Human Flower Project

Medicine

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Poodle Dog & Other ‘Biting’ Flowers

You know better than to eat just any flower (right?). With spring coming into bloom, check the picking impulse, too. Some blossoms will punish you for it.

Poodle dog bush (Turricula parryi) in flower—
It’s a tempting year for California hikers
Photo (detail): Arnie (fractalv)

In our continuing effort to keep looking beyond “just pretty” where flowers are concerned, we were thrilled—wincingly—to come upon Eugene Fields’s ominous story of ”poodle dog bush.” Sounds like man’s best friend. But Fields reports that the lavender flowers of Turricula parryi will bite.

The plant is blooming heartily now through the Santiago and Modjeska canyons of California. It’s an especially good year for the plant, as last October’s wildfires cleared the way for its resurgence. Hikers will encounter the tall blooming stalks now and may be tempted to break off a stem or two or three. Better leave that poodle be. The flowers produce an allergic skin reaction similar to poison oak.  “Symptoms range from itching to a rash or blisters lasting as long as two weeks. George Ewan with the Orange County Fire Authority said the pain is reminiscent to coming in contact with stinging nettles. ‘It’s like that that except it doesn’t wear off,’ Ewan said. ‘It goes for quite a while.’”

Unless you’re into scourges, pass on by (Info on newfangled styles of penance available upon request).

Many thanks to Arnie for supplying us with the beautiful photo of poodle dog bush in bloom (above). He writes that this specimen of Turricula parry was “found at about 5200’ elevation in the San Bernardino National Forest near Lake Arrowhead, CA. Bush was about 6 feet round and flowers towered over my head, the flowers being about 1” across.”

Another biting flower, from the Catalpa tree (Catalpa speciosa)
Photo: Missouri State Univ.

The poodle dog led us down a trail in search of other flowers toxic to human skin. The Ag Extension folks in Connecticut provide this good list of plants that cause dermatitis. Sometimes it’s the leaves, bark, roots, or sap that irritate skin, but flowers, even “pretty” ones, can cause outbreaks too. To use Cesar Milan’s terminology, ”Red Zone Dogs” of the flower world include Catalpa speciosa, Anthemis arvensis, and Ailanthus altissima (Tree of Heaven). The latter is often considered a “trash tree,” one with some fight in it. Ohio State botanists warn, “Gardeners who fell the tree may suffer rashes.”

Hickey? Nope. A blister caused by Giant Hogweed
Photo: Canadian Weed Science Society

Nobody should tangle with Zigadenus paniculatus flowers, which go by the name ”Death lily” for a reason. And we’ve written here before about the perils of Giant Hogweed (Heracleum mantegazzianum). In case you forgot, the photo at right shows what its blooms can do.

Just a drop more toxicity-- Florists have learned the hard way that some of our favorite flowers can injure the skin. No...not tulips? ‘Fraid so.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Extraordinary Fashion Pipal

A young designer, a craftsman of New Market, and an ancient holy leaf: Sandy Ao skips along with Kolkata’s latest foot fashion.

Dried leaves of pipal (Ficus religiosa)
100 sell for 25 Rupees at New Market in Kolkata
Photo: Sandy Ao

Last night in the classroom of a Catholic church here in Austin, TX, we spotted an interesting calendar. It was round, and divided the year into liturgical slices: the sacred seasons—like Lent, Easter, and Advent—and big chunks of ”Ordinary Time.” Western culture seems especially prone to demarcations like this. We apply the psychic Marks-A-Lot—a lot! Let’s draw a thick line between what’s sacred and what’s profane, between the “work week” devoted to money-grubbing and the “Sabbath” for piety and giving back.

Perhaps the same thing goes on in India. We’re quite ignorant about Indian culture, have never even had the pleasure of visiting. But from what we’re learning thanks to our friend Sandy Ao in Kolkata, India seems to reach for the Marks-A-Lot a whole lot less. Instead, the primary cultural tool there seems to be the spoon. Sacred and secular, ancient and modern, commercial and religious get stirred together. There’s less of a gap between holy festivals, next to no “ordinary time.”

