Native Plants Important to
Florida's History
Florida's History
Native Plants Important to
Florida's History 1-15
at this link
16. Pickerelweed (Pontideria cordata) - This emergent aquatic, with its leaves and flowers above water and portions of the stem under water, is found typically in shallow, quiet water. The seeds can be eaten like nuts and the young leaf-stalks cooked as greens. Native Americans added the seeds to a granola-like mix. Fishermen would fish by the plants, believing pickerel fish might be there. CAUTION: While not poisonous, pickerelweed is known to absorb water contaminants.
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Live oak galls
perhaps home of "little people"
Live oaks are of the "white" oak group having acorns less bitter than "red" oaks. Native Americans, settlers and explorers harvested the acorns for food, with some southeast USA tribes using them in animal feed. The wood (still prized) is often utilized as fuel, as well as in tool making. Uses include: building (lumbers, timbers, etc.), component of mortar and caulks, sources of lye, and for tanning hides. There is a mythical belief that "little people" live in the galls and should never be disturbed. The use of galls (Q. infectoria) dates to ancient Greeks (450 BC). Galls are formed when an insect (Cynips tinctoria) deposits eggs in young wood. Galls are the chief source of tannic acid, used in tanning and dyeing, formerly in ink manufacturing, and medicinally as an astringent.
18. Sabal Palm, Cabbage Palm (Sabal palmetto) - Pictured above with Live Oak, the Florida state tree, medium sized with solitary trunk. Widespread in southeast USA from Florida to North Carolina and throughout Bahamas and west Cuba. Often found at or near sea level on sandy soils common to inundated savannas, riverbanks, tree islands, dunes and flats. Fruits pear shaped and black.
Swamp cabbage festivals are still popular in Florida. It is undocumented whether native Americans used the plant as a food source, however, early Floridians cut out the main bud and ate it cooked or raw. This process kills the tree, so harvesting should be done only in dense stands.
Swamp cabbage festivals are still popular in Florida. It is undocumented whether native Americans used the plant as a food source, however, early Floridians cut out the main bud and ate it cooked or raw. This process kills the tree, so harvesting should be done only in dense stands.
19. Elder-berry; Elderberry (Sambucus canadensis; photos above and below) Shrub found from Florida to Mexico, with northern ranges of Nova Scotia, and Quebec. Found in moist disturbed clearings, swamps, wet-woodlands, riverbanks, and ditches. Soft-stemmed with white pith.
Sambucus is derived from the Greek word "sambuke," a musical instrument believed to heal the spirit. References to uses include food, liquor, medicine, toys, musical instruments, and textile dyes. Sometimes referred to as starvation food, it was used by southeastern US tribes (and likely settlers). The berries are edible and commonly made into liqueurs, jams, pies, and syrups. Flowers can be dipped in flour, deep-fried or eaten raw. CAUTION: Plant contains cyanogenic glucosides and could cause illness in those with a sensitivity.
20. Sassafras (Sassafras albidium; above and below) - small shrub to large tree generally a tree, found throughout Florida. Prefers well-drained soils, which are usually found along fencerows, hedges, fields, and woodlands. Often forms shrub thickets, all parts aromatic. The flowers are yellow; fruits are dark blue drupes.
Native American Indians called it "green stick" tree because of its bright-green branches. The bark and the root was used in medicine by the Seminoles for chest and digestive pain (cow sickness), and the plant was made into a drink for wolf ghost sickness (digestive troubles), and as a cold and cough mouthwash. Famous since pioneer days for making sassafras tea, made by boiling the bark of the roots. Oil of sassafras is distilled from the roots and bark, and was/is used to perfume soaps and lotions. Extracts of sassafras bark are used as flavoring agents in various beverages. WARNING: Test on lab rats have led to development of tumors.
Typical Saw Palmetto and Live Oak forest with Yucca aloifolia (Spanish Bayonet) in foreground.
21. Saw palmetto (Serenoa repens; above and below) - Generally a shrub, sometimes a tree endemic to southeast USA, once very common in Florida. Found in sandy soils, pinewoods, and sand dunes. Now disappearing with rapid and uncontrolled development. Stems are usually subterranean, but sometimes are upright forming dense colonies. Fruit dark blue to black in color.
The fruits have a long folk history as an aphrodisiac and have been used for centuries in treating conditions of the prostate. Native American Indians used the saw palmetto fruits as a subsistence food in the fall. Base of new leaf stalks were also cooked or eaten raw. The Seminoles used the plant for fiber; baskets, brooms, fans, and ropes. Further uses included fish drags, fire/dance fans, and dolls. Modern day development of a purified extract from the berries is said to improve symptoms of enlarged prostate. Florida is the biggest source and producer of saw palmetto products.
My dog Saffy, sniffing out a pile of rhizomes of Smilax that I had unearthed. I threw the dollar bill atop the pile for scale. To stop the rhizomes from continuing to grow I would thrown them into the lake where they would eventually rot. Since the lake is mostly dry now the Smilax has come back furiously forming dense thickets everywhere I do not mow.
