Adansonia digitata (African baobab).

My baobabs make me happy, but more on that later. There are 8 different species of baobab--6 from Madagascar and 1 each from mainland Africa and Australia. I would love to eventually get my hands on all 8 kinds. The genus Adansonia is named after the French naturalist Michel Adanson. He was a contemporary of Linnaeus that wrote a paper on baobabs. Digitata refers to the arrangement of leaves that are often in groups of 5 (thus appearing like fingers, which brings us to the Latin digitus). Baobabs are in the mallow family (Malvaceae). This family includes our friends cotton, cacao, kola nut, hibiscus, and okra; and our enemy the durian.

I was going to write about how I acquired these seeds but I don't want to self incriminate. Basically, I came into some baobab seeds in 2005 that were obtained from southern Senegal, outside Cap Skirring by the border with Guinea-Bissau. Here is a photo of the tree that the seeds came from:

You can see, up in the tree, fruits of the baobab tree. Another common name for the baobab is the dead-rat tree. The fruits hang down from the branches and slightly resemble dead rats. If you ask me they look more like opossums. Here is a close up of the fruit the seeds came out of:

Baobab fruit is quite pleasant tasting. The fruit dries out on the tree and is the size and shape of an American football. There is a hard husk that must be cracked in order to expose the edible inner part. Inside is a white, starchy dry fruit that has a lightly sweet, acidic flavor. You can break off a piece and let it dissolve in your mouth over several minutes. All that will remain are black rock-hard seeds about the size and shape of a pinto bean.

I put my seeds in a plastic bag and forgot about them for about 4 years. I encountered them one day while cleaning and decided to dump them into one of my seed pots. After a couple of months 4 of the seeds sprouted (out of approximately 50). They sent up a pair of large cotyledons that were stuck inside the partially intact seed casing. Only 1 of the 4 plants freed itself from the seed. The other 3 I tried to carefully extract; however, I ended up tearing the cotyledons fairly severely. Luckily they all survived and grew into cute little trees.

Each of my baobabs has its own look and personality. Some have deep green leaves, while others are lighter. The leaf shapes are also a bit different. Some are more oval while some have a point. Some have dentation while others are entire. I have read that you can completely desiccate them during the dry season, but I didn't have the heart. Maybe I'll try that with one of them next year.

People also call baobabs the upside-down trees. Their trunks and branches are stubby and look like roots. The trunks store a massive amount of water. I was impressed at how thick the stems were of my baby little trees even after a month or so of growth; however, the real surprise revealed itself when I repotted one of them. Just under the surface of the soil is a massive water storage organ/tap root. You can see it peaking out of the ground in this photo. As you can see it is really thick compared to the trunk.

I am crossing my fingers that more of the baobab seeds will sprout this growing season. I still have a few dozen seeds in my seed pot. If anyone knows of baobabs growing in the Bay Area, please let me know.

Phoenix dactylifera (date palm).

Palms are rather amazing trees that have been used by humans for thousands of years. Palm trees are members of the palm family, Aracaceae (which comes from a local Indian word for a species of palm tree). The name palm tree, apparently comes from the word palm (as in palm of the hand); however, it is a bit more complicated than one might imagine. From what I have read (mainly in the OED), palm of the hand is derived from an Indo-European root word that also gave rise to the word plain (as in flat). Palm fronds used to be given to victors of various contests. They were placed in the hands of the winner and thus the term palm was transferred from the palm of the hand to the item placed in the palm.

That all sounds a little sketchy to me but I'll go with it. It also seems coincidental that some palm fronds are palmate (shaped like hands). I had always assumed that the word for the plant came from the appearance of these fronds. Another bit of complication: there was an ancient city in Syria named Palmyra. The name of the city is either a mistranslation of the Semitic name Tadmor or a reference to the palm trees grown in the city. If the later is true then it could be that palm trees are named after Palmyra or that the name palm tree is much older than the OED reports.

Anyway, the palm we have growing is a date palm from the species Phoenix dactylifera. Date is from the Greek word dactyl for finger. The species name simply means date-bearing (dactyl + Latin -fer). The genus name is possibly taken from either the Greek word for crimson/purple (referring to the color of date fruits) or is a reference to the Phoenicians (who used to trade the fruit). Either way it all comes back to the color. Phoenicia is an exonym given by the Greeks to a tribe that lived in ancient Canaan (the coast of Syria/Lebanon/Israel). This name came from the fact that these people provided the Greeks with Tyrian purple (royal purple dye used for textiles). Phoenix, the mythical firebird, was likewise named by the Greeks for its purple/red plumage.

Dates are one of my favorite fruits; however, I have no love for palm trees. Palms trees set a bunch of records in the plant world: they are the tallest monocots, have the longest leaves, have the largest fruits, and even have the largest inflorescences. Our little palm sprouted from the pit of a date we got at the farmer's market. Often, I'll have palms spring up in random containers because I left the seed for dead and the dirt got recycled. It can take up to a year for them to sprout.

