Curious About Human Nature

This blog entry deviates from the Nature I like to talk about. It focuses today on Human Nature. But there comes a time when even a non-political person like myself must speak out. Having taught reading and English to high school students in a racially mixed suburban/urban setting, I find the opposition to President Obama's desire to speak to America's children and to encourage them to write letters suggesting ways to improve our country an abominable condemnation on our society. I am not sure these words fully convey my utter amazement that the media portrays these naysayers as rational objectors. If not, let me reiterate my disgust. I spent 36 years teaching these young adults who found coping with their lives (and I am referring to poverty and all its pitfalls) not only difficult but intolerable, who did not understand that education (besides a sports scholarship) was the way out and up. I know reaching these children by any means is the most important goal. Having said that, I find it deplorable that any teacher, any parent, and caring adult could find fault with the President's plan.

Where are all the other voices who value the President's no-nonsense approach to getting the job done, whether it be education or health care?

Sneezeweed

Sneezeweed, or Heliums, is also called swamp sunflowers. Even though it is the green leaves that were often used to make snuff, sneezeweed certainly makes you think it is a plant any mischief-maker, young or old, would like to find. Does it really make you sneeze? One sniff and you will know.

I do not know if sneezeweed makes a cow sneeze. But if she eats it, her milk will sour. Horses and sheep can also eat too many of the poisonous powder heads with a fatal outcome.

The Menominee Indians of Wisconsin applied a compound of dried flowers to cuts on the temple to relieve a headache or sniff the snuff to cause sneezing to clear a stuffy head or to relieve a headache.

The Meswaki Indians of Iowa used an infusion made from the florets to help a gastrointestinal problem and the snuff for colds.

The Comanche used an infusion of the florets as a wash for a fever.

The poisonous sneezeweed is nothing to sneeze at! The plant’s poison that comes from a chemical compound called sesquiterpene is more potent when is flowering. It is this chemical that gives the plant its bitter taste. Ingesting it can cause some nasty results such as weakness, bloating, staggering, salivation and irregular pulse, spasms convulsions and death to name a few. Some people have been poisoned simple because some sneezeweed mixed with the harvested wheat.

Other well-known plants that also contain sesquiterpene are chrysanthemums, ragweed, sagebrush, and the sunflower.

Polar Bear! Polar Bear!

Polar Bear, Polar Bear

Your ice is melting all around you.

What will you do?

Polar Bear, Polar Bear,

Can you find a strong ice patch

To sit upon while you eat your catch?

Polar Bear, Polar Bear,

Without that tasty seal for dinner

You will get thinner and thinner.

Polar Bear, Polar Bear

You are the biggest bear of all

We must listen to your call.

Sassafras Travels From The New World To The Old World

The role of sassafras for Americans, and subsequently, Europeans is a story worth telling. The Spanish discovered the tree in the 1500’s and began shipping it to Europe. Some believe they also named the tree. However, sassafras is the Indian word for tree so there is some doubt. Moreover, sassafras, one of the top 100 common trees in American, was important to many tribes. The Choctaw Indians along the Gulf Coast taught the French how to make “file.” These ground sassafras leaves will thicken soup. Many other native Americans used the sassafras tree, including the Cherokee, Chippewa, Choctaw, Creek, Delaware, Oklahoma, Houma, Iroquois, Kosati, Mohegan, Nanticoke, Rappahannock, Seminole.

There is no question that when the Spanish exported this strong citrus root and leaves to Europe they started a health craze equal to any we see today. The Europeans considered it an elixir for rheumatism, wounds and even, old age. If you were to dig up the root and peel back the bark, the spicy smell will immediately remind you of root beer because the root of this tree is used to make this soda. Some tea drinkers enjoy the root's taste regardless of its medicinal benefit. Others use the root to make brown dye.

By the way, I would like identify the other 99 most common trees in America? Any ideas?

Sassafras Tea, Anyone?

The best thing about nature reading is making the discovery in real life. This happened to me today. Lately I have been learning more about the sassafras tree. Now I know there are those of you who think my discovery is akin to a toddler picking up a stick. When I spotted the very identifiable three-lobed leaf, I picked and crushed it ,enjoying its lemony scent... nature’s magic. I cannot wait to share this moment with my granddaughter. Still excited about my discovery, I set out on a more thorough internet search. One of first bits of information I learned, as I usually do on these journeys, is that I am not the first to investigate the sassafras story. And, in this case, our country’s early history is very closely connected to the sassafras tree. Another blogger explained what I thought I saw today-very different leaf shapes on the same tree- but dismissed as impossible.

Another interesting fact is that Amazon lists over 100 books with "sassafras" in the title. Of course, there is Sassafras the elephant, caterpillar, poodle, or skunk. I guess the repeating s's attract attention. But the tree received a lot more attention as a medicinal cure. More on the sassafras story tomorrow.

Where Have All The Codfish Gone?

Where have all the codfish gone,

Asked the hungry seal to the polar bear?

Where have the codfish gone,

Asked the salmon to the narwhal?

Where have all the codfish gone,

Asked the ivory gull to all his Arctic friends?

The codfish asked

Where have all my plants and plankton gone?

Melted away. Melted away, sighed the little boy

Sitting in the sun.

Let us work towards keeping this environmental nursery rhyme a tale, not a truth.

What Is In A Name?

The etymology of Yellow toadflax begins with it older and more useful cousin. Although Yellow Toadflax has been in North America for the last 300 years old, compared to its namesake, flax, it is still a youngster. Flax was one of the first crops cultivated by civilized man. Therefore some suggest it was native to the Orient and then traveled south to India and north to Europe. The Swiss Stone Age People of the Mediterranean used the fiber and the seed. The Egyptians wrapped their mummies in linen woven from flax fibers.  

Now no one denies the connection between the true flax and its weedy cousin. Many of these weedy species of Linaria look very much like flax. However, this link makes tracing the “toad” in toadflax somewhat unclear.  Some say that toadflax got its name because the word “toad” was a spurious, or counterfeit, of the origin plant. Considering the plethora of common names gives to yellow toadflax, this seems plausible. Common names often take on the observer sees. Some see a cow’s nose, or Calves Snout, in the orange lobes. Others suggest that the plants structure (the two orange lobes) resemble a toad’s mouth.   A third theory is that toads were often found hiding among the leaves.  The butter & egg, or wild snapdragon, is one of 130 species of Linnaria, native to Eurasia.