The Poppy and its family (Part 1)

Papaver rhoeas in bean field – Lodge Lane, Kingswinford (picture by Mike Poulton)

This week I’d like to talk about the Common Poppy or Papaver rhoeas, which is a symbol in Britain for the millions of casualties in the First World War and since.

It belongs to the  Papaveraceae or Poppy family which is number 34 in Stace.

This weekend we will have Remembrance Sunday here  which is always the nearest Sunday to Armistice * Day (on 11-11). This was signed at 5 am on the 11th November, 1918 to be precise but all the fighting ceased at 11 am, so exactly 100 years ago!

*Armistice means: a Ceasefire or suspension of hostilities or also an agreement made by opposing sites to stop fighting for a certain time or a truce.

Papaver, also ‘pappa’, is the Latin word for food or milk and ‘rhoeas’ means red in Greek.

Contents:

Papaver cambricum or Welsh Poppy
Papaver spp.

* Edible uses:   * Medicinal uses: * Other uses:

Papaver somniferum or Opium Poppy
Continue reading “The Poppy and its family (Part 1)”

The Deadnettle family or Lamiaceae: part 3

This week we continue with the last 3 genera in the Deadnettle family or Lamiaceae and its Subfamily 4: Nepetoideae which are the following:

Mentha aquatica or Water Mint
  • Nepeta cataria or Cat-mint
  • Glechoma hederacea or Ground-ivy
  • Prunella spp or Selfheals
  • Clinopodium spp. or Calamints
  • Origanum vulgare or Wild Marjoram
  • Thymus spp or Thymes
  • Lycopus europaeus or Gypsywort
  • Mentha or the Mints
  • Salvia or Sage

The first 6 genera and species were discussed in part 2 of the Lamiaceae.

And also see part 1 here

The following will be highlighted this week:

  • Lycopus europaeus or Gypsywort.
  • Mentha or Mints.
  • From this large genus, Salvia or Sage, only 2 are native: S. pratensis or Meadow Clary and S. verbenaca or Wild Clary.

Most information is copied from the Medicinal Flora, Wikipedia and other fabulous websites and links are provided on the various plants covered as well as on difficult scientific or medical terms.

Blue background for intersting facts, green background for various uses and pink for medicinal uses.

Continue reading “The Deadnettle family or Lamiaceae: part 3”

The Deadnettle family or Lamiaceae : part 2

Last week was part 1 of the Lamiaceae or Deadnettle family.

Pretty Ground Ivy or Glechoma hederacea in Subfamily Nepetoideae

This week I cover genus 12-22 from Stace, split into two subfamilies, which does make sense if you look at the arrangements of the flowers:

SUBFAMILY 3: AJUGOIDEAE (Genus 12-13)

  • 12) Teucrium or Germanders with 4 species
  • 13) Ajuga or Bugles with 3 species.

SUBFAMILY 4: NEPETOIDEAE (Genus 14-27) (Some genera are missing as these are non natives)

  • 14) Nepeta cataria or Catmint (archaeophyte)
  • 15) Glechoma hederacea or Ground-ivy
  • 16) Prunella or Selfheals with 1 possibly 2 native
  • 19) Clinopodium or Calamints
  • 21) Origanum vulgare or Wild Marjoram
  • 22) Thymus or Thymes

The following plants are covered in part 3

  • 23) Lycopus europaeus or Gypsywort
  • 24) Mentha or Mints. This is a difficult taxa for classification due to widespread hybridisation . But according to Stace; ‘with practice the scent of fresh plants is very helpful, but difficult to describe!’ Many are native but many will be introduced as escaped garden plants of course.
  • 27) From this large genus, Salvia or Sage, only 2 are native: S. pratensis or Meadow Clary and S. verbenaca or Wild Clary.

On the next page you can find the medicinal and other uses of these handsome weeds! Pictures by Matt Summers and very much grateful for all other + Wikipedia picture providers!! Blue background for general interest. Pink for medicinal uses. Most medicinal uses were found in Medicinal Flora. Green background for other uses and wildlife benefit. These were found mostly in PFAF and Wikipedia.

