Nature's Art

Plant Reflections On Water

Nature's Art

Cool Reflections On A Hot Day!

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© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BY ELISE T. MARKS. PLEASE DO NOT USE THIS IMAGE ON WEBSITES, BLOGS OR ANY OTHER MEDIA WITHOUT MY EXPLICIT WRITTEN PERMISSION.

Button Bush

Button Bush at the beach. Cephalanthus occidentalis L., Common buttonbush, Buttonbush, Button willow, is a shrub whose flowers are distinctive, dense, spherical clusters (heads) with a fringe of pistils protruded beyond the white corollas. Buttonbush is a handsome ornamental suited to wet soils and is also a honey plant. This distant relative of coffee (family Rubiaceae) grows in wetland areas. Ducks and other water birds and shorebirds consume the seeds.

This photo is photo of the day on TreeHugger September 8, 2015
http://www.treehugger.com/slideshows/readers-photos/photo-spherical-white-flower-relative-coffee/

Button Bush at the beach in Colchester, Vt.

Bumble Bee on a Button Bush at the beach

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Mountain Flow - Elise Creations & Passions

 Light Reflection

Rock Sculpture On My Favorite Mountain

The Art Of Nature -The Nature Of Art

 Patterns Of Light Reflection

Mother & Child Rock Sculpture

Rock Sculpture Gallery 

An Abundance Of Rock Sculptures 

Someone's been busy making natural Art.

Reflections & Shadows On The Mountain. My favorite place to spend hot summer days.

MY PHOTOGRAPHS ARE AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE

THANKS FOR YOUR VISITS, FAVS AND COMMENTS. AS ALWAYS, APPRECIATED VERY MUCH!

© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BY ELISE T. MARKS. PLEASE DO NOT USE THIS IMAGE ON WEBSITES, BLOGS OR ANY OTHER MEDIA WITHOUT MY EXPLICIT WRITTEN PERMISSION.

Queen Anne's Lace

Wild Carrot

Daucus carota, also known as, bird's nest, bishop's lace.

Lovely Lace

Queen Anne’s lace earned its common name from Queen Anne of England (1665-1714) who was an expert lace maker. Legend has it that when pricked with a needle, a single drop of blood fell from her finger onto the lace, leaving the dark purple floret found in the flower’s center. 

Queen Anne's Lace (Daucus carota) can reach heights of about 1 to 4 feet high. You can find these biennials in bloom during their second year from spring on into fall. The fruit of this plant is spiky and curls inward, reminiscent of a bird’s nest, which is another of its common names. Belonging to the carrot family, Queen Anne’s lace is also known as wild carrot.

Queen Anne's Lace Going To Seed

This photo was awarded Photo of the Day, on Capture My Vermont, for October 15, 2017.

Heart Of The Day
Queen Anne's Lace Seeds

The Queen Anne's lace flower resembles lace, and oftentimes the flower has a solitary purple dot in the centre.

Early Europeans cultivated Queen Anne’s lace, and the Romans ate it as a vegetable. American colonists boiled the taproots, sometimes in wine as a treat. Interestingly, Queen Anne’s lace is high in sugar (second only to the beet among root vegetables) and sometimes it was used among the Irish, Hindus and Jews to sweeten puddings and other foods.

Edible Parts

Using first year Queen Anne’s lace roots are recommended. Roots are long, pale, woody, and are finger-thin and are edible, and can be cooked and used in a similar way as cultivated carrots, used in soups, stews and in making tea. The dried roasted roots can be ground into a powder and used as a coffee substitute. First year leaves can be chopped and tossed into a salad. Flower clusters can be ‘french-fried’ or fresh flowers can be tossed into a salad. The aromatic seed is used as a flavoring in stews and soups, tasting like caraway. The leaves are edible as both a raw (when young) and cooked green. Since wild carrot is a biennial, and flowers in its second year, the root of a carrot in flower is too woody to be used. At this point you can peel the stem and eat it both raw and cooked.

Medicinal Uses

The seeds are a diuretic and they support the kidneys and help prevent kidney stones. They are also carminative, soothing the digestive tract in case of gas, diarrhea, or indigestion. The seeds can also be used to stimulate the appetite, and alleviate menstrual cramps. An infusion of the seeds can be made using one teaspoon of the seeds per cup of boiling water.

Women have been using the seeds as a contraceptive for centuries.

Medicinal History Of Use: Queen-Anne’s-lace belongs to the carrot family (Umbelliferae) and contains beta-carotene and other properties that are used to treat bladder and kidney conditions. American colonists boiled the taproots, sometimes in wine. They also mixed the leaves with honey and applied  the poultice to sores or ulcers, to help heal and kill bacterial infections. The seeds were used as a form of contraception. The roots were roasted and used as a coffee substitute or infused as a mild diuretic tea. Settlers also used the herb as a source of orange dye. 

NOTE:

Queen Anne’s lace and poison hemlock appear very similar, so be very careful when harvesting Queen Anne’s lace from the wild. The most telling difference is the existence of a red or purple flower in the center of the wild carrot umbel. Not all wild carrot umbels have a dark flower, so the second difference is that Wild carrot stems are hairy, while the stems of both hemlock’s and fool’s parsley are smooth and hairless. This difference is important because it can be noticed in even the first year plants, which otherwise look very similar. Wild carrot also smells like a carrot.

