herb garden
Since the growth room has aphids anyway, I'm not being quite so extremely careful not to get any pests on me, which means I've actually entered the greenhouse a couple of times recently and this morning I chose to walk through the Medicinal Herb Garden on the way back from the library.
Many fine things are in bloom, including scented peonies and golden horned poppies. I learned that Nigella sativa, presumably the one people use for a spice, looks rather different from Nigella damascena, which I grow in the traffic circle. (Less finely feathery, more glaucous, and with fewer, pale-green petals.)
My favorite thing today was the henbane. Similar to Salpiglossis, which is in the same family, henbane has sumptuously reticulated flowers.
Wikipedia asserts that the "hen" likely refers to death rather than chickens (!), though I would have thought that was covered under "bane". Like so many other Solanaceae, it is a deathdeath plant.
This entry was originally posted at http://jinian.dreamwidth.org/21906.html. Respond wherever you like.
Many fine things are in bloom, including scented peonies and golden horned poppies. I learned that Nigella sativa, presumably the one people use for a spice, looks rather different from Nigella damascena, which I grow in the traffic circle. (Less finely feathery, more glaucous, and with fewer, pale-green petals.)
My favorite thing today was the henbane. Similar to Salpiglossis, which is in the same family, henbane has sumptuously reticulated flowers.
Wikipedia asserts that the "hen" likely refers to death rather than chickens (!), though I would have thought that was covered under "bane". Like so many other Solanaceae, it is a deathdeath plant.
This entry was originally posted at http://jinian.dreamwidth.org/21906.html. Respond wherever you like.