Borage

 Borage

Borage is a rare and beautiful plant cultivated for its medicinal properties. It has bright blue flowers reminiscent of flowers in the nightshade family, only bigger. Yet, borage belongs to Borage family (Boraginaceae).

Borage flower close-up

Borage stems are hairy. The flowers are usually bright blue. The plant is easily recognized by its general appearance.

Among the medicinal uses, borage oil is quite famous (extracted from seeds, a good source of Omega-6 acids). The plant is also used to treat respiratory maladies. Borage is reputed to be edible and is supposed to taste like cucumber. I tried it and it does have cucumber flavor but very, very faint. The texture is not particularly palatable as stems and leaves are hairy. Borage is also supposed "to gladden the heart" and to achieve that one must put crushed pieces of flowers into wine and let seep a little bit. I tried that too and I found the taste rather pleasant. And, yes, it did gladden the heart.

Linaria purpurea

 A herb garden at Humboldt fort

Today we took a walk in Humboldt old historical fort, a sort of museum where one can see artifacts from the lumber days of Humboldt county. There were also places where army barracks and officers quarters used to be (some still are). One of these places had a small garden attached to it. 

The thing about this garden is that it had more interesting plants than so-called botanical garden at the local community college. Just shows you that size does not matter.

There were many cool plants in this garden, many of them medicinal rather than culinary, which is understandable, considering it was attached to surgeon's quarters. Anyway, we'll have to begin with something. So we'll start with Linaria purpurea, commonly known as toadflax, perhaps the most showy plant in this garden.

Linaria purpurea with purple flowers

Linaria belongs to the plantain  family of plants (Plantaginaceae), a very diverse family, though formerly it was classified  as part of figwort family (Scrophulariaceae). Plants of this family make nice decorative plants in the gardens.

 Linaria flowers close-up

Linaria purpurea is a relative of snapdragon and you can see some family resemblance. The flowers can be purple, pink or white.

 Linarea purpurea plant

The leaves are narrow and oblong.  The stem is woody. The most common variety of toadflax is Linaria vulgaris, more commonly known as butter-and-eggs. The flowers look similar to Linaria purpurea but yellow in the middle surrounded by white top and bottom. I have never seen that plant in the wild yet.

Linaria means resembling Linum (flax). I don't see any connection, at least with a common flax. Here is the picture of the flax flower for you to compare:

Flax flower

They look like identical twins, don't they?

Wild Cucumber

 Wild cucumber

Wild cucumber plant is a relative of cucumbers that we eat, they both belong to the same family (Cucurbitaceae). Wild cucumber is not edible though. The plant is a creeper and it can be most often seen twining around other trees or around fences. It grows both in Southern and Northern California. Another name for this plant, manroot refers to its gigantic root that is supposed to be as big as a man. I personally have not seen the root of this plant so I can't tell for sure.

Wild cucumber flowers

The white flowers are actually quite small. The plant is very easy to recognize. The leaves are lobed. But the most interesting feature of this plant is its fruit.

Fresh fruit of wild cucumber

Fresh fruit is soft and green, covered with spikes. If you cut it, you'll find four chambers inside, each of which contains one or two large seeds.

Wild cucumber seed

Here is the dry fruit cut open:

Dry fruit of wild cucumber with empty seed chambers

So when the weather gets really hot, the fruit changes from green to tan and feels very dry. The fruit eventually cracks and the seeds are scattered on the ground.

Hanging dry wild cucumber fruit that cracked open. 

Wild cucumber belong to the genus Marah, which is the same word that is used in the Bible and means "bitter" referring to bitter waters in Exodus. Naomi in the Book of Ruth also changes her name to Marah for a while to indicate bitter life that she had. The marah in wild cucumbers refers to extreme bitterness of its roots or tubers. The plant belongs to the gourd family.

Pacific Bleeding Heart

Pacific bleeding heart is an apt name for this plant with delicate pink heart-shaped flowers and fern-lile leaves. It does not seem to grow wild but is more like half cultivated plant. You see it most often in flower beds or in parks.

Bleeding heart flowers and leaves

Bleeding heart flower