Anupam Chatterjee of Kolkata,
a young Indian designer
using an ancient plant
Photo: Sandy Ao

Sandy Ao set us off on this train of thought with some pictures she took recently at Kolkata’s huge New Market, formally known as the Hogg Bazaar. The shopping area was built in the mid-19th century so that English colonials wouldn’t have to rub shoulders with Kolkata natives. (Talk about Marks-a-Lot!) Today, though, and for many decades, the New Market has been everybody’s favorite place to shop. “In recent years we have many malls in Kolkata,” Sandy writes, “but New Market is still everyone’s choice.” Not only are prices better, she says, “It’s a paradise for the shoppers! You can get everything under the sky”

Even a pair of winged sandals. Sandy found ethereal footwear in the making during a recent visit to New Market. “It’s the idea of this young fashion designer from Kolkata. He is hardly 23 years old. His name is Anupam Chatterjee, a young man full of imagination and working hard towards his dream career - fashion designing.”

Anupam told Sandy he uses fresh flowers often, and even made a gown “fully covered with fresh jasmine.” For the sandals he chose pipal leaf, which dried looks like a swatch of white tulle. Years ago, Sandy tried her hand at creating this beautiful filigree. “When we were young in the school we used to pick up those fallen pipal leaves and would soak them in the water, excitedly changing the water daily and waiting for the green pigments of the leaves to fall off till the leaves turned to this beautiful fibre structure. Most of the time we would end seeing our pipal leaves letting us down.” The dried pipal leaves at New Market are processed locally, she says.  “For 100 perfect pieces of these leaves they charge Rs. 25/- only!!!  It’s like my dream come true.”

Imtiaz deftly folds pipal leaves into ‘flowers’
Photo: Sandy Ao

Anupam Chatterjee has been collaborating for two years with a New Market craftsman named Imtiaz. Buying pipal right there at the market, Imtiaz has learned how to fold the leaves into airy flowers by watching others in the stalls close by. He earns Rs. 100 apiece for each pair of fancy slippers, spooning the pipal flowers together, Sandy explains, with “duck feather, dried arecanut fibres and flowers made of reeds.” We’re not sure how Anupam prices the finished footwear, but he’s already received enthusiastic response. Liking the look of pipal leaf, Chatterjee used it in a recent fashion show. “And the show was a great success,” Sandy writes. “Who knows? He may be another Sabyasachi Mukherjee in the making!”

Pipal Tree, terracotta tile
Mohenjodaro, 2500 B.C.
in current day Pakistan
Photo: Iowa State Univ.

We don’t ordinarily mention shoe fashion and religion in the same breath, but, pipal (Ficus religiosa) is not ordinary. “The peepal is the first-known depicted tree in India: a seal discovered at Mohenjodaro, one of the cities of the Indus Valley Civilisation (c. 3000 BC - 1700 BC), shows the peepal being worshipped.” In the Vedic period, people used this wood as a firestarter, with the old rubbing method.

It is a deeply sacred plant for both Hindus and Buddhists.  According to legend, the Buddha received Enlightenment under the Bo (or pipal) tree. And here are several Hindu spoonfuls: Vishnu was believed to have been born under the pipal tree and Krishna to have died beneath it. “Some believe that the tree houses the Trimurti, the roots being Brahma, the trunk Vishnu and the leaves Shiva. The gods are said to hold their councils under this tree and so it is associated with spiritual understanding.”

How about a few dollops of science and manufacturing, too?: Ayurvedic medicine uses all parts of Ficus religiosa, and tannin from the bark works its way into Indian leather. Sandy relates also that in Bodh Gaya, folk artists paint on that region’s tougher pipal leaves: landscapes, portraits, and images of the Buddha.

Sandals with sacred pipal leaf and duck feathers
in Kolkata’s New Market
Photo: Sandy Ao

We asked Sandy if anyone would take offense at artists, designers and producers tinkering so freely with a plant holy as pipal.

