It’s the position I have to adopt to take pictures of what’s going on up on the sauveplaine at the moment. I wrote about my discovery of this area here on the blog two years ago, and I go there about as often as believers go to church/chapel/mosque etc, and for some of the same reasons: awe at something which is much greater than myself. There are lots of flowers coming into bloom, but many of them are little, low down or downright ground-hugging. I was on hands and knees anyway because the thyme is in flower and this is the moment to pick the delicate tips, which have the most flavour, and take it home to dry for seasoning dishes during the rest of the year.
Thyme flower harvest
I wasn’t the only one appreciating these miniature bouquets – I had to be careful not to pick bees at the same time.
bee on thyme flower
I know there are many species of bee, and maybe some kind person, say Morgan from the wonderful blog The Reremouse will tell me which this is. She has a different standpoint: she once wrote that she sees a flower as something for insects to perch on, while I see an insect as something which flowers use to have sex. If you’re interested by nature – and why else would you be reading this – and you don’t know The Reremouse, you’re missing something. So what else did I see while I was down there on the ground? I’ll start with the highlights: two orchids. The first is the common Yellow ophrys (Ophrys lutea), of which there was quite a colony.
Ophrys lutea
The other was the white orchid , Narrow-leaved helleborine (Cephalanthera longifolia).
Cephalanthera longifolia
Now two ground-hugging prostrate plants which I photographed for the first time the other day on the sauveplaine. Both from the same family, the Fabaceae – you know, beans and peas and all that. The first is a sort of broom, Cytisus supinus, which I identified with the help of another excellent site, Florealpes. The site says this plant can be confused with a Bird’s foot trefoil (Lotus spp.), one difference being that the latter has leaves with stipules, little mini-leaves at the base of the leaf-stalk, while the former doesn’t.
Cytius supinus
This sort of plant is often most easily identified by its fruit, since the flowers and leaves are very minor variations on a common pattern. I was lucky to have caught the charactersitic fruits of the second plant, Hippocrepis biflora, which are flattened and a bit like a strange saw-blade.
Hippocrepis biflora
Hippocrepis biflora – the fruit like a saw, or something
And the rest? A quick round-up, starting with a couple of spurges – a favourite of mine – I did three posts on the genus a little while ago. The common Euphorbia serrata:
Euphorbia serrata – one of the most common spurges on the roadside
and a rarer sight, the remarkable Euphorbia exigua:
The dramatic Euphorbia exigua
A Star of Bethlehem, Ornithogallum montanum:
Ornithogallum montanum
Wild Clary, Salvia verbenaca:
Salvia verbenaca
Rosy garlic (Allium roseum):
Allium roseum
Grey-leaved cistus (Cistus albidus):
Cistus albidus
The title for the jazz came easily from a phrase I found I’d written: it’s the guitarist Grant Green with the tune Down here on the ground.
I’d like to take you to the other patch I’ve chosen in which I’m going to try to list all the species of plants I find. Other patch? Yes, the first was in the previous post. That was in the hills, this is by the sea, and already the comparison is showing me a lot about each habitat. Here we are at Marseillan-plage:
The dunes of Marseillan-plage, looking west (promenade up on the left)
The dunes towards the port on the east side – promenade now on the right of the image
The town of Marseillan is a very old port on the Étang de Thau, founded in the 6th century BCE by the Greeks; facing the Mediterranean its neighbour Marseillan-plage is – there are no other words for it – a brash new tourist resort, which has invested a great deal of money in the last year to become, well, even brasher. But it has a botanical jewel in its narrow system of dunes.
Jewel? Doesn’t it look just like a patch of dried-out weeds? Look closer. There are at least two separate main ecosystems here, separated by the promenade between the town and the harbour: the dunes nearest the sea are the least stable, blown by wind and spray, and only a few species can take the conditions: Euphorbia paralias (sea spurge) which I blogged here, Elytrigia juncea (sand couch grass), and Ammophila arenaria (marram grass) are examples. The Euphorbia can store water in its stems and fleshy leaves.
Elytrigia juncea – sand couch grass – Chiendent des sables
These are the shifting sands – dunes vives in French – pegged down by rows of fencing made of chestnut stakes. These are in place all along the coast, after the damage of a great storm in November 1982 awakened the authorities to the gradual erosion of the coastline by the prevailing east to west currents.
