1877- A Plant for the Poor - Polygonum cuspidatum

This interesting view of Japanese Knotweed and of the state of poor city people was an English article published in the The Florist and Pomologist.  


1877 - POLYGONUM CUSPIDATUM AS A TOWN PLANT

IN the preface to many a small treatise, the author states that "a great want has long been felt" for the article which he, in his benevolence, has at length provided; and following this precedent, I cannot do better than introduce Polygonum cuspidatum, alias P. Sieboldii, as a plant to fill a gap of no ordinary dimensions.  

"Fat Hen", I know it as Pigweed.
 Image source

The plant belongs to a family of troublesome weeds, of which the Fat Hen (used as a spinach) is a notable member; and from a certain family likeness, this plant, like the Fat Hen, may perhaps some day do duty as a vegetable at the board of the poor man.


Its chief merits at present, however, consist in its being, like Jonah's Gourd, a plant of rapid growth, and in its taking kindly to town life. 


It grows at least 10 ft. high, and the rapidity with which it runs up may be seen, when I state that one recently planted against a cottage in a narrow street in Manchester, attained from 6 ft. to 7 ft. in height; and being a bold herbaceous plant, with a branching stem spotted with purple, and well furnished with leaves all the way up, it has no mean or common aspect.

 When rising in spring, which it does in May, the succulent shoots are crisp and tender, and rather larger than fair-sized Asparagus. The leaf is heart-shaped, with a narrowed point and truncate base, and handsome. It is thoroughly hardy, and one of its peculiarities is that its underground stems spread widely in search of fresh pasture. 

I saw it putting in an appearance in a garden adjoining the one in which it was planted, having travelled by the wall and under a flag-stone 3 ft. wide, thereby showing its aptitude for town-life; and whilst the London Nettle [Coleus] requires to be kept indoors in the dingy windows of the City, this Polygonum will do the work of the Nettle without any protection.

In a box or barrel containing half a cubic foot of earth, placed against a wall, or planted out in the paved yard, it will live and do well; and as it dies down every year, it escapes half the dirt that would have fallen upon its foliage had it been an evergreen shrub. It is, moreover, strong enough to stand alone, and does not need the town-ladder nor even a stake to keep it upright.

The Lupinus polyphyllus is one of our earliest spring plants, and has been extensively cultivated for agricultural purposes. Who knows but that this fastgrowing, early herb may some day rival the Lupine as early food for ewes and lambs. As a weed, it has much of the character of colt's-foot and couch-grass, and therefore had better be cautiously let into possession, lest it might be difficult to get it out root and branch, for it pushes its underground stems in all directions.

Whilst the rich can carry their love of grass and flowers from the country into town-life, and be able to maintain parks and squares where their children can walk under shady trees, and disport themselves on the green sward, the poor people are not deficient in taste for the same luxuries, and would gladly hail a hardy perennial herbaceous plant that would take up its abode with them, and thrive among bricks and mortar, and every year get abler for its work.
The Polygonum cuspidatum will do all this, and thereby supply a want that has long been felt.—A. FORSYTH, Salford.

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Friend of Bees -The Japanese Knotweed

This isn't a seed related post, instead,  just something else I like.  As a new beekeeper, my interest in poking around in old journals and books has led me to Polygonum cuspidatum. (Say it aloud with a good bounce - its fun)  

Japanese Knotweed was introduced in the United States as an an ornamental in the mid 1800s and grew to be one of the hardest plants to keep from taking over the countryside. 


Gardners of larger estates (and people with small lawns,  but with attitude) appreciated Castor Bean and Cannas for their large lush exotic aesthetic.
Japanese Knotweed fit right in. 

Back before the internet I had to look it up in Bailey when a narrow, shady ally behind my house sprouted a bee full forest of the stuff. 

What I haven't known until recently is that it makes a nice dark honey!!

 Japanese Knotweed honey has many people who appreciate it. I've never tasted it, but I love buckwheat honey which is as dark as molasses, so I am planning to find Polygonum cuspidatum honey to buy this fall.  

The other feature that beekeepers appreciate is the flowering time of knotweed in New England falls when most other flowers are taking a break before starting up again in early fall.  Called "the dearth", during this time when most plants are not flowering beekeepers need to feed their bees to keep their numbers up so they are ready for the important work of gathering the fall flower honey.   Bees who are not fed during a dearth wisely decrease the their numbers so there are fewer mouths to feed.  However, if the hives have a big tract of knotweed to forage on there is no dearth for those bees. 

