Cleome serrulata (syn. Peritoma serrulata), commonly known as Rocky Mountain beeplant/beeweed, stinking-clover,[1]bee spider-flower,[2]skunk weed,[3]Navajo spinach,[4] and guaco,[5] is a species of annual plant in the genus Cleome. Many species of insects are attracted to it, especially bees, which helps in the pollination of nearby plants. It is native to southern Canada and the western and central United States. The plant has often been used for food, to make dyes for paint, and as a treatment in traditional medicine.
In 1901, Edward Lee Greene expanded Candolle's Peritoma, including this species as Peritoma serrulatum DC. and Peritoma lutem Raf. as well as two other species that he knew little about.[9] At least Peritoma serrulata has been determined to be a synonym of Cleome serrulata.[1]
Description
Cleome serrulata is an annual plant growing to 10–150cm (4–59in) tall, with spirally arranged leaves. The leaves are trifoliate, diminutive teeth,[8] and with three slender leaflets each 1–7cm (0.5–3in) long. The flowers are reddish-purple, pink, or white, with four petals and six long stamens.[5] The fruit is a capsule3–6cm (1–2.5in) long containing several seeds.[11][12] Flowering lasts an extended period because it begins at the bottom of the stalk and works its way up. The onset of flowering and seed pods comes at the same time.[8] Cell wall elasticity is higher in specimens that live in drier climates.[13] The pollen is about 0.015 millimeters (0.00059in) in length with three furrows which have one pore each.[5]
Moisture, temperature, and time are critical in seed germination.[14] Germination occurs during summer and plants can quickly grow to 1–2 meters (3.3–6.6ft). Flowers are often covered with a variety of insects, especially bees. Elongated capsules contain the seeds, which are dark brown to black, curved, and have a wart-like appearance.[8] After the seeds are dispersed, the plants begin decomposing.[5]
Cleome serrulata is native in southern Canada from British Columbia to Ontario and in the United States from the west coast of the United States east to Ohio and southwest to Texas.[16] It is also naturalized farther east in North America,[11][12][17] including Maine.[18] This species is often found in disturbed lands—such as roadsides, open woods, mountain foothills, and prairies.[3] The plants prefer moist alkaline soils that are light or sandy.[5][7][8] It grows in a wide range of pH levels and prefers mild shade or full sun while being drought tolerant. It is commonly found at elevations of 760–2,200 metres (2,490–7,220ft) in the northern Rocky Mountains. It is often found with the following species: Pascopyrum smithii (western wheatgrass), Pseudoroegneria spicata (bluebunch wheatgrass), Koeleria macrantha (prairie Junegrass), Poa secunda (Sandberg bluegrass), Gaillardia aristata (common gaillardia), Artemisia tridentata (big sagebrush), and Ratibida columnifera (prairie coneflower).[8]
Uses
Cleome serrulata has been used in the southwestern United States as a food, medicine, and dye since prehistoric times and is one of very few wild foods still in use.[5] As food, its seeds can be eaten raw or cooked, or dried and ground into meal for use as a mush. The tender leaves, flowers and shoots can be cooked and eaten as a cooked vegetable[19] or added to cornmeal porridge.[5][20][21] Among the Zuni, the leaves gathered in large quantities and hung indoors to dry for winter use.[22] The young leaves are cooked with corn strongly flavored with chili peppers.[22][23] To reduce its bitter taste, pieces of iron or rust were sometimes added to the cooking pot.[5] Animals rarely feed on this plant because of its disagreeable taste and odor. Nitrate poisoning can result if too much is consumed. Birds do eat the seeds, and the plant provides good cover for land reclamation and upland birds.[8] The Tewa and other Southwestern United States tribes often included Cleome serrulata as a 'fourth sister' in the Three Sisters agriculture system because it attracts bees to help pollinate the beans and squash.[24]
In traditional Native American and frontier medicine, an infusion of the plant is used to treat stomach troubles and fevers, and poultices made from it can be used on the eyes.[5][25] As a dye, the plant can be boiled down until it is reduced to a thick, black syrup; this was used as a binder in pigments for painting black-on-white pottery at least as long ago as 900-1300 by the Ancestral Puebloans.[5][20][21] The Navajo still use it to make yellow-green dye for their rugs and blankets.[4] Plant paste is used with black mineral paint to color sticks of plume offerings to anthropic gods,[22] and the whole plant except for the root is used in pottery decorations.[22]
↑ Mogensen, Susana H. A. C.; Allen, Phil S.; Meyer, Susan E. (2001). "Prechill Temperature and Duration are Important in Determining Seed Quality for 12 Wildflowers". Seed Technology. 23 (2): 145–150. JSTOR23433047.
