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Medlar (Mespilus germanica)

Categories
Harvest & Use
Pick when leaves begin to fall. The fruit is hard when ripe and must sit off the tree for a few weeks to soften and sweeten. The fruit will be mushy brown (rotten-looking, basically) when ready to eat; flavor is described as rich, cidery and wine-like.
Appearance
The wide pink-white flowers are showy and late-arriving, just like a movie star. The green leaves are downy, dull, and dark, turning yellow with fall. The rust-colored fruits resemble small apples. The medlar grows to 20' with a crooked look and informal air. It is attractive with other shrubs or as a specimen tree.
Cultivation
The medlar grows poorly in frost-free areas, and in poor soils. Propagation is usually by grafting onto quince, hawthorne, or pear (Reich).
Comment
The medlar has been cultivated in Europe for millennia, particularly by the French, reaching a popular peak during the Middle Ages. It now grows wild over much of Europe and southern Great Britain, but Authorities place its origin either in central Europe, or around the Caspian Sea. Shakespeare refers to the Medlar a couple of times:

Romeo and Juliet:

BENVOLIO
Come, he hath hid himself among these trees,
To be consorted with the humorous night:
Blind is his love and best befits the dark.

MERCUTIO
If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark.
Now will he sit under a medlar tree,
And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit
As maids call medlars, when they laugh alone.
Romeo, that she were, O, that she were
An open et caetera, thou a poperin pear!
Romeo, good night: I'll to my truckle-bed;
This field-bed is too cold for me to sleep:
Come, shall we go?

As You Like It:

TOUCHSTONE
Truly, the tree yields bad fruit.

ROSALIND
I'll graff it with you, and then I shall graff it
with a medlar: then it will be the earliest fruit
i' the country; for you'll be rotten ere you be half
ripe, and that's the right virtue of the medlar.

Cultivars of Repute
Dutch, Macrocarpa (large fruit), Nottingham, Royal
General References
[C= cultivation; R = recipes; L = lore; A = all]
* Grigson [R,L]
* Reich [C, L]
* Simmons [C, L]

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Mint; Spearmint (Mentha spicata)

Categories
Harvest & Use
Cut young leaves and use them fresh if possible. For drying, pick leaves before the plant flowers and when the leaves are dry. The leaves contain vitamins A and C. Mints (and thyme) are sometimes planted in paths, where they release an aromatic oil called "menthol" when trodden--a practice popular among Elizabethans. Menthol is worth around $20 a pound, which is earning mint attention as a possible alternative to coca as a cash crop for Bolivian peasants. Pliny thought that mint activates the mind. Modern herbalists hold that it stimulates the sense of taste and improves digestion (by releasing bile--people with gallbladder problems might need to avoid it). Mint is a pop-star, appearing in everything from shaving cream to caffeine and tobacco substitutes. Menthol dulls the temperature receptors in the skin, producing a "cooling" effect (it affects only the feeling of heat, not actual skin temperature).
Appearance
Fast growing groundcover reaching 2' in height. The leaves are ruffled, deciduous in cold end of the plant's range. The flowers are lilac, in spiked clusters.
Cultivation
Flowering reduces the flavor of the leaves: cut off the blooms or harvest early. Mint needs to be replanted every 3 years, a job it often takes care of itself. Mint likes moist soil; ideal pH is 6.5. Needs some protection from intense heat. It propagates readily from root, layering, cuttings, and from seed. There are about 40 Mentha species, and they hybridize readily; they are all grown the same way. Once established, mint often becomes invasive, so mint cultivators often plant it in areas bordered by walkways or in pots.
Comment
Mint is native to Europe, but naturalized throughout North America. The active ingredient in the essential oil of spearmint is carvone, which is the mirror image of the analagous molecule in caraway: The molecules are the same atoms connected in the same order, only the "handedness" or orientation differs. Penny royal (M. pulegium) is an insecticide, often used for organic flea control; it was also once used as an abortificant. Women drank penny royal tea (kykeon) to be initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries. The Greeks believed that a wreath of penny royal would dispel drunkeness. Romans put peppermint sprigs on the floor as a sign of hospitality, probably because of the fragrance produced by trodding on the leaves.
Species of Repute
* Apple mint, M. suaveolens.
* Corsican mint, M. requienii... fragrant, used in tea and as a groundcover.
* Penny royal, M. pulegium... toxic, but useful as organic insect repellent; suitable as a groundcover.
* Peppermint, M. x piperita... common in tea and cooking; high menthol content. Peppermint is a natural hybrid of spearmint and watermint. It might suffer in hot summers more than other mints (the jury is still out).
* Spearmint, M. spicata... most common mint, used in mint juleps.
* Red mint, M. gracilis... for tea and fragrance.
* Watermint, M. aquatica... grows in boggy areas; fragrant.
General References
[C= cultivation; R = recipes; L = lore; A = all]
* Atkins [L]
* Bryan [A]