“We are a country that loves arts and crafts, and always have an open mindedness for any creative work with a good sense,” she replied. “I am sure there will never be any objection coming from any side about this young designer using dry pipal leaf for his sandals. After all, these leaves do look like wings on feet, so unreal and so out of this world.”

Ordinary? What’s that?

Sunday, January 06, 2008

Myrrh: Wisely Given for Epiphany

The Gospel of Matthew records that the kings who came to Bethlehem to honor the birth the Jesus brought myrrh. What made the resin of an East African shrub a good baby gift?

Adoration of the Magi (detail)
by Pieter Bruegel (1564)
National Gallery of London

According to Christian tradition, a group of powerful and scholarly men arrived in Bethlehem January 6th to pay their respects to the tiny Messiah. They brought presents. In lieu of flowers—roses wouldn’t have fared well on the long trip—they offered gold and two aromatic plant products, frankincence and myrrh.

Myrrh (excellent SCRABBLE word for the vowelless) is actually resin from Commiphora myrrha, a plant native to Somalia (though the secretions of other varieties of Commiphora apparently go under this name, too). Ducts and cavities in the plant’s bark become filed with ”a granular secretion which is freely discharged” either from natural fissures or “when the bark is wounded.... It flows as a pale yellow liquid, but hardens to a reddish-brown mass.” Unsavory as all this sounds, the gummy result is myrrh, a substance prized since 2000 B.C.. Being exotic, it made a fitting gift for a god, but not for its rarity alone....

Commiphora myrrha
Köhler’s Medizinal-Pflanzen
Image: Caliban

It is hard for most of us to imagine how stinky ancient times were. Personal hygiene was rudimentary; as for Christ’s nursery, there were no mobiles or changing tables—Mary and Joseph were camping out in a barn. Anything that could overpower stench would have been precious. And myrrh can do that. Its fragrance is strong, and as the Christmas carol says, ”bitter." The ancient Egyptians used the resin in embalming; Jewish communities used it to anoint corpses.

Because of its association with death, myrrh was also a symbolic gift, an intimation of the Christ child’s destiny at the cross. Likewise, the plant’s thorns and slashes made in Commiphora’s bark to extract myrrh point to the Passion story. Myrrh granules are even referred to as “tears.” This may be the saddest present ever opened at a baby shower.

In addition to its honorific and symbolic character, myrrh also possessed practical value. It has long been used medicinally—to treat wounds, aid digestion, cure infections of syphilis and leprosy, and even promote menstruation. Hmm, maybe myrrh wasn’t for Jesus after all, but Mary.

Though the market for Baby Savior gifts is small today (also, the number of Magi consumers), Ethiopia exports over 70 tons of myrrh annually. “Tears” of Commiphora myrrh are used in perfumes, food flavorings, mouthwash, and adhesives. And its flowers? Here’s a lovely photo, not taken in January we’d presume, of Commiphora abyssinica as it blossoms.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Horticulture 201—Learning to Leap

Marcia Eames-Sheavly’s innovative course in art and horticulture may only look like an elective.

Cornell student Zach Aburahma and his tiki bar
class project for Horticulture 201
Photo: Courtesy of Marcia Eames-Sheavly

In our overlong stay at school, interdisciplinary research was a lot like motherhood: much extolled but hardly respected. We’ll leave the defense of motherhood to those better qualified. But we can and do endorse mixing up fields of study. Psychology and botany, cooking and philosophy, poetry and math, dentistry and military history (Really – If a face can launch a thousand ships, how many battalions might aching jaws have conscripted?)

Marcia Eames-Sheavly at Cornell University has been mixing it up for years now with a popular undergraduate course that’s also a human flower project: The Art of Horticulture. (Many thanks to our compadre Craig Cramer of Ellis Hollow—and Cornell U.-- for the spark.)