This species has been cited extensively as a dye plant, food, and medicine. Smilaxes were very important resources throughout the Caribbean, their technologies and uses were brought to Florida with migration and slave trade. Wild asparagus is the term for the young shoots that are a favorite in salads (or in sautees). In many species, a thickening agent (like gelatin) can be processed from the rootstock, often used in jellies. The first Europeans found native Americans making bread or fritters from Smilaxes in Florida. The flavoring agent sarsaparilla is obtained from more southern species. Modern uses of Smilaxes include synthetic cortisone and steroids.
For more on this species check out
Romans (23-29 AD) used sowthistle leaves and stalks as a salad herb and vegetable, recommending it as nourishing, curative, and sustaining. The species name of oleraceus means "an edible vegetable." The leaves are high in minerals and vitamin C. A 13th-century herbalist recommended a diet of sowthistles "to prolong the virility of gentlemen." In the 16tyh century, people who couldn't afford goose down stuffed their matters and pillows with sowthistle down. Early 17th century herbalists used its medical powers to combat bad breath, deafness, wheezing, and as a facial cosmetic, to clear the skin and give it luster. Sowthistle stems are filled with milky juice, which in early times suggested it could stimulate milk production, hence it was given to nursing mothers (human and animal). Still valued today, especially in England, as a veterinary herb, and for the treatment of fevers, high blood pressure, and heart disorders. Sowthistle is also a favorite livestock food but has invaded crops and is considered one of the world's toughest weeds. CAUTION: not poisonous, but does have a tendency to absorb nitrogen containing contaminants from soil.
24. Florida Betony, Rattlesnake weed, Indian Artichoke, Skullcap (Stachys floridana) - considered a weed, it is found on the coastal plains of the south and throughout Florida. Flourishes in open habitats and on well to poorly drained soils. White-segmented tuber roots gave it the name "rattlesnake weed." Racemes with white to pale pink flowers.
The tuberous roots are edible and sometimes boiled like peanuts. Use as a food is well noted among southeast US Indian tribes and settlers of Florida's early history, as well as today by many nature enthusiasts.
For everyone else, rattlesnake weed is the bane of the Florida garden, impossible to extricate. Easier to pull off the tops and leave the tubers in the ground than trying to remove them all.
The tuberous roots are edible and sometimes boiled like peanuts. Use as a food is well noted among southeast US Indian tribes and settlers of Florida's early history, as well as today by many nature enthusiasts.
For everyone else, rattlesnake weed is the bane of the Florida garden, impossible to extricate. Easier to pull off the tops and leave the tubers in the ground than trying to remove them all.
Bald Cypress hung heavy with Spanish Moss
Most of the leaves have fallen off of the giant Bald Cypress
in our area due to the extreme heat and lack of rainfall this summer.
The trees are not dead. When the water returns they will sprout anew.
25. Bald Cypress, Pond Cypress (Taxodium spp.) - Cypress trees range throughout Florida. Found on poor to moderately drained sandy soils, of drainage ditches, canals, and pine flatwoods, often in standing water. A single brown, leafy stem, with spike green, yellow and red flowers. Uses are not well recorded; some tribes used this plant for treatment of diarrhea, vomiting, and appetite loss. In the late 18th century, Bald Cypress was used extensively in Florida as a common slave remedy for yaws (common at the time).
Yaws is a tropical infection of the skin, bones and joints caused by the spirochete bacterium Treponema pallidum pertenue. The disease begins with a round, hard swelling of the skin, 2 to 5 centimeters in diameter. The center may break open and form an ulcer. This initial skin lesion typically heals after 3 to 6 months. After weeks to years, joints and bones may become painful, fatigue may develop, and new skin lesions may appear.
Physicians in the 20th century used Bald Cypress widely for venereal disease, until the 1940s because syphilis is closely related to yaws. Modern chemical analysis is lacking. Early works suggest fresh (not dry) matter contains the alkaloid stillingine, resins and oils.
Current uses of the tree are mostly ornamental as furniture or ground up as mulch. As an important keystone species it should not be disturbed where it occurs naturally.
Yaws is a tropical infection of the skin, bones and joints caused by the spirochete bacterium Treponema pallidum pertenue. The disease begins with a round, hard swelling of the skin, 2 to 5 centimeters in diameter. The center may break open and form an ulcer. This initial skin lesion typically heals after 3 to 6 months. After weeks to years, joints and bones may become painful, fatigue may develop, and new skin lesions may appear.
Physicians in the 20th century used Bald Cypress widely for venereal disease, until the 1940s because syphilis is closely related to yaws. Modern chemical analysis is lacking. Early works suggest fresh (not dry) matter contains the alkaloid stillingine, resins and oils.
Current uses of the tree are mostly ornamental as furniture or ground up as mulch. As an important keystone species it should not be disturbed where it occurs naturally.