↑ Knight, O. W. (April 1904). "Cleome serrulata in Maine". Rhodora. New England Botanical Club, Inc. 6 (64): 79. JSTOR23293557.
↑ Freedman, Robert Louis (1976). "Native North American Food Preparation Techniques". Boletín Bibliográfico de Antropología Americana (1973-1979). Pan American Institute of Geography and History. 38 (47): 119. JSTOR43996285., s.v. Beeweed Pueblo
1 2 "Bee Weed (V. Cornell)". Paleoethnobotany Manual. Northern Arizona University. Archived from the original on March 5, 2016. Retrieved November 15, 2014.
1 2 3 4 Stevenson, Matilda Coxe (1908). "Ethnobotany of the Zuni Indians". Thirtieth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology for 1908. Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office: 69, 82, 96.
↑ Castetter, E. F. (1935). "Uncultivated Native Plants Used as Sources of Food". Ethnobiological Studies in the American Southwest I. University of New Mexico Bulletin. 4 (1): 1–44.
↑ Hemenway, Toby (2000). Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing. p.149. ISBN1-890132-52-7.
Gaillardia is a genus of flowering plants in the family Asteraceae, native to North and South America. It was named after Maître Gaillard de Charentonneau, an 18th-century French magistrate who was an enthusiastic botanist. The common name may refer to the resemblance of the inflorescence to the brightly patterned blankets made by Native Americans, or to the ability of wild taxa to blanket the ground with colonies. Many cultivars have been bred for ornamental use.
A pollinator is an animal that moves pollen from the male anther of a flower to the female stigma of a flower. This helps to bring about fertilization of the ovules in the flower by the male gametes from the pollen grains.
Guaco, huaco, vejuco and bejuco are terms applied to various vine-like Central American, South American, and West Indian climbing plants, reputed to have curative powers. Several species in the genus Mikania are among those referred to as guaco. Even though it is not a vine guaco is also used to refer to Cleome serrulata, the Rocky Mountain beeplant.
Holodiscus discolor, commonly known as ocean spray or oceanspray, creambush, or ironwood, is a shrub of western North America.
A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants. Flowers produce gametophytes, which in flowering plants consist of a few haploid cells which produce gametes. The "male" gametophyte, which produces non-motile sperm, is enclosed within pollen grains; the "female" gametophyte is contained within the ovule. When pollen from the anther of a flower is deposited on the stigma, this is called pollination. Some flowers may self-pollinate, producing seed using pollen from the same flower or a different flower of the same plant, but others have mechanisms to prevent self-pollination and rely on cross-pollination, when pollen is transferred from the anther of one flower to the stigma of another flower on a different individual of the same species.
Eriogonum fasciculatum is a species of wild buckwheat known by the common names California buckwheat and flat-topped buckwheat. Characterized by small, white and pink flower clusters that give off a cottony effect, this species grows variably from a patchy mat to a wide shrub, with the flowers turning a rusty color after blooming. This plant is of great benefit across its various habitats, providing an important food resource for a diversity of insect and mammal species. It also provides numerous ecosystem services for humans, including erosion control, post-fire mitigation, increases in crop yields when planted in hedgerows, and high habitat restoration value.
Cleome is a genus of flowering plants in the family Cleomaceae, commonly known as spider flowers, spider plants, spider weeds, or bee plants. Previously, it had been placed in the family Capparaceae, until DNA studies found the Cleomaceae genera to be more closely related to the Brassicaceae than the Capparaceae. Cleome and clammyweed can sometimes be confused. The simplest way to differentiate the two is to compare the seedpods which project out or down on cleome and up on clammyweed.