Continue reading “The Deadnettle family or Lamiaceae : part 2”

The Deadnettle family or Lamiaceae part 1

This family of the Lamiacea or the Deadnettle family (family 128 in Stace) is one of my favourites for the flowers and herbs it gives us. The insects and in particular the bees also love it for the nectar the flower provides.

Betony on the Cornish coast attracting Hummingbird moth!

It is a large family in the B.I. with 27 genera. To identify to genus level, Stace has split them into 8 groups. Not all genera are native but may be garden escapes.  As it too large for one week I will spread this family into 3 separate blogs and weeks.

To make life even easier for identifying the plants the taxonomists also have sub divided this large family world-wide into 4 Subfamilies, where again the genera in those groups have similar characters.

This is the whole idea about classification to make sense to all that variety out there!

To summarize, I will place only the native as well as Archyophytes into those, so numbers missing genera below are either not native or have no connection with us people, which is the whole idea of this virtual ethnobotanic blog. On the next page you can find the uses for all the members of the first 2 Subfamilies:

Blue background for general interest. Green background for general uses and wildlife. Pink background for medicinal uses. Pictures by Matt Summers unless otherwise stated.

Continue reading “The Deadnettle family or Lamiaceae part 1”

The Willow family or Salicaceae and their uses. Part 1: The Willows or Salix spp.

The Salicaceae or Willow family is now a much larger family.

It just used to include the willows, poplar, aspen, and cottonwoods.

Pollarded Willows (Salix alba) in a very Dutch Landscape (MS)

Genetic studies summarized by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (APG) have greatly expanded the circumscription of the family to contain 56 genera and about 1220 species, including the Scyphostegiaceae and many of the former Flacourtiaceae.

BUT; fortunately for us, in the British Isles it  has only two main genera, namely the Poplar and the Willow. Although the flowers (as always in traditional classification) determine the ultimate genus and whether it is a Willow or Poplar, most of us can easily tell the difference from the leaves. All the Poplars have a triangular, broad oval, to heart-shape outline with often a long leaf stem (petiole) whilst most of the Willows have long, narrow leaves or roundish, much smaller leaves than Poplars.

When there are no leaves in winter the tree could be identified by the winter buds, where Willows just have one outer scale and the Poplar has several. However as there is much to say about the Willow, I will leave the Poplar for another blog in the future!

Pictures by Matt Summers (MS) and Mike Poulton unless stated. The links provided on the scientific and common plant names provide more detailed information as well as good pictures on each species. Also special thanks to PFAF which provides a wonderful plant database of not just native plants but any useful plants all over the world.

This time I will include all the records of the entries of the ‘Online Atlas of the British and Irish Flora’ (BRC) or National Biodiversity Network link (NBN) next to the scientific and common names.

Continue reading “The Willow family or Salicaceae and their uses. Part 1: The Willows or Salix spp.”

The very useful Nettle family or Urticaceae.

The nettle is a most useful plant for many different purposes. The Nettles are part of the Nettle family (Urticaceae) and has some other native genera as well, which you will find out below.

The Common Stinging Nettle early in the year (Picture by Matt Summers)

This time of the year the nettle is just emerging again from its wintersleep!

It is family number 54 in Stace and besides the genus Urtica, which has 2 native species, it also has 2 other genera + species occurring in the B.I. namely the useful Parietaria judaica (Pellitory-of-the-wall) and an ornamental, low creeping plant with very small leaves, sometimes seen as a houseplant, called Soleirolia soleirolii with the very funny common name: ‘Mind-your-own-business’.

I have seen this plant much more frequently in the last few years in Walsall gardens too and many gardeners find this a menace!

“ The 3 genera appear very different vegetatively, but are characterised by their inconspicuous, unisexual flowers with 4 perianth segments, 4 stamens, 1-celled superior ovary with 1 ovule, 1 style and densely branched stigma”. The Common Nettle (Urtica dioica) is very variable, especially in leaf shape and hairiness, stingless, subglabrus and monoecious variants are known.” (Stace)

The other native nettle is not as well-known and is the annual Small Nettle (Urtica urens). Apparently this is an archaeophyte and often occurs in cultivated and waste ground. As with many leafy plants, they are often an indicator of good soil.