On the town side of the promenade and sheltered by it from the worst of the wind and salt spray, a much more diverse flora has established itself. Although the sand is infiltrated by seawater, there is a layer of fresh water within the sand which lies on top of the salt because it’s less dense, and a plant with roots deep enough to reach this layer can survive. Even so, the plants here in the arrière-dunes show even stronger adaptations to drought than on the sauveplaine. For example, this clump of Paronychia argentea has a low, dense growth habit, and refective silvery bracts round the flowers, creating its own shade underneath.
Paronychia argentea
Many dune plants are covered in a thick downy coat of hairs, which both reflect heat and reduce evaporation, such as this Sea medick (Medicago marina), which is rarely seen away from the coast.
Sea medick – Medicago marina
Others have leaves reduced to slender leaflets, such as Centaurea aspera (rough starthistle) and Anthemis maritimus.
Centaurea aspera – identified by its 3-spined bracts, and Anthemis in the background
One unexpected discovery was the dry stem of this broomrape. These plants are completely parasitic on other plants, and can often be identified by spotting the host plant nearby. In this case the yellow composite is a clue to its probable identity as Orobanche minor (common broomrape), and this species is often found near the sea. The grass in the picture is Lagurus ovatus : hare’s tail or bunny-tail grass, or Queue-de-lièvre.
Broomrape – Orobanche minor? – and yellow composite which it may be parasitising
I’ve found a couple of other broomrapes recently: they’re stunning flowers and I’ll write a post about them soon.
At the foot of the landward side of the fixed dunes, just before the houses begin, the terrain is more fixed, the water is closer to the surface and perhaps some organic matter can accumulate to enrich the sand – at any rate, some plants here resemble those of further inland, or even those of gardens. For example, a stout Lavatera arborea (tree mallow) would grace any front yard, and the wild leeks (Allium ampeloprasum) are the same as those on the sauveplaine.
Lavatera arborea – tree mallow – at the foot of the arriere-dunes
Allium ampeloprasum- wild leek – just opening in the dunes
The Marseillan patch study is now up to 24 species – I’ll work on a list which I’ll set up on another page on the blog here, and keep updated. The close study of two very different areas is fascinating, and it’s showing me that the dune season is much more compressed, with some flowering seasons over before those in the hills have really started. The grasses in the two places are completely different – I’m trying to get a grip on identifying these. And over the summer I expect to see the real dune specialists which flower most of the year, such as Anthemis, and others yet to be discovered. But the greatest wonder of the dunes is that very different habitats are found only metres apart, and so in ten minutes you can have a good lesson in ecology. I’ll be suggesting this as an important asset to the municipality – there’s been a lot of redevelopment in the town in the last year and I’d hate for this area, which is like a wild park in the centre of town, to be disturbed to lay drainage pipes or to build ice-cream stands. The rest of Marseillan-plage is concrete, with imported palm trees.
Here’s some music from a region I imagine to be as dry and sandy as the dunes. It’s from the album Jama Ko, by Bassekou Kouyate and Ngoni Ba, recorded in Bamako in Mali in 2012, and something I like very much indeed. This track, Poye 2, also features the bluesman Taj Mahal, a longtime fan of Kouyate.
Coming up next: Close relations: how do you tell them apart?
You can see, but then not really see. There’s nothing much wrong with my eyesight, but this spring I find I see things differently from this time last year when I hadn’t yet started this blog. For example, all this winter I’ve been noticing clumps of tall spurges which are bent over at their tips, like this:
Spurges – photo from 2nd January
I had my suspicions about what they were, strengthened by this next stage:
Same plant,next stage
And another sighting recently confirmed it: Mediterranean spurge ((Euphorbia characias)
E. characias in March
Note the characteristic violet-brown nectar glands. Now last year I hadn’t even registered that all these clumps of this spurge existed, even though I must have ‘seen’ them.
And here’s another puzzling example:
Orchid – but which one? (photo: CL)
An orchid I first thought was the Lady orchid (Orchis purpurea). Although it’s not exactly like the one I blogged last year here, the species does seem quite variable (the reliable site FloreAlpes has a very varied photogallery here). Eventually I found a better identification – Himantoglossum robertianum (see next post). Now as of today I’ve seen dozens of these this year on the roadsides near my village, solitary like this and in clumps, but note the date on last year’s blog: May 21st. Again, what was I looking at during last March and April?
