WINTER FLOWERS

Daphne odora (winter daphne) is a species of flowering plant in the family Thymelaeaceae, native to China, Japan and Korea. It is an evergreen shrub, grown for its very fragrant, fleshy, pale-pink, tubular flowers, each with 4 spreading lobes, and for its glossy foliage. It rarely fruits, producing red berries after flowering. The Latin specific epithet odora means "fragrant".

It grows best in fertile, slightly acid, peaty, well-drained soils. It grows in full sun or partial shade, and is hardy to −10 °C, possibly lower. In Korea, the plant is also poetically called "churihyang" - a thousand mile scent - referring to the fragrance of the foliage. In Japan, the plant is more commonly known as "jinchoge".

Plants are not long lived, senescing within 8 to 10 years. Daphne generally do not react well to root disturbance, and may transplant badly. D. odora is also susceptible to virus infection, which causes leaf mottling. All parts of the plant are poisonous to humans and a range of domestic animals and some people experience dermatitis from contact with the sap. Daphne odora is propagated by semi-ripe cuttings in summer.

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.

DURANTA

Duranta erecta is a species of flowering shrub in the verbena family Verbenaceae, native from Mexico to South America and the Caribbean. It is widely cultivated as an ornamental plant in tropical and subtropical gardens throughout the world, and has become naturalised in many places. It is considered an invasive species in Australia, China, South Africa and on several Pacific Islands.

The genus name is in honour of Castore Durante, a fifteenth-century Italian botanist. The specific epithet erecta means "upright" in Latin. The plant is also known as D. repens, from the Latin for "creeping". The latter name was originally used to identify smaller-leaved varieties of the species. Common names include golden dewdrop, pigeon berry, and skyflower. In Mexico, the native Nahuatl name for the plant is xcambocoché. In Tonga it is known as mavaetangi (tears of departure). Duranta is registered as an invasive weed by many councils of Australia. It is a prolific, fast growing weed that is spread by birds from domestic areas to natural reserves. It was introduced and marketed as a hedge plant some years ago. Many people now fight to keep this thorny pest under control. It is highly ranked in the most invasive weeds in Australia.

Duranta erecta is a sprawling shrub or (infrequently) a small tree. It can grow to 6 m tall and can spread to an equal width. Mature specimens possess axillary thorns, which are often absent on younger specimens. The leaves are light green, elliptic to ovate, opposite, and grow up to 7.5 cm long and 3.5 cm broad, with a 1.5 cm petiole. The flowers are light-blue or lavender, produced in tight clusters located on terminal and axillary stems, blooming almost all year long. The fruit is a small globose yellow or orange berry, up to 11 mm diameter and containing several seeds. The leaves and berries of the plant are toxic, and are confirmed to have killed children, dogs and cats. However, songbirds eat the fruit without ill effects.

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.

JONQUIL

Narcissus jonquilla (Jonquil, Rush daffodil) is a bulbous flowering plant, a species of Narcissus (daffodil) that is native to southwestern Europe and northern Africa, but has naturalised throughout Europe and the United States. It bears long, narrow, rush-like leaves (hence the name "jonquil", Spanish junquillo, from the Latin juncus = "rush"). It is in the Amaryllidaceae family of plants.

In Spring it bears heads of up to 5 scented yellow or white flowers. It is a parent of numerous varieties within Division 7 of the horticultural classification. Division 7 in the Royal Horticultural Society classification of Narcissus includes N. jonquilla and N. apodanthus hybrids and cultivars that show clear characteristics of those two species.

N. jonquilla has been cultivated since the 18th century in France as the strongest of the Narcissus species used in Narcissus Oil, a component of many modern perfumes. Like other members of their family, narcissi produce a number of different alkaloids, which provide some protection for the plant, but may be poisonous if accidentally ingested. This property has been exploited for medicinal use in traditional healing and has resulted in the production of galantamine for the treatment of Alzheimer's dementia.

We have had the first jonquils blooming in our garden this week, which is very early (considering it is late Autumn here in Melbourne!).

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.

MELBOURNE WEEDS 15 - HEMLOCK

Conium maculatum, the hemlock or poison hemlock, is a highly poisonous biennial herbaceous flowering plant in the carrot family Apiaceae, native to Europe and North Africa. A hardy plant capable of living in a variety of environments, hemlock is widely naturalised in locations outside its native range.

Conium maculatum is known by several common names. In addition to the English hemlock, the Australian carrot fern and the Irish devil's bread or devil's porridge, the following names are also used: Poison parsley, spotted corobane and spotted hemlock. The dried stems are sometimes called kecksies or kex. Conium comes from the Ancient Greek κώνειον - kṓneion: "hemlock". This may be related to konas (meaning to whirl), in reference to vertigo, one of the symptoms of ingesting the plant.

Hemlock is a herbaceous biennial flowering plant that grows to 1.5–2.5 m  tall, with a smooth, green, hollow stem, usually spotted or streaked with red or purple on the lower half of the stem. All parts of the plant are hairless (glabrous); the leaves are two- to four-pinnate, finely divided and lacy, overall triangular in shape, up to 50 cm long and 40 cm broad. It has been introduced and naturalised in many other areas, including Asia, North America, Australia and New Zealand. The plant is often found in poorly drained soil, particularly near streams, ditches and other watery surfaces. It also appears on roadsides, edges of cultivated fields and waste areas and is considered an invasive species in 12 U.S. states. Poison hemlock flourishes in the spring, when most other forage is gone. All plant parts are poisonous, but once the plant is dried, the poison is greatly reduced, although not gone completely.

