Honey Bush, Melianthus major

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Honey Bush, Melianthus major

Honey Bush, Melianthus major, in Ventnor Botanic Garden.

It is just over a year since we replaced the raised bed in our front garden and the plants have already bulked up and settled in. The Honey Bush, Melianthus major, in the centre of the bed, is looking particularly lush and put on a big growth spurt in the early autumn.

I first encountered Melianthus major at the Priory Maze Gardens at Beeston Regis, near Sheringham in North Norfolk, a few years ago. I was struck by its spectacular glaucous foliage and, brushing against its leaves, its scent of peanut butter. After that I started to notice it growing elsewhere, such as a front garden I often walk past on Earlham Road in Norwich and in the lovely Ventnor Botanic Garden on the Isle of Wight. Here, in a mild climate and a very sunny spot, the plants were flowering and setting seed.

Melianthus major is a native of South Africa, although it has been introduced into India, Australia and New Zealand. It can grow to 2 to 3 metres (7 – 10 feet) tall within the space of one season and plants can be at least as wide as they are tall. Melianthus major has pinnate, blue-green leaves with serrated edges, each of which can grow over a foot (30 centimetres) long. It is a member of the family Melianthaceae.

Melianthus major can stand a slight frost (hardiness H3), down to about -4 degrees Celsius, and on days when the temperature dips just below freezing point, our plant droops, but then recovers. In colder weather, the stems can die back completely, but the roots are pretty hardy and the plant will grow back in the following year. In South Africa Melianthus plants sometimes die back during summer droughts but the autumn rains encourage the rootstock to regrow and the plants put on lush growth in the winter rainy season. Gardeners often cut back their Melianthus major plants to keep the plant smaller and neat. This is best done in spring, as the old foliage protects the plant from frosts.

In a warm, sheltered spot where the foliage hasn’t been cut back, Melianthus major will produce racemes of flowers in spring. These are 30 – 80 centimetres (12 – 31 inches) long. The flowers are almost the colour of dried blood – described as dark maroon, brownish crimson to brick red or dark red. They are full of nectar. In South Africa they are visited by bees and by nectar-feeding birds, such as sunbirds, white-eyes and red-winged starlings.  The flowers are followed by green seedpods. Linda Cochran grows Melianthus major in Port Ludlow, Washington, in the United States and her blog has some good photographs of the flowers and seedpods. The Plants Africa website has more detailed photographs of the flowers and describes their structure.

Melianthus produces large amounts of black nectar, which can literally drip from the flowers (and stain clothing). The scientific name Melianthus major means “large honey flower” and, as well as ‘Honey Bush’, English names for the plant include ‘Honey Flower‘, ‘giant honey flower’ and ‘touch-me-not’.

I like to squeeze Melianthus leaves for the peanut butter aroma, but not everyone likes the smell. The name ‘touch-me-not’ comes from the smell of the leaves and is a translation of the Afrikaans common name for the plant, kruidjie-roer-my-nie, which means ‘touch-me-not-herb’. Perhaps the smell is stronger in a hot climate?

Although Melianthus major smells of peanut butter, don’t be tempted to nibble the leaves, for the plant is poisonous. According the Plants For A Future website, the root is the most poisonous part of the plant. The nectar is very sweet and is sometimes eaten. Thomas C. Fuller and Elizabeth McClintock write in “Poisonous Plants of California” that honey from Melianthus flowers “is considered toxic” but Plants Africa says the plant “is said to produce good honey“.

In South Africa, Melianthus is used in traditional medicine. According to Plants Africa: “The leaves are used to make poultices and decoctions to treat septic wounds, sores, ulcers, boils, abscesses, bruises, backache, painful feet and rheumatic joints. The roots and leaves are used to treat snakebite, or taken in very small doses as a tonic. It is also used to make a gargle for sore throats and mouth infections. Dried flowers and leaves can be used to keep insects out of cupboards”. The plant is usually avoided by livestock because of its smell.