Now this is partly due to what I call the Reliant Robin Effect: I used to have one of those peculiar three-wheeled cars because I could drive it on my motorbike licence, and I suddenly noticed for the first time how many of them there were on the road. I also used to teach psychology, and I know this is called salience: we pay most attention to things most relevant (salient) to us, but I think there’s a bit more to it. Plants have more meaning to me now: they remind me of comments and conversations and are a part of the things I want to do. Sightings also link in to some of my other ideas, about ecology, evolution and environmentalism for example. And you have to be curious, to want to understand better – just wanting to collect plants isn’t enough.
There’s a worrying side to all this too, of course: if I’m paying more attention to plants, what are all the other things I could be noticing, which aren’t yet salient to me? And what has all this botany replaced – what have I stopped seeing?
These lines of thought fitted well with a book I read this week which made a big impression on me – I’ll review it next time.
I never need much of an excuse to play a song by Billie Holiday, and this seemed, well, salient: I’ll be seeing you.
Beneath my feet: speedwell, hawkweed and stork’s bill
This is all about scale and distance. When I’m standing looking at the ground, there seems to be nothing flowering, just a lot of low leaf growth. But if I bend over and look closely, in the green around my shoes there are a few points of colour. Winter and early spring flowers seem to be mostly small – I suppose the plants are running on their reserves in swollen roots, or on the small amount of solar energy from the winter sun. So in this post I’ve tried to get closer with the macro lens and see how amazing these little flowers are.
Veronica persica
Here’s one of the prettiest, just visible in the centre of the first photo – but only showing its full splendour when photographed in macro and enlarged. It’s Veronica persica, Persian or bird’s eye speedwell, distinguished from similar species by its deep colour, prostrate habit and flower stalks longer than the leaves. I took this picture in January.
The way these flowers are studded in the ground cover reminded me of a garden in Wales: the cloister garden at Aberglasney in Carmarthenshire, where small flowers were planted in formal grass beds or parterres, an effect called ‘enamelling’ – you can see Aberglasney here. This garden fashion dates from around 1600, and contrary to today’s tastes, the ideal viewing point was thought to be well above – hence the raised stone walkway round the cloister, which originally caused some scratching of heads among the garden restorers at Aberglasney. This style of planting replaced the earlier formal garden habit of carefully shaped flower beds surrounded by box hedges, also best seen from a terrace or walkway above, and called compartiments de broderie. Embroidery, or enamel brooches: Nature was not only to be tamed, but miniaturised enough to be held in the hand.
Lamium amplexicaule – henbit deadnettle
Anyway, for 21st-century tastes, on with the magnifications, and here’s another deadnettle I found this week. If you compare it to the plant in the last post, you can see that in this one, the henbit deadnettle (Lamium amplexicaule), the leaves are unstalked, enclosing the stem, and the flowers have a much longer corolla tube.
Erodium cicutarium – common stork’s bill
I also found another stork’s bill (Erodium) – I blogged E malacoides on 8th December here. This one’s E. cicutarium, common stork’s bill, also from January, though there are a couple in the right of the first picture too. You can see the characteristically pinnately-lobed leaves (lobes in rows each side of the stalk), deeply cut in this species, which also has fleshy stems.
E. cicutarium stalks and leaves
True Geranium flowers are often similar to those of stork’s bills, but the leaves are always palmately lobed in that genus, radiating like fingers from a palm.
Then a few puzzles. Here are some grape hyacinths coming up – but which ones?
Grape hyacinths – Muscari
I’d have to go back when they’re fully open, but mostly here I see the tasselled Muscari comosum, which I blogged on 3rd September here. These could be Muscari neglectum – common grape hyacinth. Then a lovely spurge which I can’t identify till it opens fully.
Spurge – Euphorbia – but which one?
On the opposite side of the road the yellow heads of Euphorbia segetalis had fully colonised a neglected vineyard (with a few beautiful big sun spurges – E. helioscopa). You know I have a thing about spurges, and this sight made my day.
Neglected vineyard colonised by Euphorbia segetalis
E. segetalis and E. helioscopa
And finally you may have noticed the yellow composite flowers in the first photo – here are some more on a stony hillside:
Hawkweed – a species of Hieracium?
