Horns...Dolichos bicontorta?

I am not 100% sure this is THE "Horns" offered for sale in early flower seed list from 1726...but it sure deserves to be!  What a bizarre symmetrical pod arrangement this is!  Very nice...add a blob of wool under the horns and you have a ram puppet that would keep the kiddies amused and happily running around like a little crazy flock of sheep for the rest of the day.  Definitely worth growing in the days before TV and books for all.

A seed list that identifies Dolichos bicontorta as the plant calls it Ram's Horns.  This book is from 1778, Beauties of Flora, by Swindon.  I can't find it online so far :-(
See review of Beauties of Flora just below this quoting of Swindon's book by Loudon in his 1824  An encyclopedia of gardening: comprising the theory and practice of horticulture, floriculture, arboriculture, and landscape-gardening, including all the latest improvements. a general history of gardening in all countries, and a statistical view of its present state, with suggestions for its future progress in the British Isles.
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 By the way, check out his use of our other oddball plants from previous posts!
 I see another weird one to look up.

 Sowing hardy Annual Flowers

Any time this month (March) , that the ground is in good condition, you may sow in the borders and other flower compartments, a variety of hardy annuals, such as large and dwarf annual sunflowers, sweet pea of every kind, larkspur, flos-adonis, persicaria, Tangier peas,  Nigilla, Venus's looking-glass, Venus's navelwort, double dwarf poppy, Label's catchfly, dwarf-lychnis, snails, horns, hedgehogs, caterpillars, mignonette, china-aster, horse-shoes, belvidere, candytuft, honey-wort, convolvulus-minor, cyanus, china-hollyhock, lavatera, curled mallow, winged pea, china pink, ten weeks stock, and many other sorts, (see list of annuals) which will flower better if sown early, than if delayed to a late period; though every of the above will succeed very well if sown in the beginning of next month.   From The American Gardener's Calendar, 1806,  By Bernard M'Mahon

Another of my favorite, more normal, Dolichos is the Dolichis lablab.  I first saw it growing all over a picket fence on Statin Island.  It was lovely and lush.  Then I found out it could survive and thrive in a school...which isn't easy.  The flowers are nice and the purple pods are colorful and cheery.  It is sort of poisonous, so an elementary school maybe isn't quite the place to grow it, BUT it isn't that poisonous.  It would be nice in an office!

An encyclopedia of gardening: comprising the theory and practice of horticulture, floriculture, arboriculture, and landscape-gardening, including all the latest improvements. a general history of gardening in all countries, and a statistical view of its present state, with suggestions for its future progress in the British Isles - John Claudius Loudon, 1824

Dolichos bicontorta  http://www.botanicus.org/page/1436892     Ram's Horn plate

Hedgehog Plant

Another pair of plants sold for their amusement value is Horns and Hedgehogs!  (See this older post.)

This post is about the plant I decided might have been the Hedgehog. 

The Hedgehog Medick, Medicago intertexta, is it as far as I am concerned. 

I based my choice on the fact the common name of this plant includes the word Hedgehog and it is very cool looking! A child would love it.  

I also found this in a book from 1855, "M. mactilata (Spotted Medick)....
The Rev. C. A. Johns says that this plant, which is in Cornwall called spotted clover, is there considered very injurious to the pasturage. The coiled and prickly seed vessel is very curious, and many of the Medicks have seed vessels still more so.
The Snail-shell Medick of the South of Europe,  (Medicago scutellata),  has a large seed vessel formed of numerous coils; and the still more singular legume of the Hedgehog Medick, (Medicago intertexta),  has led to the frequent culture of this plant in our gardens. "                      From:  The flowering plants and ferns of Great Britain, Volume 2, By Anne Pratt

Above photo by Franz Neidl 

 By the way, it is a nitrogen fixing plant.
Links:

• A very nice plant database including Medicago intertexta , 
• Linnean Herbarium, Department of Phanerogamic Botany, Swedish Museum of Natural History - Nice specimen and handwritten description 
• Kew Herbarium  

This is one of the the Linnean herbarium images. 

Fun With Fake Worms

 Astragalus hamosus...the jokester's "worm" to drop in your salad!

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The seeds are rectangular!

 

Hooker looks like a cool guy. He isn't really connected much with "worms" but his book had them illustrated and he is worth knowing.

The clincher that this is the plant called "Worms" is the last paragraph below :-)

Above: The Field and Garden Vegetables of America ... with Directions for Propagation, Culture and Use ... Illustrated , Fearing Burr

This is a plate from Hooker's botany book.

Links:

• A very nice book from 1837 by Hooker - Botanical Illustrations ... designed to explain the terms employed in a course of lectures on botany, etc.
• Books available for you to read (PDF) by Hooker
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Hooker_(botanist)
• Hooker edited Curtis's Botanical Magazine
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis%27s_Botanical_Magazine
• A wonderful plant database to explore is this Portuguese site!

eek!! Scorpiurus vermiculatis!

Boys have been having fun for hundreds of years trying to scare the girls with these fake caterpillars.

Who could resist?  This is a fantastic seed capsule!!




From all the photos I have looked at of the different species I see that the trick is to get the pod at just the right time...which seems to be  before it is mature.

