Botany 101, Yarrow, & Brad Pitt
JULY: Botany 101 ............... A Gardener’s Notebook............ by Kathe Worrell
Put your science cap on for a minute. Plants were important to physicians as remedies for thousands of years & because each plant was considered a drug with a unique ingredient & dosage, these early practicing botanists needed names to be specific & consistent. Though Linnaeus is credited with creating the present bi-nomial system in 1750, it was actually in 78 A.D. that Dioscorides, a Greek physician, that first came up with the first written & illustrated list of plants from the eastern Mediterranean. This list was so extensive, it was used exclusively by physicians for the next 1500 years.
Enter Carolus Linnaeus who realized the danger of describing a plant by its common name when that name could be applied to several different plants in each area. His system introduced the idea of a bi-nomial (bi=2 & nomial=name of) scientific name for each plant. Two words to state the generic or GENUS name, then a descriptive or specific word = SPECIES or some general characteristic, both in italics (does this mean in Italian?). In technical articles, a third word is added (not in italics) as an abbreviation of the name of the describer or plant hunter OR use apostrophes to encase a ‘cultivar’ or ‘series’. Are we confused yet? Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
For JULY I thought it might be fun to learn a few basic Latin words. You will be surprised how much you already know. Many English words have a Latin base. For instance, bi=2 & tri=3. “Folia” anywhere in a name is talking about leaves or “foliage”. See? Easy peezy. When you see the term “microfolia” , of course you recognize the meaning to be “small foliage”. “Micro”, however, comes originally from the Greek “mikros” or small. Technically, you will be happy to learn that not all scientific botanical names are from the Latin. Some older species are actually Greek based. Which brings me to this month’s FOCUS PLANT:
Achillea - The genus was named after the Greek mythological character Achilles (the hunky warrior played by Brad Pitt in the movie “Troy”). According to legend, Achilles' soldiers used yarrow to treat their wounds, hence some of its common names such as allheal and soldier’s bloodwort. It is said that Alexander the Great always carried this plant on his campaigns because they held pain relieving properties & the leaves could stem the flow of blood. Consequently, Yarrow was originally called “herbal militaris”. Also known as “Nosebleed Plant”.
The binomial name today is Achillea millefolium. Anyone care to guess what “millefolium” could mean? Hmmmmm.. sounds like “million”. At first I thought it referred to the quantity of tiny flowers, but it could also mean the million of cuts in the feathery leaves. What do you think? North American natives called this plant the feathered leaf.
Yarrow and its North American varieties, was used in traditional Native American herbal medicine by tribes across the continent. The Navajo, Miwok (in California), Pawnee, Chippewa, Cherokee, & Zuni peoples all used yarrow mostly for pain remedies. The blossoms and root are chewed, and the juice applied before fire-walking or fire-eating. A poultice of the pulverized plant is mixed with water and applied to burns. Recently it was reported that treatment with Achillea millefolium may attenuate disease severity, inflammatory responses, and demyelinating lesions in a mouse model of Multiple Sclerosis.
Do not try any of these remedies, for safety sake, & especially NOT before any fire-walking or particularly any fire-EATING. Most unsafe.
My Achillea is blooming throughout the month of June & provides an attractive helicopter pad for butterflies & dragonflies. (Why do dragons sleep during the day? So they can fight knights.) While the common variety is a golden yellow, mine is an hombre of pinks intensifying or fading each day. Pure delight. Left alone, their desiccated heads continue to sway through the fall & can be harvested as a dried component for arrangements & wreaths.
Many gardeners populate their flower beds with nostalgic plant names for some life event or time. I like to pick plants with names that remind me of places to which I have traveled. I fondly remember a daffodil ‘Avalon’ (NJ beach), a Longifolium Asiatic lily ‘Algarve’ (trip to Portugal), Long Island daisy, Hillside pink Sheffield (England) mum, Centaura montana & a yew ‘Duke Gardens’. My latest passion is my new ALPINE rock garden bed. Can you guess the destination of our next trip (the Alps?) ? A Swiss Christmas! Sweet!