Queen Anne's Lace Of A Different Color

Queen Anne’s Lace is the familiar wild form of carrot, and the white-flowered version is what we currently see blooming along the side of the roads. But this Dara Flowering Carrot, is a vividly-colored variety, with Flowers that open white, change to soft pink and finally deep, rich red. This red coloration is the result of a genetic deviation. The wild form almost always has a single red flower at the center of the cluster and, in the case of this cultivar, the coloration message seems to have made its way to all the flowers. I've been told by someone, that they saw the pink version along the roadside for the first time last year in northwestern Michigan. So, the deviation must have started in the wild and then was cultivated for people to plant in their gardens.

Legend has it that the central red flower is the stain of a drop of Queen Anne’s blood from pricking a finger with her lace-making needle.

Queen Anne's Lace Loveliness

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© all rights reserved by Elise T. Marks. 

Please do not use this image on websites, blogs or any other media without my explicit written permission.

Disclaimer

My blog is meant to inform and I strive to be totally accurate. It is solely up to the reader to ensure proper plant identification. Some wild plants are poisonous or can have serious adverse health effects.

Northern Pearly-eye Butterfly

 

Northern Pearly-eye Butterfly 

Lethe anthedon, is primarily native to North America. A woodland species, It favors shaded, damp habitats such as wetlands, swampy woods, and coastal dunes. The larvae feed on various grasses, adults drink liquids from tree sap from willows, poplars, and birch, fungi, dung, and carrion.

THANKS FOR YOUR VISITS, FAVS AND COMMENTS. AS ALWAYS, APPRECIATED VERY MUCH!

© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BY ELISE T. MARKS. PLEASE DO NOT USE THIS IMAGE ON WEBSITES, BLOGS OR ANY OTHER MEDIA WITHOUT MY EXPLICIT WRITTEN PERMISSION.

MY PHOTOGRAPHS ARE AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE

Dandelions & Forget Me Nots

 

Forget Me Nots & A Dandelion. 

Happy National Wildflower Week!

Forget-me-not, Myosotis sylvatica. The word "Myosotis" in the species name comes from Greek words meaning "mouse ear."

Wet Forget Me Nots

Wet Forget Me Nots

White & Blue Forget Me Nots

Forget Me Nots & Dandelions

Dandelions

Taraxacum are one of the first foods for native bees in spring. Before the invention of lawns, people praised dandelions as a bounty of food, medicine and magic. Gardeners often weeded out the grass to make room for the dandelions. But somewhere in the twentieth century, humans decided that the dandelion was a weed. Dandelions are good for your lawn. Their roots loosen hard-packed soil, aerate the earth and help reduce erosion. The deep taproot pulls nutrients such as calcium from deep in the soil and makes them available to other plants. While most think they’re a lawn killer, dandelions actually fertilize the grass.

For millenniums, people have been using dandelion tonics to help the liver remove toxins from the bloodstream and as a gentle diuretic that provides nutrients and helps the digestive system. Dandelions are actually more nutritious than most of the vegetables in your garden. The flowers, leaves, & roots can be used as food and medicine. The flowers can be used to make wine. Dried or roasted roots can be used as a no-caffeine coffee substitute.

THANKS FOR YOUR VISITS, FAVS AND COMMENTS. AS ALWAYS, APPRECIATED VERY MUCH!

© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BY ELISE T. MARKS. PLEASE DO NOT USE THIS IMAGE ON WEBSITES, BLOGS OR ANY OTHER MEDIA WITHOUT MY EXPLICIT WRITTEN PERMISSION.

MY PHOTOGRAPHS ARE AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE 

Disclaimer

My blog is meant to inform and I strive to be totally accurate. It is solely up to the reader to ensure proper plant identification. Some wild plants are poisonous or can have serious adverse health effects.

Tulip Delight

 Tulips

One of my favorite signs of spring, and they come in so many colors. The tulip is a member of the Liliaceae (lily) family. Tulips actually came from the Central Asia where they grew wild over a great territory in Asia Minor through Siberia to China. Turkish growers first cultivated and hybridized tulips as early as 1,000 AD., and Historically, Europe considered Tulips as the symbol of the Ottoman Empire. There are now over 3,000 different registered varieties of cultivated Tulips. Every year billions of Tulips are cultivated, a majority of which are grown and exported from Holland.

  Tulips

  Tulips

 Tulips

Fringed Tulip

I love this lavender colored tulip.

As a member of the Lily family, Tulips are edible but not particularly medicinal. The same flowers that were valued so highly by the Dutch in the 1600s became emergency food rations for the country during World War II because the starchy bulb provides a surprising amount of calories. The petals are also edible, leading to dishes with stuffed Tulip blossoms.

Red

Tulips With Mini Daffodils

Unusual Color Combos

My New Favorite Color Of Tulip

Unusual Stripes

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THANKS FOR YOUR VISITS, FAVS AND COMMENTS. AS ALWAYS, APPRECIATED VERY MUCH!

© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BY ELISE T. MARKS. PLEASE DO NOT USE THIS IMAGE ON WEBSITES, BLOGS OR ANY OTHER MEDIA WITHOUT MY EXPLICIT WRITTEN PERMISSION.