I use colour coding for easy reading! Blue background is general interesting info (although I hope you find it all interesting!!). Green is about all the uses except for medicinal uses or if there is a warning in which case I use a pink background

Continue reading “The very useful Nettle family or Urticaceae.”

Toadflax or Linaria vulgaris

I would like to talk about a very attractive plant today called the Common Toadflax or Linaria vulgaris. At the moment (end of August) it is flowering in profusion all along the motorways and other big roads. 

The Toadflax or Linaria vulgaris is a common enough, but very handsome plant with several uses!

The plant is widespread also on ruderal spots, in dunes, and on disturbed and cultivated land.

It used to be in the Scrophulariaceae family and you may well still be finding this in most floras, but this family has been split into five families. More about this later.

In the Netherlands we call this ‘Lion’s Mouth’, which I think is a nicer name for this pretty yellow wild flower! However when I looked in Mrs Grieve’s book, ‘A Modern Herbal’ (page 815)  I noticed it is also one of the many other names for Toadflax.

I found the following 16 names: Fluellin, Pattens and Clogs, Flaxweed, Ramated, Snapdragon, Churnstuff, Dragon-bushes, Brideweed, Toad, Yellow Rod, Larkspur Lion’s Mouth, Devils’ Doggies, Calves’ Snout, Eggs and Bacon, Buttered Haycocks and last but not least; Monkey Flower.

The name Toadflax originated in the resemblance of the flower to little toads, there being also a resemblance between the mouth of the flower and the wide mouth of the toad. The general resemblance of the plant in early summer to a flax plant, accounts for the latter part of its name.

I use colour coding for easy reading! Blue background is general interesting info (although I hope you find it all interesting!!). Green is about all the uses except for medicinal uses or if there is a warning in which case I use a pink background. Pictures by Matt Summers unless stated.

Continue reading “Toadflax or Linaria vulgaris”

The Blackberry: a most useful weed!

Blackberry, Bramble or Rubus aggr.

Some healthy and juicy blackberries on my former allotment!

The genus Rubus is part of the Rose family which is family number 48 in Stace. See for more about the woody Rosaceae in my post here.

The Brambles, which is one of the common names of Rubus has several native species but the one we know best is called the Blackberry (the useful, edible one) or Bramble (the nasty, spiny one).

I use colour coding for easy reading! Blue background is general interesting info (although I hope you find it all interesting!!). Green is about all the uses except for medicinal uses or if there is a warning in which case I use a pink background. Pictures by Matt Summers unless stated.

Continue reading “The Blackberry: a most useful weed!”

The Horsetails: weeds or useful plants!

The main horsetail I’ll be writing about today is Equisetum arvense or the Field Horsetail otherwise known as Shavegrass, Bottlebrush and Pewterwort!

This plant often gets a lot of critiscism.

Especially if it grows in your own garden or on the allotment!

So I decided I must research the horsetail and write this post!

I read a nice chapter in one of my older books and start off with this and then list all its virtues on the next page.

The green sterile stems of the horsetail (courtesy of MPF Wikipedia)

Contents:

Equisetaceae or Horsetail Family

Extraordinary (extract from ‘Grandmother’s Secrets; her green guide to health from plants’  by Jean Palaiseul)

Equisetum arvense or Field Horsetail

E. hyemale or Rough Horsetail

Uses as from Wikipedia:

  • Domestic
  • Music
  • Medicinal
  • In cultivation
  • E. palustre or Marsh Horsetail
  • E. pratense or Shady Horsetail
  • E. ramosissimum or Branched Horsetail

E. sylvaticum or  Wood Horsetail

  • E. telmateia or Great Horsetail
  • E. variegatum or Variegated Horsetail
  • E. × ⁠trachyodon (E. hyemale × variegatum) or Mackay’s Horsetail
Continue reading “The Horsetails: weeds or useful plants!”

 Scientific Classification of our Native plants

In my blogs, you may have noticed that I write about native plants and mostly refer to their scientific or latin names as well as the family in which they fit.

The reason is that I do not wish to make it just another piece concerning the uses of native plants, but one where I would like to place them into a Binomial nomenclature, a system which is essential for the idea of order in my ‘virtual ethnobotanical garden’!

Continue reading ” Scientific Classification of our Native plants”