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Mulberry, Black (Morus nigra)

Categories
Harvest & Use
Wine; dye. The fruit is very sweet, popular with birds and kids. Mulberries can replace blackberries in many recipes. Unwashed fruit can be refrigerated for several days in a covered container. The tree crops so plentifully that it reliably keeps the birds (and children) away from other favorites, such as cherries. The price for profuse fruit production, however, is profuse pollen production, to such an extent that a few cities ban mulberries for the sake of hay fever sufferers; there are some reports that the problem is minor in fruiting varieties. Dropping fruits stain clothing, walkways, and anything else upon which they happen to bleed.
Appearance
The fruit resembles an elongated blackberry. The tree grows up to 30' tall, with dark green leaves that are slightly heart-shaped, lobed, rough on top and downy underneath. Two ornamental varieties are also around: a weeping mulberry that grows to about 8' and weeps to the ground, and a contorted variety growing to 8'
Cultivation
A fast grower in hot climates, slow in cool ones. This native of Asia Minor prefers a warm, well-drained soil (red mulberry is native to the eastern U.S.). Drought will cause the fruit to drop prematurely. Mulberries are usually pruned to a central leader (or not at all), and propagated with cuttings. Black mulberry is only hardy to zone 7, but hardier hybrids are available. Requires 400 chill hours.
Comment
Mulberry fruits come in many colors, a result of human foolishness. Those early desperadoes of forbidden love, Pyramus and Thisbe, conducted their tragic ends beneath a white mulberry tree, which in those days was the only kind (at least for storytime purposes). Pyramus believed a lion had devoured his girlfriend, and impaled himself on his sword like a proper man. Ovid explains that "...his blood spouted forth just as when a water pipe bursts....and sprinkled the snowy fruits....The roots, soaked in his gore, tinged the hanging berries with same rich color." Thisbe subsequently discovered her lover's state (if not her lover) and followed suit, vigorously shouting as she died: "And you, O Tree...bear forever the marks of our death: always have fruit of a dark and mournful hue, to make men remember the blood we have shed!" Thus was the color of the fruit transformed: "Her prayers touched the gods...for the berry of the tree, when ripe, is a dark purple color." (Metamorphoses, Book IV). White mulberries remain the most commonly grown, but the black is the most savory of the mulberry genus, much to the relief of excessively romantic fruit lovers. The wood, too, made itself useful in antiquity. Assurnasirpal II (Assyrian ruler 884-859 BCE) wrote:

A palace of cedar, cypress, juniper, boxwood, mulberry, pistachio wood and tamarisk, for my royal dwelling and for my lordly pleasure for all time....Door-leaves of cedar, cypress, juniper and mulberry I hung in the gates thereof...

The Medes and Babylonians subsequently burnt this palace to the ground "for all time" (Willis: 33). More recently, the rot-resistant wood has been used for fence-posts. The Greeks dedicated the mulberry to Minerva on the grounds that it wisely buds late in spring, avoiding late frosts (hence the genus name "morus" meaning delay, cf. "moratorium" and "demur"). The leaves, particularly of the white mulberry, are the favorite food of the silkworm, and that tree has been grown for silk-production in China for over 5000 years. Western cultivation of the mulberry accelerated when Emperor Justinian convinced two Nestorian monks to smuggle silkworms and mulberry seeds out of China in their hollow staves, thus introducing silk-production to the west (Willis: 261-62, 264-65).
Cultivars of Repute
Most black mulberry varieties taste alike, and are better than white or red mulberries (the name has little to do with the color of the fruit). 'Persian' is readily available. 'Illinois Everbearing' is hardy to zone 5; it's probably a red- and white-mulberry hybrid, with a taste comparable to the black mulberry. 'Oscars' is a red or red-white cross that is very drought resistant, reliable, and early ripening. Ornamental weeping and contorted mulberries are also available (not notable for their fruit).
General References
[C= cultivation; R = recipes; L = lore; A = all]
* Bryan [A]
* Grigson [R,L]
* Reich [C, L]
* Simmons [C, L]

