With their vast numbers and characteristics, fungi can grow in a range of habitats, from extreme desert areas to deep-sea sediment. Some can survive strong ultraviolet rays and even cosmic radiation during space travel, which has led some speculative theorists to believe the first fungi on earth may have arrived on asteroids or from another world. In addition, fungi reproduce through many complex phenomena. Depending on the environment, most species of fungi can practice either sexual or asexual reproduction. Asexual reproduction occurs through spores or by mycelial fragmentation, where the mycelium divides into pieces, each of which grows into a separate new organism. Asexual fungi spread much more rapidly than the sexual variety. A third reproduction method, practiced by fungi such as Penicillium and Aspergillus, is parasexual. The process, called plasmogamy, involves a fusion of two parent fungal cells. Although parasexualism is considered important in hybridization and in the evolution of fungi, exactly how and why fungi adapted as they have remains unexplained. Fungi form a strange and secret kingdom, perhaps with many biological and chemical treasures yet to be revealed.
GARLIC
Allium sativum
Vampire Killer
A small vegetable with many meanings, uses, benefits, and myths, garlic is highly regarded worldwide. In some regions it not only is considered a precious food but retains a folkloric symbolism as a protector against evil and illness. Garlic is guaranteed to make every meal more flavorful and healthy, and provides great benefits to our cardiovascular system. Its seven thousand years of use on this planet speaks for itself; even ancient Egyptians found uses for the plant, both medical and culinary.
Garlic belongs to the Allium genus of the Amaryllidacae family, and is a close cousin to onions, chives, leeks, rakkyo, and shallots. Its flowers are hermaphrodites that are pollinated by bees and other insects. Humans cultivate the plant for its bulb, which is usually 2 inches long and wide, consisting of numerous small cloves. Both the bulb and cloves are “packed” in paperlike tiny sheaths of white, pinkish, or purplish color. Garlic can grow up to 4 feet tall, with two long green leaves; its cloves have a firm texture but are still easily crushed. Describing its unique and intense taste is no simple task—a hot pungency hits the palate, but not without a subtle background of sweetness to it.
Where It’s From
Allium sativum is thought to have originated in southwestern Asia, though today the plant is cultivated throughout the world, and China is the leading producer. Garlic needs soil rich with highly organic material, although it will grow in a wide spectrum of terrain and acidity. Two of the most popular species are elephant garlic, actually a wild leek, and single-clove garlic, which originated in Yunnan, China. Garlic prefers mild climates and doesn’t bloom year-round. Although it can undergo sexual reproduction, garlic nearly always propagates asexually by depositing its cloves in the soil.
Growing
In colder regions, garlic grows from autumn until spring, when it is ready for harvest. To prevent frost, which causes white rot or mold, from endangering the plant’s growth, cloves need to be planted quite deep within the soil and close to one another, with enough space for bulbs to grow and mature. It grows well in dry, loose, well-drained, sunny fields. Farmers select only large cloves for planting, as they yield bigger bulbs. The scape, a leafless flower stalk, will grow above the ground, but farmers remove this prior to harvest so the plant can concentrate all its energy into the bulb. Scapes can, however, be eaten, either cooked or raw.
Health Benefits
Garlic, both raw and cooked, has many widely praised health benefits. It improves the whole cardiovascular system, unblocking blood vessels and lowering the body’s level of triglycerides and cholesterol; it also has anti-inflammatory and antioxidative effects. Garlic is also recommended for cancer prevention and improving the metabolism of iron, as well as for antiviral and antibacterial protection. It can even function as an antiseptic agent. Consuming garlic regulates the sugar level in the blood and boosts testosterone levels. Most famously, garlic is known as the best vegetable for warding off vampires, a legend that even predates Bram Stoker’s iconic Dracula.
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During the era of bubonic plague in the Middle Ages, people wore crosses and a veritable grocery store of vegetables, including onions, leeks, and garlic, around their necks, in the hope of warding off the evil disease. Although there is no science to prove that wearing garlic did any good, it perhaps helped people to keep their distance from one another and reduce the chances of catching this communicable disease.