Melianthus major contains bufadienolides, (named after the toad, Bufo), cardiac glycosides that increase the output force of the heart and decrease its rate of contractions. (Other poisonous plants that contain cardiac glycosides include the Foxglove, Digitalis purpurea, and the Lily-of-the-Valley, Convallaria majalis.)

But don’t let the fact that it is poisonous stop you growing this magnificent plant.

Melianthus major likes a sheltered sunny spot and reasonably well drained soil. Once established, it copes well with drought, though my plant wilted very quickly in the couple of months when it was in a pot, prior to being planted in the raised bed.

If you want to produce more plants, Melianthus major is easy to raise from cuttings taken in spring and grown in a greenhouse, or from seed. The plant appears to have few pests, though whitefly and red spider mites could be a problem in a greenhouse and Cool Tropical Plants mentions that older leaves can be attacked by aphids.

Melianthus comosus is a more compact relative, whose leaves have attractive copper-gold undersides. It also comes from South Africa and is said to be very suited to British gardens.

Bog Asphodel, Narthecium ossifragum

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Bog Asphodel, Narthecium ossifragum

Bog Asphodel, Narthecium ossifragum, growing at Meathop Moss in Cumbria.

It’s December, a time of short days and few flowers (apart from stalwarts like Winter Heliotrope).

It’s good to escape these dark and dreary times for a while and look back at the summer. Something bright yellow should do the trick: Bog Asphodel, Narthecium ossifragum.

In June we visited Meathop Moss in Cumbria, primarily to see Large Heath butterflies. We eventually saw them when the sun came out.

Large Heath butterfly

Large Heath butterfly at Meathop Moss, Cumbria. 26th June 2017.

While we were waiting for Large Heaths, we had a look at the plants growing on this lovely lowland raised bog. One of the finest of these was Bog Asphodel.

I first saw Bog Asphodel on the moorlands of Northern Scotland but it is a rare plant in the south and east of England, so it was many years since I’d seen it. It was lovely to see this old friend in all its glory.

Bog Asphodel is a member of the family Nartheciaceae, though at one time it was considered to be part of the Liliaceae (Lily Family) or Amaryllidaceae (which contains plants such as Agapanthus). It is a perennial of wet bogs, where it grows up to slightly more than 1000 metres above sea level. (It has been reported up to 1130 metres altitude in parts of Scotland.) It has a mostly northern and western distribution in the British Isles. It is known from six sites in Norfolk and is found in the Roydon and Wolferton areas, where “it can sometimes be abundant” (Becket & Bull, “A Flora of Norfolk, 1999). Bog Asphodel can also be found in suitable habitats in Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Belgium, Northwest Germany, Western and Central France, Northern Spain and East Portugal.

Bog Asphodel has creeping rhizomes which bear upright, pyramidal spikes of yellow star-like flowers with six petals and six bright reddish-orange anthers from June until August. The leaves are narrow and form a flattened fan around each stem. Individual flowers are lovely when seen up close, but the massed flowers are spectacular, especially in contrast to the browns and greens of their surroundings. After flowering, the plant sets reddish, egg-shaped fruits and these and the stems, which have an orange hue, remain attractive into autumn. There are some lovely photographs of the plant on the Wild Flower Finder website.

The “asphodel” of the plant’s English name comes from its similarity to the White Asphodel, Asphodelus albus, although that plant grows on limy soils around the Mediterranean and is in a different plant family, the Asphodelaceae. “Bog” refers to the plant’s preferred habitat. Other English names include Maiden’s Hair, Moor-golds, Yellow Grass, Bastard Asphodel and Lancashire Asphodel.

The specific name of the plant, ossifragum, means ‘bone breaker’. This refers to the old belief that after grazing on this plant the bones of sheep became brittle. However, it is now thought that the sheep’s brittle bones were caused by a lack of calcium in the soils where Bog Asphodel grows.

Nonetheless, Bog Asphodel really is toxic to livestock, but in other ways.