Many US Indian tribes used the moss while cooking to absorb unwanted liquids, for bedding, magically to rub on newborn babies heads for curly hair and for tanning hides. One legend tells of the Spanish explorer, Gorez Gorez, a bearded ruffian who traded goods for a beautiful Indian maiden. The sight of the Spaniard frightened the girl, and she ran away. Gorez chased her, climbing after her to the top of a tree. The maiden escaped, but Gorez's beard became entangled in the tree branches. There he died, but we can still see his "graybeard" hanging on the trees throughout the low country.
Colonial pickers harvested moss with long poles during the winter. The harvest hung for many months to cure in a moss yard. Curing loosened the outer gray scales making it ready for commercial ginning. The black filament core became stuffing for early automobile cushions, and mattresses. Mills operated in Florida and Louisiana, ginning from 1900 until 1975, when synthetic fibers replaced natural. Up until 1996, moss was still brought to markets in Tampa, mainly for the arts-and-crafts trade. In the past, doctors prescribed medicines from the moss to treat diabetes. One of the first successful environmental legal cases in Florida involved cattle ranchers suing the phosphate mining industry over cow tooth loss due to contaminated Spanish Moss.
After a storm, Spanish Moss falls to the ground, and cattle eat it for nutrition, however, the cattle were losing teeth. The moss absorbs many pollutants; one of these is Fluorine, resulting in fluorine toxicity, a form of tooth decay. One of the by-products of phosphate mining (in western peninsular Florida) is fluorine.
27. Common Cattail, Narrow-Leaved Cattail (Typha spp.) - often forming dense stands, Typhas, in general , are erect, rhizomatous herbs found practically worldwide. Common in brackish or freshwater marshes, shallow water, ditches, ponds, slow rivers and streams. In Florida , we have 5 recognized species. The leaves are long, stiff, and sword-like. Stems are topped with yellow (male flowers), forming a cylinder, and green turning brown sausage-like (female) flowers below.
The two most widely distributed and employed are T. latifolia, and T. angustifolia, primarily used as food, but also for medicine and textiles. Recipes describe the asparagus quality of the shoots, and quality pancake flower obtained from the pollen. Medical uses are primarily from Native American citations and only later, by settlers. Frequent uses are as a dermatological aid, such as treatment for abrasions, burns, and chaffing in babies. Other uses are woven mats, roof thatching, toy making and textiles. The pulp may exude rayon type compounds. CAUTION: plants are not harmful, but are nitrogen fixers and absorb atmospheric and soil pollutants.
The two most widely distributed and employed are T. latifolia, and T. angustifolia, primarily used as food, but also for medicine and textiles. Recipes describe the asparagus quality of the shoots, and quality pancake flower obtained from the pollen. Medical uses are primarily from Native American citations and only later, by settlers. Frequent uses are as a dermatological aid, such as treatment for abrasions, burns, and chaffing in babies. Other uses are woven mats, roof thatching, toy making and textiles. The pulp may exude rayon type compounds. CAUTION: plants are not harmful, but are nitrogen fixers and absorb atmospheric and soil pollutants.
28. Muscadine Grape, Scuppernong (Vitis rotundifolia) - Vine found throughout Florida. Found in diverse sites, well drained to poorly drained and sometimes flooded soils, of both upland and bottomlands. Green flower panicles and fleshy purple, black, bronze, bunches of fruit.
Most species of Vitis sp. have edible berries. Relative of the plants are used to make Merlots, Cabernets, and Zinfandel wines. Long stems were used to make a deer snare by the Seminole Indians who ate the fruit and traded them with pioneers.
Most species of Vitis sp. have edible berries. Relative of the plants are used to make Merlots, Cabernets, and Zinfandel wines. Long stems were used to make a deer snare by the Seminole Indians who ate the fruit and traded them with pioneers.
Eaumaeus atala florida
Photo by Scott Zona
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Palmer's amaranth
Shrugging off Herbicides
Palmer's amaranth
This "weed" was once a staple food crop of Native Americans but now , in barely a decade, it has devastated Southern cotton farms and is poised to wreak havoc in the Midwest—all because farmers and politicians got careless. Best known to home gardeners as Summer Poinsettia or Pigweed (Amaranthus palmeri) once sustained a continents civilizations. Now a highly industrialized and intelligent civilization can't figure out how to kill it.
Palmer, as farmers call it, is the most notorious of a growing number of weeds that are immune to the gold standard of herbicides, glyphosate (RoundUp). It grows in over-fertilized soils, and thus is right at home in the monoculture fields of America's breadbasket.
Vanishing Act:
Insect populations are declining dramatically in many parts of the world. Researchers blame monoculture farming, pesticide use, and habitat loss for the plight of insects, which are essential to agriculture and ecosystems.
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The Donald stuck with boring typography for his new logo, put his wife up to reciting a plagiarized speech. . . Chachi and Sabato at the convention. . . but what about this logo? Is it all part of some elaborate new reality TV crap show?
Forget all that. . . back to the logo. . .boring for sure, if it didn't look like Trump's gigantic 'T' was energetically penetrating Pence's little 'P'
Even CNN is calling it "off color"
others suggested that it looked like what Pence and Trump would do to America if they somehow won
others suggested that it looked like what Pence and Trump would do to America if they somehow won