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GIANT HOGWEED
Heracleum mantegazzianum
Turn and Run!
Right off the bat: do not touch this plant! While it won’t kill you, giant hogweed can easily land a person in the hospital. It contains sap that in combination with sunlight and moisture can cause painful blistering, severe skin and eye irritation, and even permanent blindness and scarring. So it’s worth the effort to learn what giant hogweed looks like. A noxious herb belonging to the carrot family of Apiaceae, hogweed can grow perennially or biennially; it can reach up to 14 feet high, with a hollow, stout stem 2 to 4 inches in diameter and dark purple-reddish pigmentation. The big, incised, and compound leaves can be up to 5 feet wide; on the flat, formed top of foliage grow white flowers, or heads, around 2 feet in diameter.
Giant hogweed, Heracleum mantegazzianum, goes by many other names, such as cartwheel flower, giant cow parsley, giant cow parsnip, wild rhubarb, and wild parsnip. It is a phototoxic weed, considered noxious in most cases. The phototoxic effect comes from compounds called furocoumarin derivatives, which are designed to ward off predators and are active in all parts of the plant, including the roots, stem, flowers, and seeds. The plant is native to Central Asia, more precisely to the Caucasus region, but has now spread to Britain, the United States, Canada, Ireland, Sweden, Finland, France, Germany, the Czech Republic, Belgium, and Latvia.
One Final Gift
Giant hogweed lives no more than seven years. Its roots are tuberous, and each year they produce perennial buds, though the flowers appear only in the last year of its life cycle, blooming in its final days, from spring to midsummer. During this finale, the plant produces numerous white flowers inside umbrella-like heads, growing up to 3 feet in diameter. The hogweed then bears 1,500 to 100,000 oval, dry, speck-size flattened seeds, which it entrusts to the wind for dispersal. After the mature seeds are released, the plant dies, usually in autumn. Despite the toxicity, giant hogweeds are highly appreciated among beekeepers; many believe that bees are able to make the sweetest possible honey from its nectar—another example of nature’s strange sensibility. It’s as if this final gift of sweetness is its redemption for its years of poisoning. Even more bizarrely, cows and pigs are able to consume giant hogweed without any harm.
Antidotes
If you touch Heracleum mantegazzianum, quickly and thoroughly wash the affected area with water and soap, and keep yourself away from sunlight for forty-eight hours. Contact your doctor and report the plant’s location to the appropriate agency. Don’t even think of rubbing your eyes with your hands after touching giant hogweed—you could become permanently blind, or develop some nasty purplish or black scars that can last for years.
A 1971 song by the band Genesis, “The Return of the Giant Hogweed” (off the Nursery Cryme album), relates the history of giant hogweed’s introduction to Great Britain in the nineteenth century, where it was once touted as an ornamental plant: “Turn and run! Nothing can stop them. Around every river and canal their power is growing.”
Whatever else Genesis might have meant with the song, this is the best possible advice when dealing with hogweed. If you ever encounter the plant, abandon curiosity and courage—just turn and run!
GINKGO
Ginkgo biloba
Leaves like Duck Feet
In traditional Chinese herbalism, the ginkgo is a champion specimen. Ginkgo tastes similar to almonds and smells like rancid butter; some clai
m it can cure Alzheimer’s disease, increase blood circulation, act as an antioxidant, and alleviate lung ailments. The ancestral origins of this plant go back an amazing 270 million years. Gingko extracts have played a crucial role in Chinese medicine for centuries, while Western medicine has only recently started to study their benefits. The German government has already approved the plant for use in the treatment of poor concentration and memory loss. Most interesting is that ginkgo would likely not exist today if not for ancient Buddhist monks in China and Japan, who cultivated it as a sacred tree. Scientists believe ginkgo evolved from seed ferns, of the order Peltaspermales. Ginkgo plants have an incredible longevity of one thousand years or more.