This article promoting it as a garden plant for the larger garden is from 1868.  The same magazine, The American Agriculturist, was still promoting it as an ornamental in 1887, although they place more emphasis on how it gets out of control, with suggestions of planting it in a tub, or someplace where it can spread.  

The Japanese Knotweed.  (Polygonum cuspidatum.)

The genus Polygonum, although a large one, cannot boast of many species sufficiently elegant to be cultivated for ornament. We are familiar with them as plants to be ejected from the grounds rather than to be introduced, for here belong the False, or Climbing Buckwheat, the Black Bind-weed, Smart-weed, Knotgrass, Goose-grass, and others whose common names indicate their weedy character. The Polygonum Orientale, the Prince's Feather, or Ragged-Sailor, a tall Species with rather coarse foliage and drooping spikes of rose colored flowers, is often been in the humbler attempts at gardening, in company with Sunflowers, Love-lies-bleeding, and other similarity coarse and weedy plants. 

"We have for some years known a species which is really worth cultivating, but which does not seem to be much disseminated—the Polygonum  cuspidatum, a native of Japan. It is a perfectly hardy perennial, which throws up branching stems three or four feet high, bearing large oval leaves, which are long-pointed at the apex,—hence the name;  cuspidatum. 

The small white flowers are in Utile clusters in the axils of the leaves, and are succeeded by the fruit, or seeds, which being of a pale rose color are more showy than the flowers themselves. Though the flowers individually are small, they are produced in such abundance and have such a graceful droop that the plant is quite showy in flower and fruit, and its effect is heightened by the reddish color of the stems.

The plant increases very rapidly, and soon forms a large clump; indeed this is its greatest fault, and one which unfits it for use in smallholders. 

It is very effective for planting where there is plenty of room, and it will grow in any soil and situation, even under the shade of trees. It blooms in July and August, and continues for a long time. There is a variegated leaved. form which is rather curious, but the variegation is not constant. 

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I had to include this video!!

And I also have to include this one.  This is why it is a hated plant.

The presenter in this news clip is Christine Walkden, one of my favorite Gardners Question Time panel members. Gardners Question Time makes a great podcast for commuting BTW.

1887 - Horsemint: #10 of Root's Bee Plants

If you are thinking about what honeybees consider a delightful flower - think any mint family plant.  I suppose there might be one they shun, but I haven't heard of it yet. 

Bee balm

A. I. Root's horsemint is Monarda fistulosa.  The flower shape is familiar to anyone who has the more common (in New England) garden plant, Monarda didyma, bee balm.


Horsemint is more of a southern plant in the United States.  In 1882, Mrs. Jennie Atchley was describing the bee plant year in Texas when she said,  

"...after May 20th, horse mint begins to bloom. Then we can holloa out, Eureka, all is safe; just about the same as apiarists in the north when white clover and basswood comes in."   

 In Texas, "the dearth", when bees have a hard time finding anything in bloom, comes just before the horsemint blooms.  A gentleman from Carthage, Missouri  in 1883 commented that horsemint was usually the richest honey harvest of the year.    

Frank Chapman Pellet writes, in his 1920 book, American Honey Plants: Together with Those which are of Special Value to the Beekeeper as Sources of Pollen :

HORSEMINT (Monarda)

There are several species of horsemint, known also as bee balm, wild bergamot, etc. Some of the species are represented from New England to Texas. Figure 77 (not shown) shows M. fistulosa, the wild bergamot of the North. The corolla tubes are so deep that, as a rule, the bees are unable to reach the nectar. In some cases it is reported as yielding freely and the author has seen times when the bees were apparently getting considerable nectar from this species. 

Whether the nectar secretion is unusually abundant or the corolla tubes shortened more than is commonly the case, the author will not venture an opinion.

 In parts of Wisconsin, M. punctata, according to D. L. H. Pammel, can be depended upon to yield an abundance of nectar every season. This is probably the most important species to the beekeeper. It is found more or less commonly on sandy soil from New York to Minnesota and south to Florida and Texas. 

In Texas it is the source of very large quantities of surplus honey in seasons following wet winters, and springs. The honey is a clear light amber with a decided minty flavor. It is one of the most important sources in Texas, where, together with M. clinopodioides, it is regarded very highly. In the Arkansas Valley of southern Kansas horsemint is also important, yielding as high as fifty pounds of surplus per colony.

This lovely watercolor sketch by Miss Helen Sharp.  I can't find any information on her beyond what she notes on her drawings - where she is when sketching  and the date.  Her works date between 1888 and 1910.  This sketch was done in Taunton, MA in 1910, I think. Hard to read date.