Conium maculatum is the plant that killed Theramenes, Socrates and Phocion. In ancient Greece, hemlock was used to poison condemned prisoners. Socrates, the most famous victim of hemlock poisoning, was accused of impiety and corrupting the young men of Athens in 399 BC, and his trial resulted in a death sentence. Although Socrates could have avoided death, he decided to take a potent infusion of the hemlock plant.

DO NOT PICK OR EAT THIS PLANT, IT IS QUITE TOXIC AND COULD CAUSE DEATH!

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.

MELBOURNE WEEDS 14 - ITALIAN ARUM

Arum italicum is a species of flowering herbaceous perennial plant in the family Araceae, also known as Italian arum and Italian lords-and-ladies. It is native to the Mediterranean region (southern Europe, northern Africa, and the Middle East) plus Great Britain, the Netherlands, Crimea, Caucasus, Canary Islands, Madeira, and the Azores. It is also naturalised in Argentina and in scattered locations in the United States.

It grows 30–46 cm high, with equal spread. It blooms in spring with white flowers that turn to showy red fruit. It is cultivated as an ornamental plant for traditional and woodland shade gardens. Subspecies italicum (the one normally grown in horticulture) has distinctive pale veins on the leaves, whilst subspecies neglectum has faint pale veins, and the leaves may have dark spots. Some gardeners use this arum to underplant with Hosta, as they produce foliage sequentially: When the Hosta withers away, the arum replaces it in early winter, maintaining ground-cover.

Numerous cultivars have been developed for garden use, of which A. italicum subsp. italicum 'Marmoratum' has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit. Arum italicum can be invasive in some areas. Arum italicum may hybridise with Arum maculatum. In 1778, Lamarck noticed that the inflorescence of this plant produces heat.

Leaves, fruits and rhizomes contain compounds that make them poisonous. Notably, leaves are rich in oxalic acid; other active principles are present in other parts. The ingestion of berries, which are showy and red, may result fatal for babies and young children. As a general rule, avoiding consumption is advisable for adults too.

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.

A NOXIOUS WEED

Lycium ferocissimum (African boxthorn or boxthorn) is a shrub in the nightshade family (Solanaceae). The species is native to Cape Province and Orange Free State in South Africa and has become naturalised in Australia and New Zealand. It is listed on the Noxious Weed List for Australian States and Territories and is a declared noxious weed in the United States.

African boxthorn is a large shrub which grows up to 5 metres high and is covered in spines. The leaves are oval in shape and are 10–40 millimetres long and 4–10 millimetres in width. The solitary flowers emerge from the leaf axils and are purplish. The species was first formally described in 1854 by British botanist John Miers in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History. His description was based on plant material collected from Uitenhage in South Africa.

African boxthorn is an aggressive invader of pastures, roadsides, reserves, remnant bushland and waterways. It forms an impenetrable, spiny thicket that inhibits the movement of stock and provides a haven for feral animals. Many insects, including fruit fly, the common house fly and the tomato fly, breed in the fruit of this weed.

This plant is toxic to humans and will cause discomfort and irritation, but is not life-threatening. The berries, leaves, stems and roots are all poisonous, and can cause nausea, vomiting, breathing difficulties and unconsciousness. Get the person to an emergency department of a hospital ASAP, especially so if they are unconscious.

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme,
and also part of the Friday Greens meme.

MELBOURNE STREET TREES 139 - OLEANDER

Nerium oleander is an evergreen shrub or small tree in the dogbane family Apocynaceae, toxic in all its parts. It is the only species currently classified in the genus Nerium. It is most commonly known as oleander, from its superficial resemblance to the unrelated olive Olea. It is so widely cultivated that no precise region of origin has been identified, though southwest Asia has been suggested. Oleander is one of the most poisonous of commonly grown garden plants.

Oleander grows to 2–6 m tall, with erect stems that splay outward as they mature; first-year stems have a glaucous bloom, while mature stems have a grayish bark. The leaves are in pairs or whorls of three, thick and leathery, dark-green, narrow lanceolate, 5–21 cm long and 1–3.5 cm broad, and with an entire margin. The flowers grow in clusters at the end of each branch; they are white, pink to red, 2.5–5 cm diameter, with a deeply 5-lobed fringed corolla round the central corolla tube. They are often, but not always, sweet-scented. The fruit is a long narrow capsule 5–23 cm long, which splits open at maturity to release numerous downy seeds.

Oleander grows well in warm subtropical regions where it is extensively used as an ornamental plant in landscapes, in parks, and along roadsides. It is drought-tolerant and will tolerate occasional light frost down to −10 °C. It is commonly used in landscaping freeway medians in California, Texas, and other mild-winter states in the Continental United States because it is upright in habit and easily maintained. Its toxicity renders it deer-resistant. It is tolerant of poor soils and drought. Oleander can also be grown in cooler climates in greenhouses and conservatories, or as indoor plants that can be kept outside in the summer.

Oleander flowers are showy and fragrant and are grown for these reasons. Over 400 cultivars have been named, with several additional flower colours not found in wild plants having been selected, including red, purple, pink, and orange; white and a variety of pinks are the most common. Many cultivars also have double flowers. Young plants grow best in spaces where they do not have to compete with other plants for nutrients. Thailand has produced miniature sized Nerium plants to use in ornamental gardening.

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.