Marcia is a member of the horticulture faculty who’s at ease drawing and contemplating plants as well as growing them. In her Fall 2007 syllabus, she calls this course “a unique chance to view the world of plants from a very different perspective—an important one, given that observation and creativity are cornerstones of advancement in science.” For those of us knocked in the head with two other cornerstones—control and measurement—this approach to science brings out the sun.

Horticulture 201 invites all comers. In the semester just over, the class included, “a horticulture major, a handful of natural resource majors, some hotel school students, some art students, engineering...,” Marcia writes. For the most part, those differences don’t surface, she says, except when “we’re grafting, or doing something that is more horticultural—then the hort students might jump in to assist others.”

Students select readings from an eclectic list of titles – including Michael Pollan’s The Botany of Desire, Amy Stewart’s Flower Confidential, and David Masumoto’s Epitaph for a Peach, But two less orthodox assignments are central to the class—the keeping of a journal all semester long and a final project demonstrating the connection between horticulture and art. It’s with these reflective and expressive elements that, in our mind, Horticulture 201 takes the leap. Yeah, Mother!

Natural orchid sculpture, and its maker Chrissy Dykeman
for “The Art of Horticulture”
Fall 2007, Cornell Univ.
Photo: Marcia Eames-Sheavly

On the Hort 201 website, you can see many intriguing class projects past: a young woman sitting underneath a table, exploring “garden archetypes”; someone’s “turtle corral”; a young man proudly extending a scarf just dyed with indigo; “A Girl’s Life as Told in Flowers” (We’d be eager to read that); a very fine sod cow.

Throughout the semester, there are guided writing assignments. From the student journals, Marcia has graciously sent us these excerpts:

“The truth is that flowers speak many languages, hold many meanings, and, depending on the moment, the same variety can conjure up totally opposing feelings.  In the best of times, I can see the face of God in them.  In the worst of times, they remind me of my mortality.”

After a class on floral design, one student wrote:

“It’s interesting, after the labs on ikebana and floral arrangement, how the concept of beauty has evolved for me. In a world so driven by immediate gratification, most of us have come to view beautiful plants as only those bearing a dramatic flower bursting with color. But I have found that beauty is not just flower-deep; so many other parts of the plant can be used in so many creative ways, that the possibilities of creating something beautiful are endless.”

One writer found her conscience stung by the flowers provided in a design workshop. “While I fretted about the way in which the flowers had been grown (Organically? Sustainably?) and the conditions for workers (Were they fairly treated? Fairly paid? Exposed to chemical pesticides and herbicides?), I also battled the desire to have a giant, colorful ikebana, complete with giant southeast Asian ginger flowers. After much deliberation, I decided I wanted to create a display that would showcase plants we could find around town.  I tried to pick items that looked like they could have been found locally (Ithaca, New York)—cattails, goldenrod flowers, and a few stones from the driveway. At the end, I was pleased with my display.”

Another assignment drew out a memoirist – descendant of William Wordsworth?

“My boyfriend and I drove by this huge field of orange tiger lilies every day that he picked me up, which was frequently. Every time we drove by I was fascinated by how colorful they were, and by the sheer volume of how many there were growing wild in this field.  Then one day, when he came to pick me up, I got a huge pile of these flowers. Tiger lilies don’t last that long, and these were almost at the top of the hill, but they were still brilliant, and I got to think about the huge field of color whenever I looked at them.”

Interdisciplinary research, at least ten years ago, when we were breaking loose of the academy, had constantly to make a case for itself. Is this work publishable in a scholarly journal? Or will it lead to a tenure track job? Professor Eames-Sheavly tells us, “My sense is that the change is more internal and within students, less about which class comes next.  By that I mean they often indicate, at semester’s end, in their journals, that through the course they have learned that they need reflective time in their lives, time to intentionally bring in opportunities for creativity, and that they want to continue journalling. They often talk about how they have discovered that engaging in the course activities, final projects and so forth, they have discovered that taking time to take a walk in a garden or to work on a painting actually refreshes them, and that they are more ready to finish that paper, or take that exam, than they would have been had they ground away at that paper all afternoon(!) What an important life discovery!”

