If you’re not looking for them, you probably won’t see them. The tiny flowers of Maryland figwort Scrophularia marilandica, a member of the figwort family (Scrophulariaceae), range from reddish to almost brown in color. The flowers look like a miniature upside down scoop. The leaves and the root have been used medicinally. A tea of the leaves is traditionally used as a folk remedy for restlessness, anxiety and a mild sleep aid. Native groups used the root for fevers, hemorrhoids, and as a diuretic.

One of the most beautiful fall wildflowers, cardinal flower Lobelia cardinalis, has striking scarlet blooms. It’s a difficult plant to photograph because the vibrant flowers have a somewhat reflective texture making it easy to get an over-exposure blowing out details. Therefore, if using a reflective metering system, the photographer must adjust the exposure with an 18 percent gray background. The root and leaves were used by indigenous groups for various purposes. The root infusion was used for stomachache, syphilis, typhoid and worms. Leaf tea was utilized for colds, crop, nosebleed, fever and other uses. Historically, it was mentioned as a possible substitute for Lobelia or Indian-tobacco (Lobelia inflata), but considered weaker. Cardinal flower is an obscure medicinal plant seldom if ever used and best appreciated as a wildflower. See Foster and Duke 2nd edition (2002) for more information on medicinal use of various Lobelias.

American hogpeanut Amphicarpaea bracteata is one of those wildflowers you might not notice if you weren’t look for it. This member of the pea family has an edible root and apparently edible seed pods. The Pawnee are said to have collected and eaten the tiny beans found in the seed pod. The Omaha were observed collecting the nut-like tuber from the stores of field mice who had put them away for the winter. The root was also recorded as a possible treatment for diarrhea in tea.

Several members of the genus Bidens are referred to by the common name “Spanish needles.” A rather small inconspicuous plant that most might call a “weed” Spanish needles Bidens bipinnata, an aster family member (Asteraceae), has bipinnate (twice pinnately divided) leaves as the species name implies. An obscure medicinal plant, the Cherokee were reported to chew the leaves to treat a sore throat.

Elderberry bushes were in full fruit a week ago. Today, however, all of the fruits are gone. We managed to spend a couple hours shooting them in their prime. See our new elderberry images.

There are several genera of cactus native to desert regions of North and South America that are known as Night-blooming Cereus. In my neighborhood, the most commonly grown species is Epiphyllum oxypetalum. My neighbor’s twenty-year old plant bloomed for the first time last night. This species is native to southern Mexico and adjacent Guatemala and widely grown as a houseplant elsewhere and outdoors in warmers climates. See my Night-blooming Cereus images.

An endless source of frustration for gardeners, casual plant lovers, and even professional botanists is the endless name changing game, which seems to be more about some taxonomist somewhere seeing their name in print than providing a nomenclature that is useful and stable. If the botanical “code” like the zoological “code” didn’t allow the “authors” of new plant names to have their initials after the name, then botanical nomenclature would be much more stable (in my opinion). Sometimes, however, it just comes down to the preference of either “lumpers” or “splitters.”  The lumpers like to stick everything together under one roof. Splitters like to give every little nuance a separate identity. In 1994 R. Bolli did a an exercise in lumping called “Revision of the Genus Sambucus” [elderberries] (Diss. Bot. 223; 1-227, pl. 1-29). I imagine Bolli had good reasons for reducing many familiar elder species to subspecies of Sambucus nigra beyond seeing his name at the end of the new names. In Flora of Missouri Vol 2. (2006, Missouri Botanical Garden Press), George Yatskievych characterizes Bolli’s treatment of the Sambucus nigra six subspecies as a “very broadly circumscribed vision of that species”, and instead uses the pre-Bolli taxonomic designations. However, the government databases Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS) uses Bolli and USDA’s Germplasm Resouces Information Network (GRIN) uses pre-Bolli nomenclatural treatments. Recent works also place Sambucus in various botanical families including the Caprifoliaceae, Sambucaceae and Adoxaceae. We await new volumes with treatments of Sambucus in the English edition of Flora of China and volume 18 of Flora of North America to see how the genus will be treated in those works. Plant lovers must understand that botanical nomenclature is a “science of opinion.” Can’t the powers that be in botanical taxonomy create a taxonomic “supreme court” to arbitrate these opinions or appoint a “supreme leader” of taxonomic nonsense to give us struggling botanical peons some sense of right and wrong? For now, I’m sticking with the old tried and true nomenclature, just because, hey if there’s a “L.” as the authority of the name, I’l still put my trust in Linnaeus. His motives were not clouded by the need to publish or perish. We have new photo galleries of elder (Sambucus species) at the links below using the old nomenclature, which I “publish” (a dubious word in relation to the internet), in hopes that someone might license one or two images so that I don’t perish. . . .

Sambucus canadensis

Sambucus cerulea

Sambucus chinensis

Sambucus ebulus

Sambucus mexicana

Sambucus nigra