The above herbarium specimen fromhttp://linnean-online.org/8698/

Nice link: http://azalas.de/blog/?page_id=825

Article to the right: The Vegetable Garden: Illustrations, Descriptions, and Culture of the Garden Vegetables of Cold and Temperate Climates,  J. Murray, 1885

Gardening for Fun In these days, when so great effort is being expended to to do away with worms and their kind, it seems strange that anyone should grow plants for the sole reason that their pods resemble worms and snails; yet such plants are grown, and the resemblance is great, as the accompanying engraving will testify. This is not an attractive dish, I fancy, to most of us, but I grew its contents in imitation of French gardeners. These plants are grown for no other reason than that they are curious, and for the inimitable pleasure of dropping them into your wife's soup, or laying them beside her plate at dinner time! At least, these are the only uses yet recorded for them. But they are interesting plants,nevertheless. They set a-going a whole series of speculations as to how and why these pods ever came to imitate crawling things so closely. It would be interesting to know if birds mistake them for worms, and thereby scatter the seeds, or if the quirls and wrinkles are only so many means of catching hold of passing animals. These plants are of several kinds, all belonging to the pea family. Three kinds are shown in the accompanying cupful. The round, snail-like specimens are Medicago  scutellata, and they are technically known as Snails. The larger and fatter worms are Scorpiurus vermiculutus, and the small, slender ones, which have crawled to the top of the cup, are Scorpiurus subvillosus: these two are appropriately called Caterpillars or Worms.— Liberty Hyde Bailey,   from American Gardening, 1892 Above: from Dobies of Devon "Scorpiurus muricatus Seeds - Curly Whirly" This great photo below is from http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorpiurus_muricatus

Scorpiurus muricatus is Scorpiurus  subvillosus.  

I found Smart Seeds on Etsy sells these seeds for around $3.00.  A highly color edited photo there makes them neon purple!

Nice link: http://azalas.de/herbar/Fabaceae.htm  Great Medicago photos....

Medicago orbicularis, perhaps?

Found it!  At least I found "the Snail".  It was known in England so I think it probably is the most likely candidate.  Commonly called the round-fruited medick, it is found all around the Mediterranean.  It is a nitrogen fixing pea clover.   (See yesterday's post.)

 Medicago orbicularis.  Lovely.

Photo by Franz Neidl, from interesting discussion 

in the forum at http://www.photomacrography.net/

The plant has migrated around the globe, with this specimen from a field in Texas.

Now, it could have been the Snail Medick,  Medicago scutellata, (see below) but that plant isn't as "snail-ish" to my eye!  Who ever saw a hairy snail?

Next, the hunt for the Caterpillar plant that was sold with the Snails!  I want to grow Snails, I wonder if J. L. Hudson has the seeds?  Later - Nope, they don't.

I did find a page with great photo documentation of the plant, however, and they do sell seeds...but they are around 15 EU....more than I would want to pay.  Great photos though!

Turner Seeds, Texas, has it...in bushels I think.  In modern trade it is used for land reclamation as it is a nitrogen fixing legume.  It is also commonly called Button Clover nowadays.  

Perhaps Ebay is where to look as the plant is a common "weed" anyone could gather seed from.  In Malta it is within the laws to sell it...and in Texas it is legal.  It sounds like a seed that is in the trade in many places. New South Wales in Australia promotes its use in  pastures.

Well, I checked out Ebay and found nothing.  But somehow I bumped into a set of buttons (button clover search) that I just had to buy!!  They are charming, made from mother of pearl in a crude flower shape. :-) I think they could make a nice necklace, or pin, or...buttons! 

A Flaccid Blue Sausage Caught My Eye

It all started with me noticing that on the side of an Ebay returns page there are "collections"...sort of a Pinterest collection  but of only Ebay images that someone is saving.  I was drawn to an image of big blue flaccid appearing things hanging on some naked twigs.   Nice blue though :-)

They turned out to be a bush called, in the Ebay offering of the seeds, Blue Sausage Tree.  Decaisnea fargesii.  Who knew!!!????

I want one! You slurp a sweet tasting but culturally unappealing looking (for Connecticut) fruit glop from the pod, and plant the beans for more.  It must taste good, as it does not seem to elicit positive reactions to its looks, if you take the REAL common name into account - Dead Man's Fingers. Yum!   I can see why the seller changed it.  A link to a NPR page by Ketzel Levine about the plant in detail is at the bottom of this page.

This plant made me think of another one I had fallen for decades ago, Akebia quinata...or maybe trifolium.  Anyway, there is a wonderful park in Newburyport, MA,USA, Maudsley Park.  It is the former estate of the Maudsley family, which now has no manner house but has beautiful grounds on the Merrimac River.

The entrance of the old estate.

While exploring it, Jack and I wandered into an overgrown boxwood garden which had a huge akebia vine covered in weird blue fruits trying to climb over the walls. It had thoroughly draped the trees, whatever they were. We had no idea what it was and went home with a drop to identify. Bailey's Hortus 3rd saved the day eventually but I am so grateful for internet access now!!!!!  Like Dead Man's Fingers, the fruit of the akebia lacks appeal once you see inside the charming blue rind. Looking very much like a huge unwholesome larvae, you need to suck the jelly from between the closely packed seeds. We didn't know that fact at the time, so I missed my chance.

This is the restored boxwood garden I found almost swallowed by the akebia 30 or more years ago.  It is nice the garden and grounds have caretakers now but it sure was romantic in its decline.  Below is a photo I took when we were still trying to identify the blue skinned alien fruits.  Do you know the vines are great for basket making?  I learned that somewhere years ago...I think it is traditional basket material in Japan. 

From NPR: Plant Profiles: Decaisnea fargesii  (Plant Profiles are excerpted from Plant This! by Ketzel Levine.)