Flowered shoes, by Bethany Tong, the Art of Horticulture, Fall 2007
Photo: Courtesy of Marcia Eames-Sheavly

And what an important time to make that discovery, Marcia. Idyllic as the college years might seem to those of us who’re pre- or post- or just non-academics, it’s not all whiff-n-poof on campus. May we turn back to science – psychiatry; it’s disclosing that more and more students are under strain. An article in Psychiatric News showed out of a survey of 16,000 college students (in 2000), 64% reported being “emotionally exhausted”; 38% reported they felt “so depressed it was difficult to function.”

What are college counselors recommending to help? A number of things, but among them are journaling, setting aside quiet time, and deepening one’s spiritual life – to this endless end, the University of Georgia’s Counseling Center specifically mentions gardening.

Professors and students – and whoever else would like to be “pleased with my display” – you may want to take a closer look at Marcia Eames-Sheavly’s syllabus. Whether you’re enrolled at Cornell or not, these assignments with their interdisciplinary arcs are efforts the best of times reward, and the worst of times demand.

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Georgia’s News Bouquet:  3rd Week of Oct.

Georgia Silvera Seamans, of local ecology, tidies up the news garden and brings back floral stories from Afghanistan, New York, and Kenya. Thank you, Georgia! 

Government agents destroyed an opium poppy crop in
Ningarhar, Afghanistan, in April, 2007. Some recommend
that the crop be harvested and used to supply needed
pain medications for people with chronic diseases.
Photo: Ahmad Masood, for Reuters

By Georgia Silvera Seamans

New York Times reporter, Donald G. McNeil, Jr., wrote about the use of the Afghan poppy as a pain reliever for the world’s poor. Senlis Council, a drug-policy think tank with based in London, Brussels, and Kabul, is advocating for “protected status” for Afghanistan’s poppy crops as opposed to the current U.S., British, and local Afghan governors’ policy of eradication.

The feverfew and the common bachelor button have also made the headlines, this time on ABCNews.com, for their curative properties.  The flowers contain parthenolide, a derivative of which is believed to be effective in the treatment of leukemia.  As of the reporting on October 9, phase one trials (to be conducted in Britain and, if successful, then the U.S.) have not yet begun.

In a less serious vein, a bride sued her florist over the “egregious” substitution of pastel green and pink hydrangeas for her contracted colors - dark green and russet.  Anemona (note that Anemone is a genus of species in the buttercup family) Hartocollis of the New York Times reported that the bride felt the pastels clashed with the décor of luxury restaurant Cipriani where the wedding was held.  The bride is seeking $400,000 in damages.  She paid $27,435.14.

Though working conditions in Kenya’s flowers farms have attacted international criticism and some major outlets in the U.K.have threatened to cut their consumption of African blooms, Kenyan growers have expanded their sales. Catherine Riungu writes for the East African that Kenya’s flower industry reports “an 8 per cent leap in market share for the period up to September.”

Finally, the Arizona Republic carried a Newsday story about an upstate New York resident who gardens with plastic flowers.  Perhaps gardening is not the most appropriate term for this activity.

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

No Direction Home: Compass Plant

With a navigational sunflower for a guide, Jill Nokes takes us wading into the Kansas prairie. Eyes out for Jill’s forthcoming book Yard Art and Handmade Places, due from University of Texas Press next month.

Compass plant
Silphium lacinatum
Photo: Jill Nokes

By Jill Nokes

What a thousand acres of compass plant looked like when they tickled the bellies of the buffalo is a question never again to be answered, and perhaps not even asked.

Aldo Leopold, A Sand Country Almanac

The Flint Hills of Kansas must be beautiful this time of year, when all the grasses reach their full height and glory. When we visited the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve near Strong City, Kansas, in July, abundant summer rains had hastened the growth and lushness of the grasses. Even that patriarch of the prairie, big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii), was beginning to bloom then.  Yet most vivid to me in that endless ocean of grass were the isolated stands of compass plant (Silphium lacinatum).