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Onion, Tree; Egyptian O.; Catawissa (Allium cepa aggregatum)

Categories
Harvest & Use
Tree onions produce bulbettes (grape-sized bulbs) at the top of the stems (you can eat the root-bulbs too), ripening about 100 days into the growing season. The bulbettes are strongly flavored and usually used cooked. The young shoots are also edible.
Appearance
A chive-like plant growing to 4' with curious bulbous clumps growing at the top. Catawissa onions grow taller than Egyptian onions.
Cultivation
Plant the bulbs in spring, preferably in rich soil with plenty of phosphorus. If unpicked, the bulbettes will bend the plant down and take root, earning the plant's nickname "walking onion". Onions are shallow-rooted and need consistently moist, but well-drained, soil. The spiciness of some onion varieties varies according to climate: hot climates produce hot onions. Onions are often intercropped with carrots, because they reduce each other's pests.
Comment
The word "onion" derives from the Latin "union," which is also the base for various other romance-language terms meaning smooth, uniform or one. The origin of the tree onion is attributed to the Nile valley or to Asia Minor, depending on which Authority one holds most Authoritative. Tree onions were consumed in great quantities by the pyramid-building slaves. Thomas Jefferson grew them in his garden in Virginia.

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Oregano; Wild Marjoram (Origanum vulgare)

Categories
Harvest & Use
Pick sprigs in mid-summer and thereafter; flavor declines after flowering. An oil is sometimes extracted from the seed (works best in hot climates); the oil is a slight skin irritant. Oregano contains several volatile oils with volatile implications for public health. Carvacrol and thymol have acted as antibiotics and anti-fungal agents in test-tube studies (Mexican oregano, a different species with similar flavor, has been effective at inhibiting giardia). Old country doctors (also known as quacks in some circles) prescribed oregano to promote menstruation; some modern herbalists (also known as quacks...) say it increases risk of miscarriage. Oregano traditionally blends with anything tomatoey, and anything strong-tasting and oily; the obvious example is pizza. The flavor turns bitter after prolonged cooking, so recipes often call for adding oregano at the end.
Appearance
The plant is rangey and sprawling if not cut back. The foliage is finely textured and gray-green; the variety 'Aureum' (Golden Oregano) has yellow leaves. Flowers come in late summer, grow in spikes, and are white, purple, or in-between. Oregano usually grows about two feet tall and wide.
Cultivation
Optimum pH is 6.8. Wild oregano grows well in shade, the cultivated sub-species O. v. hirtum (Greek oregano) does not. Pungency declines in rich soils, and after flowering. Oregano has a spreading root system, which is prone to fungal rot in soggy soil. It tolerates traffic better than average. Propagation is usually by seed or cuttings; it shows considerable genetic variation when grown from seed.
Comment
O. onites (pot marjoram) has a flavor similar to that of oregano. Commercial oregano can be any of several different species (in addtion to O. vulgare, O. heracleoticum is common). However, O. vulgare has sown itself most widely, ranging over most of Europe and central Asia. Despite its wide range and adaptability, oregano is one of the most imported herbs in the world, probably because of the increaing popularity of Mexican and Italian food. The name "oregano" derives from Greek meaning "joy of the mountains" ("oros" is Greek for mountain, and "ganos" means joy). Legend has it that Aphrodite created oregano as a gift to humanity; it has a history of use in fertility rites such as weddings. How do we reconcile the legend and ritual with oregano's possible connection to menstruation and miscarriage (see above)? Oregano was burned at witch trials to keep the Devil away, and grown in monasteries for the same reason.

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Mint; Spearmint Mentha spicata Oregano; Wild Marjoram Origanum vulgare