Here is another, from 1895.

And here is another artist in a book from 1800, Zorn, J., Oskamp, D.L., Afbeeldingen der artseny-gewassen met derzelver Nederduitsche en Latynsche beschryvingen, vol. 4: t. 316  (Images of the physician's crops with their Dutch and Latynian writings)

Old Photo - Time to Plant Seeds

They are in such a hurry to grow up.

1887 - Melissa (Lemon Balm): #11 of Root's Bee Plants

This year, the first spring I have been retired from teaching, I filled the porch with seed trays.  I stole the shop lights from the basement, bought some more, and had quite the jolly display of green out there during a wretched cold early spring.  

That's a cosmos intruding on the lemon balm :-)

One reason I did this is A. I. Root's catalog of seeds which offered them as bee plants.  I am a fledgling beekeeper  
Anything I grow will probably be ignored by my bees as they look for large, economical to visit, patches of bee friendly flowers.  (My yard does not lend itself to large patches of anything, being a glacial hillside of oaks and pines...)  But maybe the plants I am growing will occasionally be at least an amuse-bouche!

Source

Woodville, W., Medical botany, (1793)

Beekeepers around the late 1800s, were interested in identifying great bee plants as the idea of establishing bee pastures was being considered and tried.  Just as you have pastures for cows, the bees could have pasture land devoted to their nectar and pollen plants.  Later the beekeeping community decided it would not pay unless there was also money to be made from selling the pasture crop after the bees were done with it...like buckwheat.

Here is the info that made the beekeeper's ears perk up!

The Melissa honey plant is a very sweet mint, which grows about a foot high and bears a beautiful white blossom. It did well at the Michigan Station (B. 65), blossomed freely, and was very generally visited by the bees, blooming from early in July for a month or more. Unfortunately it is an annual, does not seed itself, and must be planted each year. It is considered doubtful if this would pay. On 3 acres of Melissa the bees had swarmed in early August—a thing unprecedented in the State.                             1891 - American Bee Journal

The period of bloom of bee balm, July, August, is when there is generally a dearth of nectar and pollen, a time when beekeepers around me (New England) nowadays have to feed their bees to keep the numbers up to be ready to go out in early fall to gather the nectar available from fall flowers.  If the hive is large enough they will gather in the fall the honey they need to live through the winter plus extra which the beekeeper harvests!  Spring is a honey gathering season, summer is pathetic, and fall might be a honey gathering season.  

  

But here is the kicker... the darn stuff now is NOT considered a bee plant especially!!  And I thought I'd treat my bees to a patch of something nice.  Sheesh...

Bee Culture - Volume 124 - Page 363  1996 - ‎Snippet view                                        Bee balm, Lemon balm or Bee-herb - these names all refer to the plant Melissa officinalis, an aromatic, perennial herb that has been associated with bees for centuries. This plant is native to regions of the northern Mediterranean, and the ancient Greeks called it Melissophyllon, which means "beloved by bees."   Despite claims in many older books, the white flowers of Bee balm do not attract honey bees to any great extent, as the flower tubes appear to be too long and narrow for them ...

On the bright side, it makes a nice herbal tea.   I'll treat me to something nice!

This manuscript from about 500 AD looks very much like my seedlings, doesn't it?

Here is some fun stuff about lemon balm: 

The name "Melissa" has a long history with roots reaching back to even before Ancient Greece. For this reason, in part, there are several versions of the story surrounding the mythological character Melissa, especially in how she came to care for the infant Zeus. In one version, Melissa, a mountain-nymph hid Zeus from his father, Cronus, who was intent on devouring his progeny.[9] She fed Zeus goat's milk from Amaltheaand fed him honey, giving him a permanent taste for it even once he came to rule on Mount Olympus. Cronus became aware of Melissa's role in thwarting his murderous design and changed her into an earthworm. Zeus, however, took pity and transformed her into a beautiful bee.     Wikipedia

1876 - Giant Potato at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition

Will you look at that monster tuber on the barrel!!

Bliss, B.K. & Sons, Seedsmen, 34 Barclay Street, New York, N.Y., Exhibit #36;

Centennial Photographic Co.. P.K. [sic] Bliss & Son's exhibit. [Albumen Prints]. Retrieved from https://libwww.freelibrary.org/digital/item/1581

1940 - Nice Seed Store Photo

The Library of Congress has extraordinary photos if you poke around to find them.  This one was taken in Grayville, Illinois 78 years ago in May.