Melon Project

RARE HEIRLOOMS FROM NINETEENTH C. FRANCE

This little project began last May, after purchasing a rare 1802 gardening book. It was then, when I discovered that in the early Nineteenth Century, the first glasshouses and 'stoves' in America were used not for flowers, but  mainly for fancy food crops - particularly the new 'Pine Apples' and citrus, that arrived home with sailors on their whaling ships. These plant crops, collected from exotic ports in the south seas, also included fancy table grapes from Europe,  that could ripen in the forced coal heated grapery for early winter table fruit, Muscadine grapes, nectarines and yes, melons.

 

I was inspired to consider optional uses for my glass greenhouse, which say unused for most of the summer, which brings me to my experiment in growing these melons. Not ordinary melons mind you, but vintage varieties that might have been grown in an 1802 greenhouse.  I chose to grow these period fruit for a few reasons, their authenticity- living legends that anyone can grow thanks to a growing group of seed savers who search the planet for vintage or heirloom varieties that might have been lost, their romance, because come on, what could be more desirable than tasting a fruit that is a clone of what Marie Antoinette may have enjoyed, but mostly, for the flavor, which had proven to be unbelievably delicious in a honey-meets-nectar-of-the-Gods, way.

Genuflexing Plant had Found in Brazil

A collaboration was started with Lena Struwe, a specialist of the plant's family at Rutgers University, who had previously described a species in the gentian family from the Andes named after Harry Potter (apparating moon-gentian, Macrocarpaea apparata), and another after the Inca tribe (the Inca ring-gentian, Symbolanthus incaicus). More collections were made, photographs uploaded and specimens deposited at the State University at Feira de Santana (HUEFS) in Bahia, while Mari Carmen Molina, a visiting scientist in Struwe's lab from Spain, extracted the plant's DNA.

"It is very easy to think we have found and described most plant species of the world already, but this discovery shows that there are so much left out there without name and recognition," says Struwe, adding: "This discovery shows that the most amazing living things can be found when you least expect it, during times and places when you really aren't looking for something new, and suddenly it is right there in front of you. How many of us haven't had the most brilliant ideas in the shower? The art of taxonomy is finding as well as being able to recognize something as new or different, which is hard when the world is home to millions of species and very few species experts." Mr. Popovkin: "This is my first botanical publication in a peer-reviewed journal. Hopefully, there will be more to follow. I had since early adolescence felt attraction to plants, especially tropical plants, when working as a volunteer at the greenhouses of the Botanic Garden of the University of St Petersburg, Russia. It took me 30 years to realize my dream of living in the tropics and studying its plants up close. My daily botanizing walks always bring personal discoveries. My help and local fellow collector Louro has also shown great interest in botany."　　

In collaboration with Katherine Mathews from Western Carolina University, it was confirmed that the genus was indeed Spigelia, to which pinkroot, an old North American herbal remedy against intestinal parasites, also belongs.Only a few miniscule plants were found in the field the first year. They would die each dry season, only to reappear again at the beginning of the rain season. The plant growing on the window sill soon showed a particular and rare characteristic: after fruits were formed, the fruiting branches would bend down, depositing the capsules with seeds on the ground (and sometimes burying them in the soft cover of moss), thereby ensuring that the seeds would end up as close to the mother plant as possible, facilitating its propagation the following season. This phenomenon, called geocarpy, is a rare adaptation to growing in harsh or ephemeral environments. A famous example of geocarpy is the well-known peanut from the legume family that buries its fruits in the ground. The new species, appropriately named Spigelia genuflexa, is described in an open-access paper published by the five collaborators in the taxonomic journal PhytoKeys, from where the article can be downloaded for free.

Take the right way Use Flowers

"Flowers, according to these beautiful verses, are only useful as objects to delight our senses. They are only beautiful forms in nature--their highest use, their beauty and fragrance."

"I think that is what Mrs Howitt means," replied Grace. "So I have always understood her. And I cannot see any other use that flowers have. Do you know of any other use, cousin?"

"Oh, yes. Flowers have a more important use than merely giving delight to the senses. Without them, plants could not produce fruit and seed. You notice that the flower always comes before the fruit?"
"Oh, yes. But why is a flower needed? Why does not the fruit push itself directly out from the stem of a plant?" asked Agnes.

"Flowers are the most exquisitely delicate in their texture of all forms in the vegetable kingdom. Look at the petals of this one. Could anything be softer or finer? The leaf, the bark, and the wood of the plant are all coarse, in comparison to the flower. Now, as nothing is made in vain, there must be some reason for this. The leaves and bark, as well as wood, of plants, all have vessels through which sap flows, and this sap nourishes, sustains, and builds up the plant, as our blood does our bodies. But the whole effort of the plant is to reproduce itself; and to this end it forms seed, which, when cast into the ground, takes root, springs up, and makes a new plant. To form this seed, requires the purest juices of the plant, and these are obtained by means of the flowers, through the exquisitely fine vessels of which these juices are filtered, or strained, and thus separated from all that is gross and impure."

"I never thought of that before," said Agnes. "Flowers, then, are useful, as well as beautiful." "Nothing is made for mere beauty. All things in nature regard use as an end. To flowers are assigned a high and important use, and exquisite beauty of form and color is at the same time given to them; and with these our senses are delighted. They are, in more respects than one, good gifts from our heavenly Father."

"Oh! how I do love the flowers," said Agnes; "and now, when I look upon them, and think of their use as well as their beauty, I will love them still more. Are they so very beautiful because their use is such an important one, cousin Mary?"

"Yes, dear; I believe this is so. In the seeds of plants there is an image of the infinity of our great Creator; for in seeds resides a power, or an effort, to reproduce the plants, that lie concealed as gems within them, to infinity. We might naturally enough suppose that flowers, whose use it is to refine and prepare the juices of plants, so as to free them from all grosser matters, and make them fit for the important office of developing and maturing seeds, would be exceedingly delicate in their structure, and, as a natural consequence, beautiful to look upon. And we will believe, therefore, that their peculiar beauty depends upon their peculiar use."

Plant Circle

Roots: Roots act like straws absorbing water and minerals from the soil. Tiny root hairs stick out of the root, helping in the absorption. Roots help to anchor the plant in the soil so it does not fall over. Roots also store extra food for future use.

Stems: Stems do many things. They support the plant. They act like the plant's plumbing system, conducting water and nutrients from the roots and food in the form of glucose from the leaves to other plant parts. Stems can be herbaceous like the bendable stem of a daisy or woody like the trunk of an oak tree.

Leaves: Most plants' food is made in their leaves. Leaves are designed to capture sunlight which the plant uses to make food through a process called photosynthesis.

Flowers: Flowers are the reproductive part of most plants. Flowers contain pollen and tiny eggs called ovules. After pollination of the flower and fertilization of the ovule, the ovule develops into a fruit.

Fruit: Fruit provides a covering for seeds. Fruit can be fleshy like an apple or hard like a nut.
Seeds: Seeds contain new plants. Seeds form in fruit.