Lambs will usually eat grass in preference to Bog Asphodel, but where grass is less plentiful they may eat the plant and, as a consequence, develop liver damage and photosensitivity. The photosensitivity occurs especially on unpigmented areas of the skin such as the face, ears and feet. The skin becomes red, hot and swollen and may break. In severe cases, the animals can go blind and the liver damage may be fatal. The condition is known by various names, including “alveld” in Norway, “saut” in Cumbria, “plochteach”, “yellowses” and “head greet” in Scotland and “heddles” and “hard lug” in Northern Ireland. (“Alveld” translates as “elf fire”.)

The website Toxicology.no (“Norway’s portal to natural toxin research”) gives an interesting summary of Bog Asphodel’s toxicity. Different breeds of sheep vary in their susceptibility and the disease is usually restricted to young lambs (two to six months old), and more cases are seen in colder and wetter summers.  Cattle and Elk (Moose) can also show Bog Asphodel poisoning: symptoms in cattle can include anorexia, diarrhoea, melena, dehydration and death.

The standard explanation for Bog Asphodel toxicity is that trisaccharide saponins found in the plant are to blame. Animals that eat green plants break down the chlorophyll they contain into a waste product called phylloerythrin and this is normally excreted from the body. But some of the breakdown products from the saponins in Bog Asphodel seem to interfere in the removal of phylloerythrin from the body. Phylloerythrin can then enter bloodstream and cause a photosensitive reaction where the animal’s skin is exposed to sunlight. The situation is probably more complicated than at first thought: recent research suggests that toxins from fungi or cyanobacteria associated with Bog Asphodel may also play a role.

Humans have used Bog Asphodel as a substitute for saffron and also, in the seventeenth century, as a hair dye. The Herbs – Treat and Taste website reports that Bog Asphodel has been used in the past to treat hernias, coughs and ulcers and inflamed genitals.

I won’t be using it soon and I am happy just to look at this lovely plant. Here is another photograph, viewed from above.

Bog Asphodel from above

Bog Asphodel from above.

Fenugreek Stalkball, Phleogena faginea

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Fenugreek Stalkball, Phleogena faginea

Fenugreek Stalkball, Phleogena faginea

Last month I wrote about the Piggyback Rosegill, Volvariella surrecta, which was a new species for me.

Another new find this autumn has been the Fenugreek Stalkball, Phleogena faginea, pictured above, which I’ve now seen twice.

My first encounter with the species was in Train Wood in Norwich, on a fungal foray in late October. It was growing inside a rotting Sycamore stump and was difficult to photograph, but a week later it was also growing on the outside of the stump and I managed to have a better look and take some photographs. Today I saw more of it, this time on a dying Whitebeam tree in Earlham Cemetery, also in Norwich.

Fenugreek Stalkball is a small fungus that grows in troops or swarms on the trunks of living or dead deciduous trees, bursting out through the bark. It may be small, but it is well worth a closer look – and smell.

The name “stalkball” comes from the appearance of the fungus: each of its fruit bodies consists of a round head on top of a short stalk. The head and stalk are dirty white in younger specimens (as in my photograph) but become a darker grey with age. A closer look with the aid of a hand lens reveals that the surface of each head is dull and covered with irregular pits. A microscope will let you see its spores; I recommend the lovely high magnification photographs by Malcolm Storey on the Discover Life website.

The “fenugreek” part of the name refers to its smell. If you sniff the fungus in situ on a cold day, you probably won’t notice anything. But if you put a few fruit bodies in a small pot and take it home or warm it up in your pocket, you should be reminded of fenugreek or a mild curry powder when you take a sniff. (I tried this today for the first time!) The smell becomes stronger as the fungus dries out.

The Fenugreek Stalkball is easily overlooked, which is possibly why there aren’t many records of it. The NBN Atlas has 127 records at time of writing and these are mostly from the south of England, with ten from Norfolk. Sterry and Hughes describe its status as “occasional in S. England”. It has also been found in other parts of Europe (including Poland, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Denmark, Slovenia, Norway and Sweden), and in the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Japan. It is pictured and described (in French) on the Champignons du Quebec website.

The fungus was first described growing on a living Beech tree (Fagus), hence the “faginea” part of the scientific name. However, it has now been found on a large range of trees from at least eleven plant families.