stars in cottonwoods

I learned about the star shape inside cottonwood twigs from a Lakota story. The stars were not always in the sky. They originated in the earth, seeking roots from which they could be born. The sound of water drew them to the cottonwood roots (since this tree often thrives near water). They traveled upward into the trees, waiting for wind to snap the branches, releasing the stars into the sky. The story made me wonder if other trees have this star shape inside their twigs and branches, and what purpose does the star pattern inside the twigs serve (other than cosmological)?

In exploring winter twig keys and a story by Deb Mowry of the Montana Natural History Center, I learned that this five-pointed (also called five-angled) star shape is common in Populus (aspen, poplar, cottonwood) and Salix species (members of the willow family) but is also found in oaks (Quercus), and chestnut (Castanea). The pith inside a stem is made of parenchyma (large, thin-walled cells), which are often a different color than surrounding wood (xylem). The pith’s function is to transport and store nutrients. Pith is usually lighter when new, but darkens with time (as seen in images like these of cottonwood “stars”).

Mowry’s story notes the importance of cottonwood to the belief systems of Native American tribes: the Lakota, the Cheyenne, the Arapaho, and the Oglala Sioux. Pacific Northwest naturalist and poet Robert Michael Pyle’s essay, “The Plains Cottonwood” (American Horticulturist, August 1993, pp.39-42), describes an Arapaho version of the story of the stars that you told above: “They moved up through the roots and trunks of the cottonwoods to wait near the sky at the ends of the high branches. When the night spirit desired more stars, he asked the wind spirit to provide them. She then grew from a whisper to a gale. Many cottonwood twigs would break off, and each time they broke, they released stars from their nodes.” Cottonwood twigs sometimes snap off without the assistance of wind, a self-pruning phenomenon called cladoptosis. Pyle suggests looking for twigs that are neither too young nor too weathered if you want to observe the clearest stars: “The star is the darker heartwood contrasting with the paler sapwood and new growth.”

Botany, Human-plant relationships, Populus

Marijuana or cannabis

Washington’s Governor recently signed a bill replacing the word marijuana with cannabis in the text of all state laws because some say the word has racist undertones. But isn’t cannabis from Linnaeus’s system of plant-naming, and isn’t that system implicitly racist, too?

How people feel about use of a particular word is something that evolves over time, and has a complex cultural context. The current sense that marijuana is a racist term is linked to the demonizing of Mexican immigrants and others outside the dominant culture and blaming them for ‘reefer madness,’ but the word on its own is not intrinsically racist. It was used in Mexico as early as 1840 for the plant called Cannabis, and its linguistic origins are uncertain: homophone for Maria Juana (uncertain origin: derived from Spanish mariguan, a non-native plant associated with other psychoactive plants known in Mexico), but potentially connected to a word for hemp used by Chinese laborers in Mexico, itself perhaps borrowed from Semitic and Indo-European words for marjoram—note the Spanish word mejorana, and the Mexican slang term for cannabis, mejorana Chino. West Africans, forcibly taken by the Portuguese slave trade to Brazil, used a term ma-kaña that is similar to the Portuguese term maconha. Theories abound. Though some feel the term should be dropped, others believe that to do so suppresses a history that is worth remembering.

Isaac Campos, professor of Latin American history at University of Cincinnati, and author of the book Home Grown: Marijuana and the Origins of Mexico’s War on Drugs (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012), challenges the idea that the word marijuana is racist. “Marijuana is just the Mexican word for drug cannabis.” The dubious associations of marijuana with insanity and criminal behavior did not originate in the United States, but first appeared in the Mexican press. Marijuana was made illegal in Mexico nearly two decades before the negative associations of the plant and its use reached the U.S. In his opinion, “the more complete story of the word marijuana is a story about the influence of Mexican culture. He believes banning the word would erase that history.” Undeniably, race and class have played a role in the enforcement of drug policies. This article from NPR’s Code Switch explores the subject.

You are right that the scientific name Cannabis is Latin. Linnaeus included it in Species Plantarum (1753). He did not restrict his classification schemes to plants, and it is true that he had theories about ‘varieties’ of human beings that we now recognize as wrong and harmful. Even the Latin name has a complex history:

The Latin name comes from Greek kannabis, which is derived from the Sanskrit root canna, meaning cane. There is a connection to Semitic languages as well (Arabic kunnab, Syriac kunnappa, Aramaic kene busma, etc.) In the book of Exodus 30:23, Moses receives instructions from god: “Next take choice spices: five hundred weight of solidified myrrh, half as much—two hundred and fifty—of fragrant cinnamon, two hundred and fifty of aromatic cane [kaneh bosem], five hundred—by the sanctuary weight—of cassia, and a hin of olive oil. Make of this a sacred anointing oil.” This might refer to hemp stalks, which were known and used in the Near East in biblical times, or it could refer to another aromatic cane-like plant.

Because societal attitudes change, it is important to be flexible when communicating with each other, and recognize that we do not all feel the same way about words. Delving into the history and etymology of plant names is one way of arriving at a nuanced understanding of why alternative terms might be preferable.

