States.

  * * *

  Wormwood belongs to a large genus of plants, along with nearly 400 different species cataloged in the daisy family of Asteraceae. The first variety of this plant appeared on earth approximately forty million years ago.

  * * *

  * * *

  Inspiringly Mad

  Many artists and bohemians, like Van Gogh, Monet, Picasso, and Hemingway, sang absinthe’s praises as a potent aphrodisiac. Van Gogh was known for chug-a-lugging the liquor straight from the bottle, a habit that eventually turned his teeth emerald green—not a good look with his trademark red beard. Incidentally, Van Gogh painted one of the most famous paintings in the world after a run on absinthe. He created Starry Night while locked up in an asylum at Saint-Rémy in 1889, forcibly detoxing from the “Green Fairy.”

  An 1879 issue of Harper’s Weekly reported: “Many deaths are directly traceable to the excessive use of absinthe”; it also declared the drink “a quick coach to the madhouse.”

  * * *

  AGAVE

  Agave tequilana

  The Tequila Weed

  This succulent, bluish green plant with long, swollen, spiky leaves was once in such high demand it caused wars and invasions, even as far back as ten thousand years ago. Wandering tribes of the semi-arid regions of Mexico, the Mesoamerican highlands, and parts of South America saw animals eating agave and using the plant’s naturally sweet leaves to sustain themselves. Prehistoric tribes used all parts of the plant, for everything from clothing and shelter to food and drink. Historians believe this multifaceted plant was instrumental in the rise of both the Mayan and the Aztec civilizations. The Florentine Codex of 1580, a Spanish catalog of the region’s assets, cited the agave plant as an essential food and fiber for the Aztecs and other natives of the region. Fossil remains of human feces from that period and earlier confirm that agave was an important dietary staple, enabling survival in an often inhospitable land.

  Mexico is a unique mosaic of varying terrains, including deserts, rain forests, coastal areas, and mountains. In the botanical sense, Mesoamerica is frequently noted as an important “center of origin and biodiversity” for many species of flora. Blue agave, Weber’s blue agave, and tequila weed are some of the common names given to one of the plants in the Agavaceae family, the plant known scientifically as Agave tequilana. There are as many as 200 types of agave plants, but all are succulents, meaning they’ve adapted a way to store moisture in their leaves and survive prolonged droughts and climatic shifts. The blue agave favors higher altitudes, flourishing at 5,000 feet above sea level. The tequila agave’s leaves can grow as thick as a human thigh at its base and become as long as a man is tall, ending in a sharp point at the tip. It has a turnip-like root, or heart, called a piña, which can weigh hundreds of pounds on its own. Having run through the last of their supply of brandy, the sixteenth-century explorers known as the Spanish Conquistadors soon discovered more than just gold on arriving in the Americas; they found, after heating the agave’s bulbous root, that the syrupy sap could be fermented and distilled, making a uniquely potent alcoholic drink.

  One Flower Before Death

  The tequila agave is able to ensure its pollination through a unique relationship it has developed with a particular mammal. Some species live anywhere from ten to one hundred years, with the plant producing just a single flower in its lifetime; decades of storing sugars, waters, and nutrients are geared toward this goal. If pollinated, one flower will produce thousands of seeds. The flower rises on a stalk as tall and straight as a flagpole, reaching a height of 20 feet or more. After it blooms, the mother plant dies. In addition to its all-or-nothing style of blossoming, the tequila agave must attract a particular long-nose species of bat (Leptonycteris curasoae) to its nectar to achieve pollination. A migratory species, curasoae eats primarily nectar from the agaves, cacti, and certain rain forest flowering species. The agave opens up its petals in the darkest of night in an attempt to offer an inviting nest. When the bat rests among the petals its fur gathers the pollen. The mammal will then disperse it to another agave. If the plant happens to bloom while no bats are passing through its area, it will not propagate, and its one bloom will be for naught.

  * * *

  A Worm in the Story

  Devotees of tequila remain in disagreement concerning the true origin of the drink (even if the Aztecs made a brew similar to it, called ogli, a thousand years before). Nevertheless, legend has it that the first full-scale production of this type of “mescal wine” began in 1608 near the town of Jalisco, Mexico. Don Pedro Sanchez, a shrewd Spanish aristocrat dubbed “the Father of Tequila,” took advantage of the king of Spain’s ban on the production of wine in Mexico (revenue from Spanish wine exports had dwindled), planting thousands of acres of tequila agave and declaring it a liquor rather than a wine. Though the don was thrown in jail for breaking the king’s law, he was released only two years later, and the Don Pedro brand of tequila (although likely not the original formula) exists to this day. Beginning in 1950, several commercial distilleries began placing actual worms in their tequila bottles—a famous marketing ploy. The worm is a butterfly larva, and while they do bore into certain agave roots, today commercial distilleries add them on purpose to give the spirit a home-brewed, natural character. Eating it doesn’t prevent hangovers, as some believe, but it does provide a wee bit of protein.

  * * *

  * * *

  In science, a species that has only a single reproductive event employs a breeding strategy c
alled semelparity. Its entire life, its years of storing nutrients, is geared to fulfilling this singular and ultimate act. The Pacific salmon is another species that practices reproductive semelparity; the fish forges upstream against all odds, knowing that death is the outcome, but does so to ensure the future of its species. As for the agave, its one brilliant flower comprises many short, tubular blossoms—an ultimate celebration of its life and funeral wreath as well.

  * * *

  ALFALFA

  Medicago sativa

  A Match Made in Nature

  Alfalfa is not a grass, as it might appear to be, but is actually a member of the pea family. Like other peas, its seeds are actually protein-filled legumes. Many believed the plant originated in Iran—when the region was a temperate “Garden of Eden”—and for centuries farmers cultivated the plant, which could grow nearly anywhere, to maximize grazing pastures, giving their livestock the most nutritional value per acreage.

  Alfalfa’s resilience lies in the chemistry of its roots. Plants of this family, and many others, need nitrogen found in soil to grow. For most plants, if a seed happens to germinate in nitrogen-depleted terrain, its chances of survival dwindle, and it will likely achieve lackluster growth and fail to proliferate. Alfalfa, however, enjoys a special relation with a bacterium that lives in its root nodules and provides in return the extra nitrogen the plant needs to thrive. The root hairs of the alfalfa secrete certain chemicals, predominantly known as flavonoids, which create an inviting chemical concoction that attracts the bacteria. Alfalfa and many other legumes depend on this bacteria (Sinorhizobium meliloti), which is cited as nature’s minuscule nitrogen “fixer,” in order to survive in otherwise inhospitable soil. Alfalfa counts on meliloti to turn the depleted soil that surrounds the plant’s roots into a home-brewed fertilizer of sorts.