I think they’re a species of hawkweed (Hieracium) but since there are at least 800 species I’m not going to try to guess which one. Curiously they can produce seed asexually, and thus produce lots of identical clones in a neighbourhood, and it’s hard to tell what’s a clone or variety and what’s a species. If you count all the different forms described for this genus, there are 10,000!
Back to the title of this post and the lovely blue speedwell, this is ‘Veronica’, written by Elvis Costello with Paul McCartney, and about Elvis Costello’s grandmother. It’s on the album Spike (1989), his first album for Warners. He had songwriting skill to burn in those days – so many strong songs on one album. This version is from 1989, live outside the offices of his new record label, and acoustic, showing Costello’s fine vocals and driving guitar chord playing which still captures the song’s falling bass lines. The Warner Bros staff don’t look like the most responsive audience he’s ever had – no wonder he shouts ‘Back to work!’ at the end.
Some new spurge discoveries this week: a species new to me, and some insights into where these weird weeds came from. There’s a reconstruction of the supposed ancestral spurge, and a draft family tree, some of whose branches have criss-crossed the Atlantic. It may be long, but these plants tell an amazing story about our planet.
The latest spurge I found,on Boxing Day, was growing on a sunny bank near the Etang de Thau, and fittingly it’s called Euphorbia helioscopa [sun-watcher],sun spurge in English, Euphorbe réveil-matin, or Petite éclaire in French. All because the umbels open and face the sun in the morning.
Euphorbia helioscopa
The characteristics by which you can identify it include these: the leaves are oval, wider above the middle and finely toothed, red-tinged as is the stem; it has a flat terminal inflorescence consisting of a five-rayed umbel, and kidney-shaped nectar glands.
Another discovery this week was the website of an Italian naturalist, Dr Giuseppe Mazza, who describes in a fine style the way the capsules of this species split open explosively, like most Euphorbias, to disperse the seeds: ‘And during a quiet autumn afternoon, between the herbs of the orchard, we can easily hear, as well as see, the babies of the Euphorbia helioscopa leaving for conquering the world.’
I do recommend a visit to his site, photomazza (click here). In a long translation of his article on Euphorbias he says the flowers are heirs ‘of the ancient bisexual corollas of a wicked botanic ‘Dynasty’…where poison, castration and nudism are of the family’. Doesn’t sound like the textbook I had for A level.
Now for evolution, and there are a couple of important bits of background. First, understanding something of the movement of the continents on their tectonic plates is vital to understanding how older plant forms have evolved: plant communities get separated and evolve in different directions, and get carried into new climate zones which exert new selections of the fittest. But it is like trying to understand three-dimensional chess. Try this video to get a general idea – I think it’s stunning, 600 million years in 90 seconds:
Most diversity in the Euphorbiaceae family is in southern and eastern Africa and Madagascar, and most species are in tropical or subtropical Africa and South America. In general, greater diversity indicates greater age of a group of plants. This suggests a possible origin for the family in the South Africa part of the supercontinent Pangea (Gondwana in the map below), and a spread to the part which would become South America.
Pangea 152 million years ago
Pangea – shown above when there were just ferns and pines,no flowers – had finally broken up by about 100 million years ago, when South America split off from Africa and the South Atlantic began to widen (below). This theory of the origin of these plants is borne out by molecular studies, and the few fossils we have, which give an estimated age for the Euphorbiaceae family of 114 million years – in other words, very, very old : flowering plants only began to evolve about 140 million years ago.
Pangea 94 million years ago
(Colour maps from scotese.com)
Now the second bit of background. The study of evolution has been revolutionised in the last few years by molecular genetics – the analysis of plant DNA to find particular genes or markers, and then comparing several species to see which has what. The more genes in common, the more close the relationship, and a gene common to all suggests an ancestral feature. In this way a family tree can be drafted, and even dated – because we can estimate the rate of change in genes through mutation. I found a recent (2012) molecular study of Euphorbia, and if you’re not put off by a bit of jargon, it’s worth a look for the pictures and diagrams, though the middle section gets way too technical for me (you can find it here) . Scientific papers are a bit like gunpowder tea: dry and shrivelled at first sight, but the longer you let them soak in your mind, the more flavours they release. Basically, from looking at the distribution of 10 genetic markers over 176 species, this is what the researchers come up with:
The Euphorbia genus can be divided into four big groups, or clades in botan-ish. One of these, called the Esula clade, contains 500 species found in temperate regions of the northern hemisphere, from the eastern Mediterranean to central Asia . This group are almost all herbaceous, with a straight, leafy unbranched shoot and a terminal inflorescence. It contains all the wild species I see here, and the other European species.
