Arisarum proboscideum – Mouse Tail Arum

Another springtime favorite plant here at Travelmarx headquarters is the Arisarum proboscideum (mouse plant or mouse tail plant). It grows in a well-lit but no sun location on the north side of the house and is increasing each year. The flowers can go unnoticed because they are under the leaves, so you need to stop and get down on the ground to appreciate the them (how the photo above was obtained). Best of all is that there is an Italian connection because this plant is native to Italy!

A. proboscideum is a member of the Araceae (or Arum) family. This family contains members that you often see as houseplants: philodendron, peace lily (spathiphyllum), and anthurium among others. What descriptive information can we extract from the scientific names (binomial nomenclature) for the mouse tail arum? The genus name Arisarum was a name given by the Greek botanist Dioscorides (ca. 40-90) to this plant – not much more to go on. The species name proboscideum comes from the Greek proboskis “elephant’s trunk” referring to the long curved tip of the inflorescence.

Update: 2012-04-28. For more on this plant see Soholm Pottery and Arisarum proboscideum.

1,000 Miles to Work

Sometime last week I passed 1,000 miles to work. What this means is that I biked 1,000 miles as part of my commute. (I bike for part of it and bus the rest – previous post.) 1,000 miles divided by approximately 8.5 months is about 115 miles per month. I’m feeling green.

Azara microphylla – Boxleaf Azara

One of our favorite scents of spring comes from our Azara microphylla (common name: Boxleaf Azara) tree. The genus Azara is genus of flowering plants in the Salicaceae (willow) family and A. microphylla is native to Chile. This year our Azara is about a month later than its usual February / March bloom. It's in bloom now and the yard is filled with the smell of vanilla, as some have described it. Here at Travelmarx we prefer to describe its scent as crème brûlée with a hint of chocolate. 

The Boxleaf Azrar smell is intoxicating and it lasts for several weeks. The flowers are hermaphrodites but we’ve never observed fruit so it must not be getting pollinated? Besides the flower scent, a plus for us is that the tree is evergreen with small dark green leaves. It has a wispy look to it that responds well to pruning. We never water it and it seems fine perhaps because it is established (6-7 years old). 

The only downside of the Boxleaf Azara is that it sheds some of its leaves in early winter and they fall to the ground and turn black. They don’t seem to decompose easily so you may need to do some clean up to keep areas clean underneath it.

Update: April 2011

This year the tree again is fragrant in April. Maybe this is its bloom time and the February / March bloom observation was the outlier. The tree seems to be looking thinner and scraggly. The scent though is just as intoxicating. We are adding a couple of more photos.

Azara Leaves and Blooms

The Azara Looking a Bit Thin at the End of Winter

Theo Chocolate Academy

Theo Chocolate located in the center of the universe is sponsoring a Chocolate Academy (pdf) where you can earn a degree in “chocolatology”. We missed the CHOC 101: The Real Thing class (the first) and picked up with the series with CHOC 102: Sinful and good for you?. Andy McShea, Theo’s CEO and head scientist was presenting. We focused on what is known and not known about the antioxidants in cacao from plant to finished product (chocolate bar) and the role of antioxidants in health and aging. In particular, we focused on epicatechin – a polyphenolic antioxidant found in plants – which is the primary antioxidant in chocolate. Everyone usually talks about theobromine as the interesting chemical in chocolate, but the catechins are where it’s at. Take away from the lesson: chocolate has a fair amount of epicatechin in it and hence antioxidant potential. There have been studies to understand how chocolate’s antioxidant properties affect health. The studies are encouraging, showing some benefit, but there are too few studies and not enough participants to really draw any definitive conclusion. For now, enjoy (dark – more epicatechin) in moderation as part of a balanced diet.

After the presentation we tasted some pre-conched and post-conched Theo chocolate as well as some special chocolate blends that were prepared for the class. In the interest of fairness some Hershey’s Special Dark and Dove were provided for comparison. The Hershey’s bar is something like 45% cacao - essentially a milk chocolate. But why does it look so dark? Because the alkali process (“dutching”) of the chocolate darkens while destroying antioxidants. Also, look at a Hershey’s label. The first ingredient is sugar by weight. Why eat a chocolate bar that has more sugar than chocolate? Finally, the Dove chocolate we sampled tasted like chocolate pudding – again, an artifact of the alkali processing. I can’t say we won’t ever eat Hershey’s or Dove products again but we’ll think twice about supporting products whose are over-processed and have ingredients not easily recognized like PGPR or TBHQ. Luckily there are very good chocolate options today, especially artisanal chocolate, that use basic, identifiable raw ingredients and care in the processing.

The Chocolate Academy is organized into four series. The classes so far (first series) are held at the “theonista” show room which used to be the old Trolleyman Pub of Redhook brewery before it moved out of Fremont. Not that the Trolleyman Pub wasn’t a treasure in a sense, just that we’ve been to Theo more than the Trolleyman – which probably tells you nothing more than we like chocolate more than beer. The presentation we attended was informally projected on a wall with some fold out chairs and miscellaneous comfy furniture to sit on. We are looking forward to this week’s class CHOC 103: Chocolate for Nerds.

Arabidopsis Thaliana – Mouse-ear cress

 

The story of bitter cress continues with Arabidopsis thaliana – (thale cress, mouse-ear cress) – a plant in the mustard - Brassicaceae - family. This plant’s small size, the small size of its genome, and the relatively short time from germination to mature seed facilitate plant genetic studies. It is called a model organism and it is the drosophila of the plant world. Arabidopsis is the first plant to have it genome sequenced. In fact you can look it up at the Arabidopsis Information Resource site. This plant must be pretty special since it has its own web site. The site is definitely not for the layperson, but there is a nice history page about Arabidopsis there. 

In my Plant ID class we keyed out the plant in Hitchcock and Cronquist (with a little help from the instructor). Though non-native, Arabidopsis appears in H&C on page 152. We went off track trying to identify if the seeds were biseriate (in two rows) or uniseriate (page 147). We initially chose biseriate and were wrong. 

 

The genus and species name? From the calflora.net site:

• Arabidop'sis: from the Greek for "resembling Arabis" (ref. genus Arabidopsis)
• Ar'abis: a Greek word used for "mustard" or "cress," and the Greek word for Arabia, perhaps referring to the ability of these plants to grow in rocky or sandy soils (?) (ref. genus Arabis)
• thalia'na: after Johannes Thal (1542-1583), who discovered this species in the Harz Mountains and originally called it Pilosella siliquosa. Its current name was finally settled on in his honor in 1842 (ref. Arabidopsis thaliana)

Bittercress

Bittercress plants are in the mustard family, Brassicaceae. The family name derives from the Latin name for cabbage. (The older name of the family was Crucifereae meaning cross-bearing and referring to the form of the four flower petals typical to this family.) There are two bittercresses which look very similar to my eye: Cardamine hirsuta and Cardamine oligosperma. The genus name Cardamine is derived from the Greek “kardamon” for a kind of cress or referring to a Persian or Indian herb with pungent leaves. Hirsuta refers to the hairs that grow along the stem and oligosperma refers to the fact that this species produces few speeds (Greek “oligos” for few and “sperma”for seeds). Oligosperma is native to the Northwest and has the common name of little western bittercress. Hirsuta is native to Europe and has the common name hairy bittercress; it is considered the more weedy of the two and is the one which grows freely (mostly in spring) in the yard. I guess you can eat the leaves but collecting them would be a chore.