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TRY CHEWING BETEL NUT IF YOU WANT BRIGHT RED SALIVA
Before my trip to London in October, I asked Peter Olin, director of the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, what gardens I might visit in that historic city. At the top of his list was Kew Gardens. "Don't miss it," he said.
Wanda and I rode the wonderfully efficient tube train to the Kew Gardens exit and walked two blocks to the 300-acre Royal Botanic Gardens KEW (the formal name). Kew has been in existence since 1718 and is owned and maintained by the British royal family.
Kew's plant collections total more than 31,000 distinct plant groups, including 15 that are extinct in the wild and 2,000 more that are on threatened or endangered species lists. Kew's ambitious research agenda is aimed at improving the earth's environment and enhancing human health and well being.
We spent about four hours touring Kew's outdoor arboretum and gardens and the famous indoor "glasshouses" (green houses). I could have spent four days at Kew and still not have seen all there is to see and discover there. Hopefully I can return in the spring and summer seasons when Kew shows off its most spectacular faces.
One exhibit that I found particularly fascinating was called Plants + People, an exhibition of plant products that are "either eminently curious, or in any way serviceable to Mankind." This display of plant artifacts and products has been collected from gifts and ongoing global explorations dating from the early 1800s. Plants + People is said to be the most outstanding and comprehensive museum of its kind in the world.
I scribbled notes of some of the more interesting plant facts gleaned during my rather rushed walk-through of the museum.
Snakeroot, for example, -- a plant I grow -- has been used for 4,000 years by Indian healers to treat snakebites and mental illness and is used today to treat high blood pressure.
In the 18th century, a British doctor noted that a woman had cured herself of dropsy (edema) by taking foxglove. Its heart-regulating chemicals were identified over 60 years ago but have never been made artificially.
The chemical found in an Amazonian vine used to make poison-tipped arrows is used today by anesthetists to relax patients' muscles.
Betel nuts, part of the seeds of the betel nut palm, are chewed for their narcotic effect and are also believed to strengthen teeth and sweeten breath. In case you're considering trying it, the downside is that betel chewing causes continuous salivation and turns the saliva bright red.
Tea is the world's most-popular drink (apart from water). Thousands of different types of tea are available but all are Camelia sinensis, and all are processed from only the youngest leaf tips. Several years ago, I stood in a large field of tea bushes in Guilin, China and watched workers hand pick tiny tea-leaf shoots and place them in wicker baskets worn on their shoulders.
Tibetans boil their tea for hours to produce a thick black brew, add salt or soda, strain the liquid, and finally stir in rancid yak butter. Sounds tasty.
The flavor of allspice (Pimenta dioica) is described as a combination of clove, cinnamon and pepper. Allspice is one of only three spices native to the New World; the others are vanilla and chilies.
Carob trees provide a chocolate substitute from their fruit, and locust bean gum from their seeds. Ancient Egyptians used the gum as an adhesive for mummy wrappers.
The custom of throwing rice at weddings reflects the oriental views of rice as sacred and a symbol of fertility.
Cork is probably most familiar to many of us for its use in wine bottles, bulletin boards and fishing bobbers. Cork is made from the bark of the cork oak tree, removed from the trunk of the tree in cylinders. If harvested carefully, cork can be cut away every eight years.
In many tropical countries, people have discovered various plants that contain chemicals capable of killing fish without making them unsafe to eat. Some of these chemicals have found new uses as insecticides, protecting crops without harming the environment. South American tribesmen, for example, pounded stems of barbasco to produce a fish poison. The chemical responsible, rotenone, is widely used today as an insecticide.
The first musical instruments may have been dried seed pods that rattled when shaken. Here are other instruments made from plants: xylophone, drum, castanets, alpenhorn, reed flute, mouth bow, whistle, rattle, mbira (bottle gourd) and many stringed instruments.
In 54 BC, Julius Caesar described how British warriors stained themselves blue using a dye made from woad leaves (Isatis tinctoria). The same dye was used until 1932 to color police uniforms.
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PUTTING DOWN ROOTS:
A Delightful Blend of
Gardening Wisdom, Wit
and Whimsy
$10 + $2 for shipping
by Cliff Johnson |
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