Let’s take a break to look at one of these: Euphorbia serrata. It has leaves with finely toothed margins, and which become broader higher up the stem. The umbels have 3-5 rays, and the bright yellow bracts are wide – the inflorescences make quite an impact.
Euphorbia serrata in May
The other groups seem to have developed successively in evolution from this stock, and comprise a group of 200 xerophytes (dry-adapted species) in South Africa; a group of 700 different species in Africa and Madagascar; and a group with half a dozen African members and about 600 species in the New World (including Poinsettias). The similarities in the last group suggest an early African origin and some evolution there, followed by ‘a single dispersal event’ to the new climates of the New World, where variation ran wild. Now it seems that the Euphorbia genus evolved about 42.5 million years ago, long after South America had sailed away on its tectonic plate. So how did Euphorbia cross the ocean?
We don’t really know. To get there like humans did, through Asia and over the Bering Straits to Alaska, would have involved crossing inhospitably cold climate zones. Humans could dress up warm, plants can’t. So it has been suggested that there was a land bridge between northern Scotland and Greenland, and then to Baffin Island, about 40 million years ago when these regions were much warmer than they are now. Also, they were then, and are now, much further south than Alaska. Other genera in Euphorbiaceae, such as Croton, had evolved in America from the original 100 million-plus year old stock, but seem to have spread eastwards to Europe at about the same time. The land bridge had gone by 35 million years ago. Could plants travel so far in the time available? Think of it: if seeds disperse a metre a year, that’s a kilometre in 1,000 years, 1,000km in a million. One thing geological time has got plenty of is time.
Now for the reconstructed ancestor-spurge of around 42 million years ago in Africa: it turns out that these most resembled the Esula clade, in other words the kinds of Euphorbia I’ve been featuring. It was a non-succulent, woody plant with leaves arranged in a spiral around the stem, and cyathia in terminal inflorescences. The basic plan was probably for five of each flower part – now reduced to three compartments in the ovary of the female flower, a single stamen in the male flower, and commonly four nectar glands. The family forebears before this were probably wind-pollinated, with separate groups of male and female flowers on each plant: as Euphorbia evolved from this the flowers moved closer and the bracts became petal-like, and nectar glands developed, to form the cyathia (unique to Euphorbia) which could attract insects – these weren’t around when the Euphorbiaceae family started over 100 million years ago.
Molecular genetic studies show a slow and steady rate of evolution in the Esula clade, as species arose to adapt from the subtropics to the increasing extent of areas in the northern hemisphere with temperate conditions,including cold and dry seasons. The poisonous milky sap is an adaptation to deter herbivores which were common in temperate grasslands.
Further, these genetic studies show that xeromorphic features in the genus as a whole, such as spines and succulence, have evolved on at least fourteen separate occasions over the last 40 million years: an outstanding example of parallel evolution.
Well done for getting this far. A final photo call for Euphorbia cyparissias, or cypress spurge, so named for the many stems whose slender leaves look like young pine shoots – the photo was taken back in May last year.
Euphorbia cyparissias in May
Euphorbia is such a rich genus, and carries the traces of 40 million years of the history of our planet, its continents and its climate. The more we study it, the more it has to tell us.
I’ve been trying in the music selections for these last three posts to mirror the way these species have travelled out of Africa, and through Europe to America, and back again, sometimes coming up with the same innovations in different places. In the first was Sun Ra, who claimed to have been born on Saturn, but in fact came from Birmingham, Alabama, and who used imagery and costumes from Egypt. Second, Randy Weston who came from New York, but lived and worked for many years in Morocco. Today’s choice is the Ethiopian Mulatu Astatke, who was educated and began his career in Britain and then New York, before returning to his native country. He’s made some wonderful recordings in the last few years, and from the highly recommended album Mulatu Steps Ahead (2010) here’s a live version of an appropriate title: ‘Motherland’. On trumpet is the American-born British resident Byron Wallen. You can’t pin a good musician (or plant) down.