Ericameria nauseosa, commonly known as chamisa, rubber rabbitbrush, and gray rabbitbrush, is a shrub in the sunflower family (Aster) found in the arid regions of western North America.
Mahonia trifoliolata is a species of flowering plant in the family Berberidaceae, in southwestern North America. Common names include agarita, agrito, algerita, currant-of-Texas, wild currant, and chaparral berry. The name Agarita comes from the Spanish verb agarrar, which means "to grab". The ending "-ita" is often added to little things, so agarita means "grabs a little". This was probably said because the bush is a bit scratchy but does not have significant spines. Typical characteristics are grey-green to blue-grey leaves, yellow flowers in February to April and the red berries appearing in May. The most important harvest organ are the berries, though the roots and seeds can also be used.
Gaillardia aristata is a North American species of flowering plant in the sunflower family, known by the common names common blanketflower and common gaillardia. This perennial wildflower is widespread across much of North America, from Yukon east to Québec and south as far as California, Arizona, Illinois, and Connecticut, although it may be naturalized rather than native in parts of that range. It is also naturalized in scattered locations in Europe, Australia, and South America.
Gutierrezia sarothrae is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae known by the common names broom snakeweed, broomweed, snakeweed, and matchweed. It is a subshrub native to much of the western half of North America, from western Canada to northern Mexico, and can be found in a number of arid, grassland, and mountain habitats. It can be toxic to livestock in large quantities, due mainly to the presence of saponins.
Ribes aureum, known by the common names golden currant, clove currant, pruterberry and buffalo currant, is a species of flowering plant in the genus Ribes native to North America.
Cleome platycarpa is a species of flowering plant in the cleome family known by the common names golden bee plant and golden spiderflower. It is native to the western United States from northeastern California to Idaho, including the Modoc Plateau, where it grows on clay and volcanic soils in the sagebrush. It is an annual herb branching at the base into several erect stems up to about 60 centimetres (24 in) tall. The stems are green tinted with purple, coated densely in glandular hairs, and lined with many leaves. Each leaf is divided into three small leaflets. The top of each stem is occupied by a raceme of many flowers. Each flower has generally four yellow sepals and four yellow petals around a center of many yellow stamens. The fruit is a flat, hairy capsule up to 2.5 centimeters long which hangs on the long, remaining flower receptacle. Found between 800–1200m.
Phoradendron juniperinum is a species of flowering plant in the sandalwood family known by the common name juniper mistletoe. It is native to the southwestern United States and northern Mexico, where it grows in various types of woodland habitat. It has been reported from California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Texas, Chihuahua and Sonora.
Ceanothus americanus is a species of Ceanothus shrub native to North America. Common names include New Jersey tea, Jersey tea ceanothus, variations of red root, mountain sweet, and wild snowball. New Jersey tea was a name coined during the American Revolution, because its leaves were used as a substitute for imported tea.
Zinnia grandiflora is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae known by the common names Rocky Mountains zinnia and plains zinnia. It is native to the southwestern and south-central United States and northern Mexico.
Dalea purpurea is a species of flowering plant in the legume family known as purple prairie clover. Native to central North America, purple prairie clover is a relatively common member of the Great Plains and prairie ecosystems. It blooms in the summer with dense spikes of bright purple flowers that attract many species of insects.
Lycium pallidum is a species of flowering plant in the nightshade family known by the common names pale wolfberry and pale desert-thorn. It is native to northern Mexico and the southwestern United States. In Mexico it can be found in Sonora, Chihuahua, Zacatecas, and San Luis Potosi. In the United States it occurs from California to Texas and as far north as Utah and Colorado.
This is a list of plants and how they are used in Zuni culture.
Psoralidium tenuiflorum, the slimflower scurfpea, is a perennial in the pea family. It is about 2–3 feet (0.6–0.9 m) tall and has a lot of leaves on top. Its leaves can reach a length of 3 inches (80 mm). This flower can be found mainly in the central and southwestern U.S.
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