A year ago I was scheduled to give the Alston lecture at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. Before the lecture, my host Cornelia Cho showed me round the botanical gardens. I’ve collected a series of pictures of the useful plants we saw (with captions). There’s a large Japanese garden which had many familiar Japanese edimentals and perennial vegetables and the main theme of teh glasshouses was ethnobotany! More can be read about the lecture here: https://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=23467
Alice’s Wonderland Reimagined in the Atlanta Botanical Garden
Styrax japonicus “Fragrant Fountain”: Storax tree yields a fragrant resin which is used by the food industry
Lilium formosanum had edible bulbs
Lilium formosanum had edible bulbs
Dahlias and Cannas, both edible genera
Farfugium has been used for food in Japan
Pinus thunbergii “Mia Kujaku” (Japanese Black Pine)
Diospyros kaki “Pendula” (Japanese persimmon; Kaki)
Diospyros kaki “Pendula” (Japanese persimmon; Kaki)
Thymus quinquecostatus “Ibukiensis”
Pinus virginiana (Virginia Pine)
Adenophora takedae “Howozana” (Campanulaceae)
Farfugium japonicum “Argentea”
Polygonatum verticillatum is also a wild plant in my garden!
Hosta…another that is adaptable enough to be avble to grow in Georgia and Norway
Polygonatum odoratum var pluriflorum “Variegatum” (the shoots are eaten like asparagus in Japan); a species that also grows in my garden
Campanula takesimana, another Japanese edible
Hosta “Caesar Salad”
Disporopsis pernyi (according to “Food Plants of China” the rhizomes are cooked with chicken as a special food given to postpartum mothers in Guizhou!
Japanese knotweed
Konjac (Amorphophallus konjac)
Fatsia japonica (not edible)
Hosta “Get Nekkid”
Farfugium japonicum “Crispata”
Alice’s Wonderland Reimagined in the Atlanta Botanical Garden
Taro (Colocasia esculenta)
Saxifraga stolonifera (the leaves are used in tempura in Japan)
Hosta
Patrinia scabiosifolia is used as a vegetable in Japan
Ethnobotany (or the relationship of people and plants) was the theme of the tropical Rotunda houses with over 600 species from all over the world
?Anyone know what this is?
The wonderful bat plant whose flower mimics bats: Tacca integrifolia (Tacca leontopetaloides is the edible tubered Polynesian arrowroot)
The wonderful bat plant whose flower mimics bats: Tacca integrifolia (Tacca leontopetaloides is the edible tubered Polynesian arrowroot)
The sign says “Neem / Azadirachta indica “Shoots abd flowers of the Neem are edible. Oil from the tree is valuable as an environmentally friendly pesticide”
Rattan (Laccosperma opacum) an important plant for cane furniture etc.
Derris elliptica (poison vine): the roots are the source of rotenone and insecticidal derris powder
A prostrate coffee plant
Curry leaf tree (Murraya koenigii)
Triphasia trifolia (lime berry) is an edible citrus from SE Asia, widely used in cooking
Quinine (Cinchona pubescens), well known in the treatment of malaria
Curare (Chondrodendron tomentosum), medicinal adn dart poison in the Amazon
Yerba mate (Ilex paraguariensis) the caffeine containing beverage widely consumed in South America
Amentotaxus cathayensis
The giant Hosta “Empress Wu”
Another Farfugium cultivar
Alice’s Wonderland Reimagined in the Atlanta Botanical Garden
Alice’s Wonderland Reimagined in the Atlanta Botanical Garden
Another glasshouse had assorted Vacciniums
Another glasshouse had assorted Vacciniums
Another glasshouse had assorted Vacciniums
Remarkable foliage on Begonia bipinnatifida (presumably the flowers are edible and leaf stalks of many Begonia species are uses as a vegetable
Begonia peltata
Begonia spp
Begonia spp
Vanilla orchid “The Bean that isn’t”
The library
Don’t think I’d seen Kunkel’s Plants for Human Consumption before
Amarants
Typha, Colocasia etc
Pawpaws (Asimina triloba)
Lotus
The lecture theatre where I talked later in the evening
Many thanks to all who turned up for my talk in Atlanta last night. I’m told there were almost 200 people :) The book store sold all 25 books they had bought from Chelsea Green! Great also to talk to so many interesting folk after the talk at the book signing :)
An unexpected surprise was a meeting with Bob Pemberton, main author of a paper on the Wild food plants in South Korea from 1996, which I reference several times in my book (picture below).
Writing this in transit in the Chicago O’Hare airport….Chicago onion (Allium cernuum) was the first picture on my presentation!
Thanks also to my hosts Cornelia Cho, who suggested to the garden I might do a talk, and Sam Landes who are president and board member of the Mushroom Club of Georgia! Some 20 of their members were at the talk! Pemberton, RW and NS Lee (1996) ‘Wild food plants in South Korea: Market presence, new crops and export to the United States’ in Econ. Bot. Vol 50, pp57-60.