Coming up next: the ‘Kewdunnit’. More of a ‘whydunnit’, as you’ll see.
There’s a definite thrill in the herbarium as French, Occitan, Swedish, Algerian and English teams take their places. The Latin team is elderly, but a strong contender. There’s even a lone Italian. And what’s more, every competitor is clean: no steroids, no EPO, no diuretics. Why am I so sure? Well, this is botany,not professional cycling, and furthermore the whole thing is of course completely imaginary.
Euphorbia segetalis in the vines
Here for starters is the spurge that’s been lighting up the vineyards (if not the sports headlines) for a few months now: and the Latins are off the mark with Euphorbia segetalis, or field spurge.
Euphorbia segetalis in December
Its leaves have fallen and the pink stem holds a yellow flowering and fruiting head, sometimes ball-shaped, usually slightly flattened. The French team call it Euphorbe des moissons (harvest spurge), from its late flowering, and the Occitans lo lantreson, a contraction of the Latin lacteritia or milk-yielding.
Other Occitan names, applied to various species , include lo marcivol, which is derived from the Latin marcere, to wither or fade(marceribilis= liable to wither) – I presume because of the blue- or grey-green colour of the leaves, or because the flowers have no petals, as if they have already dropped. Also la lachuscla, from lach (milk) and usclar (to burn) – this is worth remembering since the sap is irritant to the skin, sometimes severely so, and can cause blindness if it gets in the eyes. If you’re weeding it in the garden, or pruning any Euphorbia species, wear gloves and don’t touch your eyes. This property means it has been used in traditional medicine for warts and skin cancers. In the middle ages the irritant leaves were used by beggars to produce unsightly sores on their skins, with a view to eliciting more pity and more money from passers-by. Extra points to the Occitans for being safety-conscious.
How are the teams shaping up so far? I must admit I’m a bit disappointed by the Occitan vocabulary here. Since the plants are all known to be strong purgatives (spurge is from the Latin expurgare, via old French espurge), I was expecting a variety of shit-related names, a cacophony of caca. In fact there seems only to be one: for the caper-spurge (E. lathyris) there is catapuça (catapuce in French) from the Italian cacapuzza, or shit-stink. In Chaucer’s Nun’s Priest’s Tale, ‘katapuce’ is one of the ‘laxatyves’ recommended by the hen Pertelote for the cockerel Chauntecleer to rid him of the indigestion which is giving him frightening dreams: ‘To purge yow bynethe and eek above’. The large fruits of this species were taken like pills in the 14th century.
Euphorbia characias in May
Let’s try another round. Here is E. characias (Mediterranean spurge) easily recognised because it’s one of the tallest spurges, often over a metre high, and because it has violet-brown nectar glands.
E. characias close up – note the brown nectar glands
For some reason, in Occitan it has the feminine version of the same name as the previous spurge: la lantresa, so for unoriginality the team lose the extra points they just gained.
So far the inter-language naming competition hasn’t really taken off: French and Occitan are being descriptive and everyone’s still hanging around nervously outside the privy door. But now here’s an unusual joint effort from the Algerian and Swedish teams. How so? Let me – like all good sports commentators – profile the team by telling you the background story.
It all started in 40BC when Cleopatra VII of Egypt and Mark Antony had twin children, named Cleopatra Selene [moon] – or Cleopatra VII – and Alexander Helios [sun]. It was all looking so good for little Cleo – her famous mother’s only daughter – when at the age of 6 she was made ruler of Cyrenaica and Libya. However in 31BC her daddy was defeated by Octavian’s fleet at the battle of Actium, and within a few months both her parents had committed suicide. Octavian took the children back to Rome, where they were paraded in golden chains too heavy for them to be able to walk. The twins were given to Octavian’s sister Octavia Minor to raise – she had once been Mark Antony’s wife. Pick the family dynamics out of that one.
Coins depicting Juba (L) and Selene (R)
Sometime after her 14th birthday Cleo Selene’s twin brother had died, and she was married to the exiled African king Juba II. They were sent to rule over Mauretania, present-day Algeria, where Rome needed a client power. At some point Juba became ill and was successfully treated by a herb collected in the Atlas Mountains by his personal physician – the grateful monarch named the herb Euphorbia regisjubae after the doctor, whose name was Euphorbus, and of course after himself (it is now named Euphorbia obtusifolia ssp regis-jubae. Juba is said to have written over 50 books, some of them works of natural history.