Ginkgo biloba is basically a living fossil—it is the only surviving species of ginkgo today. To survive so long as the sole remaining member of its family should earn the plant a deep bow from botanists everywhere, though perhaps we owe some (one-handed!) applause to the monks for keeping it alive. Ginkgo are classified as gymnosperms and first appeared in the Permian period of prehistory, an era before flowering plants. Some argue ginkgos may now be evolutionarily closer to conifers than to other gymnosperms. Ginkgos flourished during the Jurassic and Cretaceous epochs, converging in later periods into a single polymorphic species, named Ginkgo adiantoides, which is practically indistinguishable from the Ginkgo biloba trees we see today.
Pinch the Nose
Present-day ginkgo differs from its predecessors in its fan-shaped, light green leaves. The Japanese call it I-cho, meaning “tree with leaves like a duck’s foot.” Ginkgo leaf edges are wavy with parallel veins, and lack a central vein. Its bark is smooth and gray. This flowerless plant can grow from 30 to 100 feet high and produces a massive amount of seeds, which have been a staple of Chinese cuisine for centuries. When gathered in a sort of compost heap manner, the seeds give off an overpowering smell, often described in horticultural literature as “repulsive,” “disgusting,” or “offensive,” even earning comparison to the odor of vomit. The smell comes from a malodorous chemical known as butyric acid, which is found in every ginkgo seed.
Built-in Adaptation
Ginkgoes grow wild only in China, but people cultivate the crop worldwide. Its long evolutionary history has made it a highly adaptable plant that can succeed in practically any temperate climate. Ginkgo is extremely resistant to pests and pollution, which has allowed it to thrive in urban locales. Given its slow rate of evolution, it is very possible that ginkgo has developed unique strategies for surviving that have allowed it to exist for as long as it has through countless changing environments. One advantage is the plant’s large seed production, which statistically favors propagation. Another helpful characteristic is the plant’s habit of “bolting”—a rapid growth spurt whereby the 30-foot trunk forms before any elongate branches appear. This periscope-like method of shooting its trunk to the sky may have given the plant a preliminary sample of the environmental conditions in which it has found itself.
GYMNOSPERMS
Protective Parents
Gymnosperms are flowerless seed-bearing plants, such as cycads, conifers, gnetophytes, and ginkgos. The name comes from the Greek gymnospermos, meaning “naked seeds,” which describes the plants’ seeds, also known as ovules, which appear unenclosed in an unfertilized state. Fossils indicate gymnosperm evolution probably began about three hundred million years ago; most became extinct, except for ferns. Gymnosperms comprise about 1,000 living species in 88 genera, divided into 14 plant families; they are remarkably diverse in their leaf types and reproductive structures.
Self-Sufficient
Gymnosperms also differ from other seedless plants in that they do not rely on pollinators to transport the male gamete to the female gamete; they accomplish this feat with nothing more than the wind. As such, gymnosperms must produce a large amount of pollen, which many of us can’t help but notice every spring. Next, the pollen is located in conelike structures named strobili (from the Latin word for pinecone, strobilus). The pines and a few other plants in this family have seeds with “wings” that help in dispersal. Each male can produce 1 to 2 million pollen grains a year—success in statistical abundance! They also have an inventive pollination strategy: they use sticky surfaces of the seed-bearing part of the plant to catch pollen grains. After pollination has been achieved, the droplets contract and evaporate, closing the grains inside the pollen chambers to make contact with ovules. This is what’s happening inside a pinecone.
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Gymnosperms have significant economic uses. Species such as pine, spruce, fir, and cedar (all of them beautiful trees) are used for lumber. Other uses include production of soaps, nail polish, varnish, gum, food, and perfume.