This date palm has been growing over a year and only has two baby fronds. There are a couple of pomelos growing out of the palm pot because, like I said before, I like to recycle soil. Eventually I'll nip them off but for now they aren't really hurting anything. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this palm. My wife likes it so I guess we'll keep it around.

Crassula ovata (jade plant).

Ah, the common jade plant. I used to really love this type of shrubby succulent, but now I find them a bore. My grandmother had a large one on her front porch when I was a child. I would occasionally take cuttings off of her plant, but was rarely successful in getting them to root even though it is typically tremendously easy. In San Francisco these thing grow like weeds in yards and even in cracks in the pavement. That is probably why I have lost interest in them--if it is too easy to grow or too common, why would I want one?

Crassula ovata are in the crassula (stonecrop) family. This is the largest family in the saxifragales, and also includes our friends Aeonium, Dudleya, Kalanchoe, and Sedum. Crussula is the Latin diminutive for thick (an obvious reference to the thick appearance of these little buggers). Ovata is also Latin, and is easy to remember as it is describing the plant's egg-shapped (or ovate) leaves.

This guy stays alive despite my neglect. I never ever remember to water it. I think the only reason it is alive is due to its placement on the floor in front of my fish tank. I'm convinced the fish (that I never remember to feed) spit water on the jade at night. I have a similar sized one at work that looks worse than this guy. It is actually the only thing I have kept alive at work, because I refuse to water things when I'm on the job. Jade plants are very easy to root. You don't even need a stem cutting, even a leaf will root if left on moist soil. One fun thing to note, if you can recall your freshman biology course (7.014). CAM (Crassulacean Acid Metabolism) photosynthesis is named for this family of succulents. Many xerophytes are CAM plants. They fix carbon at night when the temperature is lower. This allows them to keep their stomata closed during the day to prevent water loss. Fun, fun, fun!

Synsepalum dulcificum (miracle fruit plant).

On to something a little more exotic . . . something miraculous?

I first heard about the miracle fruit a couple of years ago, although it has been known to the western world for almost 300 years. I'm still amazed how few people have heard about it. I guess in my little scientific circle and in my greater San Francisco community (where even the most stiff collared of us are still more or less hippies) the miracle fruit has become quite popular. There was even a New York Times article a while back about this little marvel.

Quite simply, miracle fruit makes your tongue hallucinate. Eat a miracle fruit, and for the next half hour anything sour that you eat will taste sweet. Lemons, pickles, Tabasco, bad cheese. This is all thanks to a taste-modifying protein, aptly named miraculin, present in the fruit. The current thinking is that this protein binds to and alters the sweet receptors on taste buds, causing them to be stimulated by acids (sour flavors). One would think that a lot of research would have been performed on miraculin; however, only a couple of dozen research papers have been published on this subject since the late 60s.

Miracle fruit plant originated in western Africa. It is a member of the sapote family, which contains a number of species of excellent fruit trees. Synsepalum means together-sepal from the Greek syn and the Latin sepalum. Apparently the flowers have five fused sepals. Dulcificum is Latin for sweet-fig.

I have to confess two things. First, I have not actually tried a miracle fruit; however, I have several friends that have taken part in miracle fruit parties (where people eat the fruit and then sample various foods). I am waiting until my plants bear fruit in order to try this witchcraft. Second, I bought these seeds. I know, I know, I know, how horrible. That is completely against my ethic of stealing . . . I mean appropriating plants, but I could find no other way to get my hands on one. Miracle fruits, by the way, are the size of a cranberry, go for about $3 apiece, and do not store at all. You basically have to eat them within one to two days of picking them. Also the seed is only viable for about the same length of time. I bought a dozen (they sent me a baker's dozen) seeds for about $7 from a place in SoCal.

I planted my seeds in a 50:50 mix of peat moss and perlite. The plants need acidic soil, so the peat is really a must. I had 3 seeds germinate (23% germination rate), which is a typical yield for miracle fruit seeds. Even though my seeds were cleaned and sent to me overnight from the nursery, a little mold was already present on them. They were quick to mold in the pot but that didn't seem to have much of an effect on germination. After about a month, I had three sprouts. They are very hardy. I have heard that they grow very slowly their first year and then take off. Currently mine are 10 months old. For the first 9 months they hardly grew but now they put out a new leaf every other week or so. Thus far my guys are about 2-4 inches tall.

They are supposed to do well in indoor pots and will fruit when they are 2-3 years old (when they are about a foot tall). Even small plants can produce a high number of berries. I'm excited, but hopefully the novelty won't wear off after a while. If I get a regular crop of fruit I may try to sell them. We'll see.

Euphorbia pulcherrima (poinsettia).

Euphorbia pulcherrima are extremely popular, and are practically ubiquitous around the holidays. The common name, poinsettia, is often mispronounced (pointsettia . . . poinsetta . . . ). They are named after Joel Poinsett, a US congressman and Secretary of War under Van Buren. Poinsett was also the US Minister to Mexico (where the poinsettia is native) and is responsible for introducing the plant to the US in the late 1820s. Euphorbia are part of the spurge family (Euphorbiaceae). Sap from spurges are purgatives, thus they make you espurge (Latin).