This slow-growing, long-lived, eye-catching member of the sunflower family can grow as tall as twelve feet, with roots as long or longer burrowing deep into the earth.  The species name lacinatum means torn, or jagged, and refers to the deeply cut, sandpapery leaves.  These leaves are held on the long stiff stems on a north-south axis; broadside to the sun morning and evening, but on edge at midday. This clever adaptation maximizes photosynthesis while minimizing evaporation during hot summer days.  Compass plant’s regular alignment with the cardinal points served as living guideposts to lost travelers who found themselves cast upon a landscape that seemed featureless and endless.

In his book PrairyErth (A Deep Map): An Epic History of the Tallgrass Prairie Country, William Least Heat Moon tells us, “Where these yellow rays of blossoms once grew in abundance ten feet high, some prairie tribes refused to camp, believing that the plants drew down lightning, yet during electrical storms the people burned the dried root to ward off thunderbolts.”

Besides meteorological and directional powers, compass plant offered the original prairie peoples an astounding number of medicinal uses. Extractions were made to treat rheumatism, scrofula, constipation, and from this same plant also came a diuretic, a diaphoretic, an expectorant, an anti-spasmodic, a vermifuge for their ponies, as well as a general tonic for listlessness. We don’t often regard medicinal plants as being pleasant-tasting, but many sources report that children would break open the stems and chew the hardened balsamic sap like gum.

Jill Nokes and a stand of Silphium lacinatum, August 2007
Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve near Strong City, Kansas
Photo: Courtesy of Jill Nokes

According to Moon, its name in several dialects translates as “big medicine.” Today, these protected remnant patches of virgin tallgrass prairies amount to only a tiny fraction of the original stands.  Grasslands are often difficult for people of European descent to interpret, understand, and value.  Listing the reported uses and meaning of just one single plant from the diverse mosaic of the tallgrass prairie, we are reminded of all the knowledge and wisdom that was lost when the prairies were plowed and grazed out of existence.  Perhaps the compass plant can help guide us back to a place of humble understanding.

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Corn Lily’s Black and White Magic

False hellebore, a mountain wildflower, has proven lethal, but scientists hope to harness its powers over cell development and use it to stop cancer.

Rocky Mountain Corn Lily (Veratrum californicum)
Photo: SW Colorado Wildflowers

The bane of sheep ranchers may lead to a breakthrough in oncology.

Veratrum californicum is a Rocky Mountain wildflower, variously known as the corn lily, false hellebore, and “skunk cabbage.” Several years ago, reports began appearing in the science journals that cyclopamine, a chemical compound in the corn lily, had shown some success in stopping “medulloblastoma cells, the most common brain cancer occurring in children,” from growing.

New research shows that this same compound may block the cell-signaling system of other brain cancers.

Cyclopamine seems to inhibit the so-called “Hedgehog gene” that directs cells to multiply. “Researchers have shown that radiotherapy fails to kill all cancer stem cells in glioblastoma” (brain tumors) “apparently because many of these cells can repair the DNA damage inflicted by radiation. The (Johns) Hopkins team suggests that blocking the Hedgehog pathway with cyclopamine kills these radiation-resistant cancer stem cells.” More than 10,000 people die of these brain tumors each year just in the U.S.

Thus far, the cyclopamine experiments have been conducted only on mice that have been implanted with human brain-cancer cells.

Cyclopamine
Image: wiki

Sheep ranchers have known for years about the power of Veratrum californicum. Ewes that ingest even small quantities of this plant during the 14th or 15th day of gestation have been known to give birth to deformed lambs. The terrible sign of corn lily poisoning is that offspring have only one eye (cyclopamine is named for the mythological one-eyed giant, Cyclops). The plant has posed a special problem for livestock in Southern Idaho and other parts of the Rockies, but more recently a lamb with this deformity appeared in Lublin, Wisconsin.