Euphorbia obtusifolia ssp regisjubae
All so confusing for newcomers to our sport who translate the Greek Euphorbia as ‘good forage’, which is its literal meaning, but which is obviously wrong for a toxic plant. The Swedish contribution came in 1753 when Linnaeus used the name Euphorbia for the whole genus of similar plants – the full story and much more is on the EuphORBia site here. If you’re an incurable romantic who just wants to know if Juba and Cleo were really in love, you’re reading the wrong blog: try this one here.
Sorry about the digression – I think the judges might penalise this team for time-wasting. But from now on I’ll look at a spurge, recall Cleopatra, and call the flowers a name that hasn’t – as far as I know – been used yet: sun and moon, in honour of the twins.
But look who’s limbering up now! It’s time for the English countryman’s team to enter, trained at a secret hideout by their Head Coach Geoffrey Grigson. In The Englishman’s Flora, Grigson records a fantastic range of names for spurges used in various English counties – I was alerted to these linguistic riches by this entry in a fascinating photo-a-day journal by a writer who often comments here. These names include: the devil’s cups and saucers (my personal favourite), wolf’s milk , deer’s milk, virgin mary’s nipple (but giving emetic milk – an anti-mariolater at work here?), devil apple tree, devil’s churnstaff, wart-weed, bible leaf, potatoes in the dish, and Kiss me Dick (I can’t explain this, but I thought you’d want to know). A sensationally poetic performance which puts the yeomen in line for the gold medal. While we await the adjudication, you might want to read this article by Richard Mabey on species naming –click here.
In a return to the classic boy-meets-girl, boy-pollinates- girl-with-aid-of-insect theme, here are some photos of male and female Mercurialis annua (annual mercury) plants – mentioned in the last blog post. This habit of single-sex plants is an adaptation to ensure cross-pollination. Male and female side by side: male has the erect inflorescence, female flowers well-nigh hidden.
Mercurialis annua – male (L) and female (R)
Flowers in close-up: male has the stamens:
Male Mercurialis annua
the female flower isn’t obvious, but you can make out a bristly fruit.
Female Mercurialis annua
Music which pays tribute to the traditions of north Africa: the great Randy Weston.
Coming next: the last in the present spurge series.
I’ll admit that I’ve put off starting to write about spurges (Euphorbia), partly because I feel I don’t know enough about them, but it’s time to take the plunge.
They are such curious plants, as if assembled on another planet from a description given over a dodgy radio link from a non-botanist on Earth (I’ll say what I can about their evolution in a later post). They’re deeply weird and I’m fascinated by them. Let me list some of their oddnesses.
1.They seem to be flowering plants without flowers –at least, without petals. In fact the flowers are very small and rudimentary and the place of petals is sometimes taken by coloured leaves, e.g. in poinsettias (botanical name Euphorbia pulcherrima,or ‘very pretty spurge’), or by small bracts. Male and female flowers are separate – not a unique feature, but unusual. The nectar glands are sometimes as big as the tiny flowers.
Diagram courtesy of the EuphORBia project website – address below
2. Their whole growth habit is odd – a spurge is like a succulent plant, often hairless and smooth to the touch, as if half plant and half animal – a reptile maybe, or as if made of some new plastic. Most Mediterranean species consist of a tall pinkish stem circled by simple stalkless glaucous (grey-green) leaves and crowned by a complicated inflorescence.
3.They are closely related to plants varying wildly in form: round succulent stems the size of baseballs, spiny succulents resembling cacti, spiny bushes, even trees. Is it in spite of, or because of, all these oddities that they’re so successful? The Euphorbia genus contains over 2,000 species – the second-largest genus in botany. The family Euphorbiaceae comprises at least 7,500 species.
4. They exude a white sap if cut, which contains toxins which are violent purgatives, hence the name ‘spurge’. The origin of the name of the genus is interesting, but I’ll leave it to next time or we’ll be here all night.
Such a lot to say – for this post I’ll just show a species I saw recently, and a close relative from the same family but a different genus.