The following is a bit of a digression, but I find it interesting. The genus Euphorbia is named after Euphorbus, the personal physician of Juba II king of Numidia (Algeria and Tunisia) and then of Mauretania (western Algeria and Morocco, not to be confused with Mauritania the modern country). Juba II was married twice. Once to Cleopatra Selene II (the only daughter of Cleopatra) and then to Glaphyra a princess of Cappadocia (eastern Anatolia). Glaphyra was actually married to one of Herod's sons before Juba II but then later dumped Juba II for another one of Herod's sons. I guess she had a type. Anyway, Juba went on an exploration to the Canary Islands off of northwestern Africa. He allegedly named the islands Canaria (using the Latin word for dogs) because they found dogs on the island (which may actually have been a now-extinct type of monk seal). On the islands he documented a type of spurge which he later wrote a book about, titled Euporbia after his physician. The species name pulcherrima simply means beautiful in Latin. Ta-da!!!

We bought this poinsettia before Christmas in 2008 and we barely manage to keep it alive. The soil it is planted in (that it came with) does not retain water at all. It needs to be watered more often than I can can keep up with, so this chap is constantly wilted. It is also constantly dropping leaves, but it still manages to hold onto a reasonable amount of foliage. To get a poinsettia to flower, you need to put it in pitch-black dark at night for several months. I didn't learn that trick until late November last year so I haven't had the opportunity to try it out. Maybe we will in 2010.

Poinsettia flowers are small and yellow, and are surrounded by the bright red bracts (leaves) that people often confuse with the flower (bougainvillea bracts are similarly confused with their flowers). I was surprised to learn that the association of poinsettias with Christmas is an old tradition dating back to the 16th century in Mexico. They became popularized in the 17th century when Franciscan friars began using poinsettias in nativity scenes.

It is a common misconception that poinsettias are poisonous. I'm not a particular fan of these plants, especially since I learned they aren't toxic, but the leaves are attractive and I think my wife would get upset if I left it on the street corner.

Pachypodium lealii v. saundersii (Star of Lundi).

This is another one of my wife's plants. Pachypodia are members of the dogbane (Apocynum, Greek for dogbane or poison to dogs) family from Madagascar and southern Africa. Pachypodium means thick-foot in Greek. Some people regard saundersii as a subspecies of the bottle tree, P. lealii (named for a Portuguese botanist, de Costa Leal); while others believe it is a separate species. Sir Charles Saunders was a plant collector and a British magistrate of southern Africa in the 19th century. This plant has several common names, but the one I like the best is the Star of Lundi (a town in southeastern Zimbabwe and the former name of the Runde River).

My wife has been growing this spiky little Star for about five or six years. The shell is from Hawaii (nerdy irony: Honolulu is antipodal to southern Africa). We repotted it three years ago and it has almost doubled in size since then. I should have taken a photo before it dropped its leaves around New Year's Day. Right now it looks like a cross between a cucumber and a voodoo doll. We thought that something was wrong with it when leaves started to shed, but apparently it is deciduous so that is normal. It has yet to flower. I just recently read that to make it flower, one shouldn't water it during the dormancy period; so from now on it is on the wagon. A few weeks ago I noticed several flowering Pachypodia in a nearby tailor's shop. I'll use my spy skills and get a stealth photo of her plants soon. I may even try to liberate one...

An interesting note about Pachypodia: I have heard that the sap is very toxic. There is an online account of a man accidentally ingesting a drop of the sap and he had a strong and unpleasant high for several hours.

Annona cherimola (cherimoya).

Chermoyas are part of the custard-apple (Annona) family and are native to the northern Andes. Annona is the Taíno (a native people of the Caribbean) word for a related fruit. The species name is from the Quechua word for the fruit (Quechua is a language group from the central and northern Andes, like Peru and Equador).

Chermoyas are an odd looking green fruit I have often seen in Safeways here in San Francisco. A few months ago I decided to stomach the $6.99/lbs cost and buy one of these buggers. They look the like the unholy union of a strawberry and an artichoke, but the taste is more like a non-acidic apple mixed with cream. I was really really careful when I cut it in half so as not to nick any seeds. In retrospect this was totally unneeded. The fruit had about 40 or 50 rock hard seeds scattered throughout the spongy flesh. The seeds themselves are rather pretty--dark woody brown and about the size of an almond.

As was my want, I planted all of the seeds in a shallow container filled with a potting soil/perlite mix. They all sprouted. Every single one of them. I was so annoyed. I replanted as many as I could manage and put the rest in the compost bin. I didn't even cry this time. Well at least not a lot. Now I have a little grove of these guys. I probably would have gotten rid of more of them, but their foliage is just too attractive.

Here is a close up on one of the Chermoyas. As you can see the leaves are very regularly alternate. They seem to pump out a new leave every other week. I tipped one of them to see if it would branch but so far it hasn't. I really enjoy the color of the leaves. They supposedly can take cold weather, since they are Andean, but one that was near the window seems to have gotten a little cold burn from touching the glass.