Our (Or My?) 100-Species Challenge List
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1. Pink Pearl Apple
Latin name: Pyrus Malus
Interesting facts: I chose this tree, even though it’s growing right in our backyard*, because I’m always mixing up it up with the Pink Lady apple. I wanted Mr. T and me to get it right once and for all. We googled to be certain and discovered that the Pink Lady is the one that is pink on the outside; ours with the pink interior is the Pink Pearl.
According to California Eating, Pink Pearls are unique to the West Coast, which makes it all the more interesting to have this tree growing in our yard. They’re also rare in supermarkets because they don’t keep or travel well. I love how California Eating’s author, Amy, calls their color “positively vampy”. She also says the apples “taste of raspberries and lemon custard.” Tempting! Ours are still a bit under-ripe but I’m looking forward to tasting for that lemon custard. Mr. T is impatient; he likes them sour, says they taste like Sour Patch Kids.
And check out the Pink Pearl blossoms pictured in Amy’s post. Our blossoms really are that pink and gorgeous in spring. Positively vampy.
* Not the best photo ever. Our two apple trees are espaliered against a fence, and they have the clean lines and elegance of dancers most of the year. But right now they look as if they’re sprouting limbs from their stomachs because it’s summer and because the sunflower house has stepped right in front of them on the stage and we can’t get to them to give haircuts.
2. Coast Live Oak
Latin name: Quercus agrifolia
Meaning: “scabby-leaved” oak or “sharp-leaved” oak
Interesting facts: This is the oak you know well if you’ve grown up in California. It’s the one you don’t run beneath when you’re barefoot because its agrifolia quality will prick your feet. This oak is evergreen. It’s also native to California, and provided the acorns for many local Native American tribes’ diets. California Oak Moths live only on leaves from this plant; every 8-10 years the caterpillars arrive in multitudes and overwhelm the tree, although this doesn’t kill it. I’ve seen this phenomenon with my in-laws’ Live Oak. It’s an occasion when, again, you don’t want to walk under the tree, barefoot or no, or you will find caterpillars on your shoulders, on your back, in your hair. Creeping on you. Creepy.
3. Sunflower ”Mammoth Grey Stripe”
Latin name: Helianthus annuus
meaning: annual sunflower
Our sunflower house never quite grew a roof. Probably due to my neglectful watering of the morning glories. (Oh, how I hate to water by hand.) But the sunflowers thrived, and are now a sad cluster of heavy-headed, hump-backed old men.
This photo was taken a month ago. They are much more droopy and pathetic-looking these days.
Interesting facts: Mr. T and I had a fun time dissecting a head, and looking at it under a microscope using Anna Botsford Comstock’s Handbook of Nature Study .* We learned that the large flowers are actually “heads” made up of many florets–one for each eventual sunflower seed. There are special ray or banner florets at the edges of the head, each providing a single petal for the large flower-head. The florets open and ripen from the outside of the head first, then toward the middle, in concentric rings.
It’s fascinating to examine how the florets are arranged in groovy radiating spirals, which have something to do with fibonacci numbers. Also how each single floret has all the flower parts–stigma, anther, corolla… There are hundreds of them on each sunflower! No wonder the bees love them!
We also found some cool little unidentified metallic beetle-ish creatures in the heads. And then we discovered a virtual nursery of ladybug larvae on several of the leaves! Tiny ones, huge ones, discarded exoskeletons, as well as spanking new ladybugs. Wish I had a camera with a nice macro lens.
Lots of fun from one packet of sunflower seeds–even if we didn’t get a house in the deal. And we’ve got a whole lot of seeds to roast.
* This is a popular book among Charlotte Mason fans. (Can I call them Masonites? Or does that make them sound like wooden boards?) I just found a used copy this summer, and I’m impressed. There are thousands of entries of animals, plants and “earth and sky”. Each gives a thorough description of the item, as well as a series of questions to consider as one studies it. Such as, “Describe the shape of the open corolla. Look at the brown tube with a lens. How many little points projecting at the top and bottom on each side of the tube?” There are even poems included for many species! The book, however, was published in 1911, so you should balance your research with other sources. For example, Comstock writes that the sunflower is part of the family Compositae–it has since been shifted to the Asteraceae family. There’s so much good stuff here, though, that it’s still a fabulous resource, even after almost 100 years.
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