Botanical nomenclature, Common names, Human-plant relationships

Carob to carat

As an avid plant person who is also a metalsmith and jeweler, I was surprised to learn that we get the weight measure for stones (carat) from the ancients who used carob beans as a standard weight. Because “carob beans are unusually consistent in size. This means that carob beans usually all weigh the same, no matter when or where harvested!”

My mind is reeling! How can that be? Nature doesn’t do that! Every plant is unique, I thought, weather, soil, location should change the harvest, I thought. Am I mistaken?

On that last point, you are not mistaken: there is variability in the weight of carob seeds, but it is relatively small. Ceratonia siliqua is in the bean/legume family [Fabaceae]. It is not the elongated carob pod that was used as a standard, it’s the seeds contained in that pod ( a typical pod contains about 10 seeds). Seeds from female trees are relatively consistent (0.197 grams or 1/150th of an ounce). This weight was standardized to 200 milligrams in 1907, and continues to be in use.

The scientific paper Seed size variability: from carob to carats (Turnbull et al., 2006, Biology Letters: The Royal Society, published online 2006 May 2) attempts to explain the “myth of constant seed weight.” As far back as ancient Greece, there was a weight called a kerat (which is echoed in carob’s Latin genus name, Ceratonia). Keration was the Greek word for carob (possibly a Semitic loan word from Aramaic/Syriac karta meaning pod or husk), and its literal meaning was ‘little horn,’ which describes the shape of the pods (not the seeds). Siliqua, carob’s species name, was the Latin word for carob, and used to refer to the smallest subdivision of the Roman pound. Carob seeds were no more consistent in mass than the other 63 species the article’s authors measured. They theorize that seeds used for weighing were a product of human selection.

Carob thrives in its native Mediterranean and Middle Eastern regions, and would simply have been readily available as a counterweight for precious substances, like gemstones and spices. Humans can perceive mere 5% differences in carob seed mass. In the ancient world, measurement of weight based on carob seeds would have been fairly dependable, based on the accuracy of the human eye—unless an unscrupulous vendor also kept sets of seeds that were heavier or lighter than the standard, either to shortchange or overcharge!

Ceratonia siliqua, Human-plant relationships, Seeds

red and green plants and Christmas

Are the colors red and green associated with Christmas solely due to holly leaves and berries? And what is the origin of kissing under the mistletoe?

Holly’s red fruit and evergreen foliage is at least one reason for that color combination, as the plant has had ceremonial connections dating back to Roman Saturnalia. This carried over into Christianity, where holly was the locally available plant in Europe that called to mind the Crown of Thorns. The actual plant from which the crown was made was not Ilex aquifolium, however, but more likely Sarcopoterium spinosum (a common shrub in Israel, but not widespread in Europe).

Advertising also played a role in popularizing the red-green combination, as this story from National Public Radio mentions:
“Victorian Christmas cards used a lot of different palettes (red and green, red and blue, blue and green, blue and white) and they often put Santa in blue, green or red robes. All that changed in 1931. ‘Coca-Cola hired an artist to create a Santa Claus,’ Eckstut says. ‘They had done this before, but this particular artist created a Santa Claus that we associate with the Santa Claus today in many ways: He was fat and jolly — whereas before he was often thin and elf-like — and he had red robes.'”

Roy Vickery’s Garlands, Conkers and Mother-Die: British and Irish Plant-Lore (Continuum, 2010) mentions holly, mistletoe, and conifers used as decoration:
“It is often stated that Christmas evergreens are a survival from pre-Christian times, but it seems more probable that they were brought in simply to provide extra colour. In earlier times, it seems as if any evergreen plant was brought in at Christmastide, but since the end of the nineteenth century only holly, mistletoe, and various conifers have been regularly used. In theory, if not in practice, Christmas greenery should not be brought in before Christmas Eve, and should be taken down before Twelfth Night (January 6), or, more rarely, New Year’s Day.”

About mistletoe (obligate hemiparasitic plants, either Viscum album in Europe, or Phoradendron leucarpum in North America), Vickery says:
“Following Pliny the Elder’s report of Druids collecting mistletoe, it has been regarded as a pagan plant [Druids associated it with the sacred oak tree], and as such was banned from churches. One of the attractions of hanging up mistletoe indoors is the custom of kissing beneath it, a custom which is said to be unique to, or have originated in, the British Isles.”

That tradition may have developed because of mistletoe’s associations with fertility and death. According to The Green Mantle by Michael Jordan (Cassell, 2001), “the tradition was begun in the 18th century in England when a ball of mistletoe was hung up and decorated with ribbons and ornaments. We are , in fact, performing a small rite, in the part of the year when nature appears dead, guarding ourselves against the powers of the netherworld and strengthening our ability to procreate as winter turns to spring.”

Traditions wax and wane, and apparently the early 1970s were a low point for mistletoe, as this item in The Guardian, December 20, 1972 states:
“Covent Garden traders reported that this year’s sales of mistletoe are the worst for years. One reader said, ‘It’s a different sort of age. When they strip off naked in Leicester Square you can see why. They don’t need mistletoe today.'”