Rancher Jim Grajkowski said his sheep “had not been out west at any time, so they could not have been poisoned with the Corn Lily. The species most likely to have caused the damage was a close relative of Corn Lily, the False or White Hellebore (Veratrum viride), which ranges from New Brunswick and Quebec west to Minnesota, and southward as far as Maryland (but all the way to Georgia in the uplands) and in the Pacific Northwest.”

Cyclopamine, with its capacity to suppress the Hedgehog gene that signals cells to grow, is one powerful substance, capable of transforming “normal fetal and postnatal development, and, later in life, helping normal adult stem cells function and proliferate.” Quite a lot of voodoo for a Rocky Mountain wildflower.

The Johns Hopkins science team, led by Dr. Charles Eberhart, cautioned that the human brain research “is only in its early stages and there is much to be done before they can even begin to do testing with human subjects. They must first find out if it is possible for the drug to be delivered to the whole body safely and effectively or if it must only go into the brain. They must also see if there is any adverse effect on the healthy stem cells.”

Considering what this plant’s chemistry has done to sheep, we’d say so.

Students from Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory customarily parade
in “skunk cabbage” costumes on the 4th of July in Crested Butte, CO
Photo: mjcyrus

On the blithe (but still scientific) side, we’ve learned that the 4th of July celebration in Crested Butte, Colorado, includes a frolicsome Corn Lily custom. For the past twenty years, students of the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory have dressed up in the big pleated leaves of False hellebore and paraded through town. Maybe they’ve been expecting huge things from Veratrum californicum all along (or maybe its leaves are just big and plentiful enough each summer around Crested Butte to cover a multitude of embarrassments).

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Girl Trees of Beijing

With spring “snows” of tree catkins, is China once more biased against females?

A police officer stands in a shower of tree catkins
outside a foreign embassy in Beijing, April 18, 2007
Photo: Greg Baker, for AP

Greg Baker of the Associated Press snapped some fine pictures of April snow flurries in Beijing – not precipitation, actually, but pollen from the city’s tens of thousands of willow and poplar trees.

Uniformed guards look stoical as flecks of white fall outside an embassy. A man on the sidewalk winces, and our sinuses ache in sympathy. AP’s cutline says: “Blossoms of female poplar and willow trees invade the city each spring, causing discomfort to people with allergies and even disrupting traffic due to reduced visibility. After issuing regulations in 2001 allowing only male poplars and willows to be planted, city authorities now plan to inject many of the remaining female trees with growth inhibitors to stop them reproducing and producing the blossoms.”

Writer Ron Fox also makes reference to the anti-female tree program. “I believe the culprit is a variety of cottonwood poplar…. Catkins are everywhere. They rain on you if there is a breeze. The female tree is responsible, and there is a program to replace 200,000 female trees with males over the next few years.”

Wait-a-hold-it! From what we’ve read it’s the male not the female trees that cause pollen problems. This very interesting article by Wendy Priesnitz, reporting on Thomas Ogren’s work, proposes that allergies have become worse for people in many parts of the world because of landscaping trends. “A half century ago, an estimated 50 percent of the trees in our cities and towns were female. Since that time there has been a shift to mostly male, pollen producing trees.” Male trees have been preferred, she writes, because people considered them “litter free,” no seedpods or squishy fruits to rake away.

She quotes Ogren, a nurseryman and ag scientist: “Because no one bothered to consider the effect of the pollen from these male trees, we now have many elementary schools, ringed with male shade trees, and full of asthmatic children.”

So why would Beijing authorities be targeting female poplars and willows to reduce the “snows” of spring? Weirdly, the effort echoes China’s larger anti-female bias which, since the nation’s “one child per family” policy was instated in 1978, has led to a dramatic gender imbalance. At the 2000 census, there were 117 boys for every 100 girls in China (104 boys to 100 girls is closer to the world average). Some demographers are forecasting that in China a “bachelor nation” is around the corner.

We hope all you tree scholars will disabuse us of this suspicion. And please explain. We’re pretty much at square one about catkins (with tools like this guide to sexing aspen poplars).