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HEMLOCK
Conium maculatum
Socrates’s Choice
Hemlock is yet another highly toxic plant that can cause serious health problems, even death. Conium is a genus of two species of herbaceous, perennial, poisonous flowering herbs in the Apiaceae family. The hemlock species, Conium maculatum, is native to the Mediterranean region, and the other, Conium chaerophylloides, comes from southern Africa. According to Merriam-Webster, the word hemlock comes from the Old English hemlic, which was the name of the tree. The plant has other names, such as woomlicks, beaver poison, poison parsley, bunk, hever, caise, devil’s flower, and gypsy flower. It even has more regional nicknames: break-your-mother’s-heart (wow!), lady’s lace, scabby hands, and others. A very inspiring plant, obviously. Conium derives from the Greek konas, meaning “vertigo” or “whirl”—both symptoms of the plant’s intoxicating poison.
Hemlock is a biennial, herbaceous plant that can grow from 3 to 5 feet tall. It has a smooth green stem, often streaked or spotted on the lower half with purple or red—a warning from nature of the plant’s toxicity. Its leaves have an overall triangular shape, divided and lacy, and grow about 1½ feet long and nearly as wide. Its small white flowers, clustered in umbels, are ½ inch in diameter. When crushed, a hemlock leaf or root emits an unpleasant, rank odor, similar to that of parsnips.
Hemlock is native to the temperate regions of West Asia, Europe, and North Africa but has since spread to North America, Australia, and New Zealand. It often grows near surface waters, such as streams and ditches, as well as on waste areas, roadsides, and the edges of cultivated fields. In some countries, it is treated as an invasive plant. Conium maculatum prefers damp areas with poorly drained soils; it flourishes in early spring, before other foliage appears. All parts of the plant are poisonous, though once dried the toxicity drops significantly. But don’t hold any illusions of attempting to use dried hemlock—it is still dangerous. Though never safe for humans, hemlock is nice food for some larvae of the Lepidoptera order (these guys are nearly indestructible!), such as the silver-ground carpet moth.
The Mix
Hemlock contains conhydrine and N-methylconine, but its most poisonous alkaloid is coniine, which has a chemical structure similar to nicotine. This poison disrupts the central nervous system—a small dose can cause respiratory collapse. Coniine causes death by blocking the neuromuscular junction, which eventually stops your ability to breathe, causing you to suffocate. This won’t happen right away—drinking hemlock tea only makes you feel drunk at first. It may take from forty-eight to seventy-two hours for the full toxic effects to manifest. If you find yourself so poisoned, only artificial or mechanical ventilation can save you.
The Gentleman’s Choice
According to Christian mythology, the hemlock plant became poisonous after growing on the hillside of Jesus’s crucifixion. When his blood touched the plant, it turned forever toxic. However, the most infamous poisoning by hemlock is attributed to the Greek philosopher Socrates, who chose a hemlock drink as his preferred means of death—most sources say that he drank it mixed with water or as a tea. In the Phaedo, Plato claims that Socrates first felt a numbing in his limbs, after which the sensation overtook his entire body. Socrates maintained full awareness throughou
t his poisoning, and even continued to speak to those around him who witnessed his death. His last words reportedly were: “Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius. Please, don’t forget to pay the debt.” Socrates willingly drank the poison after being sentenced to death for his speeches and for his belief in humanistic and democratic principles. When he was ordered to either publicly deny his ideas or die, he chose death. However, because he was a respected gentleman, the court gave him the right to pick the manner in which he wished to have his death sentence carried out. Hemlock tea was his first choice.
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Hemlock is not actually related to the hemlock tree, which is in the pine family and not at all poisonous. The tree gets its name from its needles, which, when crushed, give off a similar smell to the toxic hemlock shrub.
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In Socrates’s last moment of lucidity he mentioned the god Asclepius, a mythological deity noted for healing. Scholars surmise that Socrates conceived of his death as the freeing of his soul from the unreasonableness of humanity and the confines of his body. However, Plato’s dignified description of Socrates’s death might be a bit romanticized, since hemlock poisoning would be a lot more painful and accompanied by convulsive gasping for breath.
The Big, Bad Book of Botany Page 12