So, let me introduce you to the sea spurge – Euphorbia paralias – a perennial, often found growing in clumps in sand dunes, like this one. In fact most spurges prefer dry, sandy or rocky soils, in full sun.
You can see the simple stem and leaf arrangement – it’s characteristic of this species that the leaves overlap, giving it a sort of bottle-brush appearance.
In December when the photo was taken the flowering was over but you can see the fruit, a three-lobed capsule as in all spurges – a swelling of pretty well the whole female flower, which is on a stalk or pedicel. The structure next to it contained a male flower – there are usually several – reduced to consisting of a stamen on a stalk. The fruit capsule splits open explosively to scatter the seeds. Thus what looks like a flower is in fact several, male and female, grouped inside two blades which seem to be half leaf, half petal, and which are called the cyathophylls – the whole structure being called not a flower but a cyathium.
Mercurialis annua – male plant
Now the relative, Mercurialis annua (annual mercury), also a member of the Euphorbiaceae and a common weed throughout Europe. Here the male and female flowers occur on separate plants – this plant, like the others near it, was a male, as you can see if you look closely at the picture – there are tiny stamens poking out of the simple flowers. I haven’t found a female plant to photograph yet, and I think they prefer different habitats – I’ll keep you posted.
I’m not the only one fascinated by spurges – ‘Happiness is a state of Euphorbia’ proclaims one person’s website dedicated to these plants. And all the basics you need to know are very well explained, with diagrams, on the site of the international study group for this family of plants, the EuphORBia Portal (so named to indicate the comprehensive and planetary scope of the project) – click on the link here.
If I want to mark how odd these plants are, I can think of nothing better than to show some clips of the musician Sun Ra. Here he is in the film Space is the place (1974) trying, hilariously, to explain himself to members of a black youth club. Maybe spurges came from his planet.
And on the day of news that the founder of the Montreux jazz festival, Claude Nobs, has died, here is Sun Ra and his Arkestra performing at Montreux:
Coming up next: more stuff you didn’t want to know (till now) about spurges.
I’d like to start by wishing all of you who have found your way to this blog:
Happy New Year!
Blwyddyn Newydd Dda!
Bonne Année!
Bona annada plan granada!
Many thanks to everyone for your interest and comments since I started last year, and welcome to anyone visiting here for the first time. It’s New Year’s Day, you haven’t got time to read, and nor have I to write much. This is a short post to share some images of flowers taken over the last few days, to show there is life out there in the middle of winter – helped by a recent mild spell with some sunny days when the temperature reached 16 degrees. And of course I’m also showing off my new camera and lens – the title isn’t a typo.
Iris unguicularis
The Algerian Iris (I. unguicularis) – originally from North Africa but grown widely in gardens, and the first Iris to flower. This was in some waste ground next to an electricity substation – it was probably planted there, and has spread and settled. It’s a very low-growing species, and my flower book says the ovary is at or below ground level – amazing, I’ll have to look closer next time.
Geranium rotundifolium
I think this is the round-leafed crane’s bill – all the little geraniums look very similar to me. If I keep at this, I hope I’ll get better at telling them apart.
Euphorbia
Yes, but which Euphorbia? I’m planning a longer post soon on the great variety of species of spurge round here, because I find them bizarrely fascinating. And I love their shades of green and yellow. The little yellow star-shapes are nectar glands, and the buds are separate male flowers – the female flower usually grows in the middle of the glands. Found by the side of the road – Chaiselongue said to me, ‘You know, all the people who pass in cars are looking at you strangely – they think there’s only one thing you can be doing crouched down in a ditch.’
Viola alba subsp. dehnadii
The first violet I’ve seen, on the path just by our garden – had to lie flat on the ground to take this. The Latin name is a bit confusing, but there is a white subspecies too (scotophylla) , found in the Balkans.
Resolutions: To work on a comparison of the various spurges, as I’ve said. And other topics I’ve got in mind include something about the social life of plants (yes, really), more on the beach bums of the plant world who survive on the sand dunes, the wonderful plants of the garrigue, a botanic garden mystery ( a Kewdunnit) – and much more. Hope to see you again many more times in 2013.
And there will be more Brazilian music too. Here’s the genius Baden Powell showing how to play with a lit cigarette:
an entangled bank 