There clearly has been a concerted tree planting program in Beijing established about the same time as the one-child policy. Peking willow (Salix matsudana) is plentiful in the city, and many thousands of weeping willows (Salix babylonica) have been planted, too, since the early 1980s.

Imari ginger jar, 18th C.
with willow tree and flowering prunus
Photo: antikwest

Classical Chinese poetry confirms, though, that the sneezy snows of spring are nothing new. They date back at least 1000 years. Su Tung P’o looked and wondered:

The pear blossoms are pure
White against the blue green willows.
Willow cotton blows in the wind.
The city is full of flying pear flowers.
Petals fallen on the balcony look like snow.
How many spring festivals are we born to see?

In poetry, tree pollen dusts mirrors and coats wine in the cup. The world is awakening. Get with it or get out of the way!

This from an anonymous 4th Century writer, translated by Kenneth Rexroth:

We break off a branch of poplar catkins.
A hundred birds sing in the tree.
Lying beneath it in the garden,
We talk to each other,
tongues in each other’s mouths.

Friday, January 19, 2007

Ashoka - Kick It into Bloom

Bright blooms, legend and now two physicians say this flowering tree is a real picker-upper.

Rupa & Atul Shah
Photo: Aum

With flowers bright as the rind of tangerine, Ashoka tree in bloom is a knockout. A husband and wife team of doctors in India is harnessing its power, they say, to knock out sadness. “Ashoka is a Sanskrit word meaning without grief or that which gives no grief,” writes Dr. Rupa Shah. She and her physician husband Atul have been using flower essences in their medical practice for 18 years.

Ashoka (Saraca Indica) has long been used to lift spirits in Indian folk medicine and cultural practice. You’ll see the trees planted at the edge of cemeteries—as consolation. Rupa Shah writes, “In India, drinking the water in which the flowers have been washed is widely considered a protection against grief.”

Saraca Indica
Image: Antiquariaat Jan Meemelink

The tree, which makes appearances in both Hindu and Buddhist tradition, is also believed to hold a special fondness for the fairer sex. A decidedly non-medical source says, “The ashoka tree behaves like a prince. It enjoys the company of beautiful women. It is believed to flower when some beautiful woman kicks it.” (We’ve tried that with Coke machines but never in gardening.)

Speaking of feet, in the past, we’ve sidestepped the subject of flower essences, first because we’ve never tried them and second because we don’t practice medicine here. But we do find of interest that flower therapies have gained a medical team’s endorsement. The Shahs will be discussing their use of flowers on a popular TV show today. Here are some of the other floral remedies they recommend, and many more legends of Ashoka.

Feeling partly cloudy? So far as we’re concerned, planting or imbibing Saraca Indica isn’t really necessary. Just looking at this print of an ashoka bloom sets us on our feet again, feeling springy and ready to kick.

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Kenya’s Flower Workers Deliver

Thousands of rural women have migrated to Naivasha for work in the flower industry, overwhelming the local maternity ward.

An estimated 20,000 women, most of them from tiny towns, have come to Naivasha, Kenya, to take jobs in the area’s 40 flower farms. Hazardous working conditions in the industry—sexual harassment and heavy pesticides—have been especially hard on female workers and have drawn international scrutiny and criticism. Gradually, Codes of Conduct, offering workers some protection on the job, are taking hold.

But the focus on workplace issues may have overlooked weaknesses in local infrastructure that now pose health risks for women workers and their babies. Macharia Mwangi’s story today in The Nation (Nairobi) describes conditions at Naivasha’s hospital. Dr Peter Okoth, director of the hospital, “says they handle about 20 deliveries daily, stretching the available resources to the limit.” Dr. Okoth says his hospital is staffed and equipped to handle only 10 new babies a day. At the very largest maternity hospital in the nation, Nairobi’s Pumwani hospital, there are approximately 88 deliveries a day.

Okoth and others are working to establish a new maternity wing to serve Naivasha (cost: 30 million Sh, or $430,000 USD). The new facility would also handle rape cases “which are on the rise in the area and its environs.”