Jim Chatfield
| Special about the Akron Beacon Journal

The past few weeks have been travel for me, from doing some tree care programs in Maryland to attending the Sidwell Friends School in Washington, DC to get a plant certificate with my artist / teacher niece Catherine to visit Colorado.

It is always wonderful to see the diversity of people and plants in this country. Junipers along the highways in the west, bizarre magnolia fruits in the east of the USA, numerous willow oaks in the mid-Atlantic, flowering dogwoods with numerous glistening red fruits and salmon-pink autumn colors in Mansfield.

There are hardy oranges (Poncirus trifoliata) with a bumper crop in the gardens in all of these locations, huge fields of sorghum (Kansas is the # 1 producing state) and millet (Colorado is # 1) if you travel west. There are out-of-time plants like forsythia and sparkler crabapple with blossoms (albeit sparse) now in fall instead of spring. There’s the insects of fall, including grasshoppers in Kansas, emerald ashbore damage in Missouri, and bald-faced hornets’ nests in Ohio. And there are the unexpected travel experiences, like the Foot High Pies at the Blue Springs Café in Highland, Illinois, on the way to Mile High City.

Do you know what you are eating. Speaking of cake, it was coconut cream with a lot of foot-high, airy meringue. That brings me to one of my habits – thinking about what plants I am eating when I eat, even down to the last detail of the plant family. So even though I know the special recipe at the Blue Springs Café and leave eggs and cream out of the equation (even though the chickens and cows only live because plants photosynthesize and produce food for animals), let’s look at plants.

Obviously there is coconut, Cocos nucifera, in the Arecaceae palm family, with trees that can grow up to 25 feet tall or more. Coconut palms are used for many things, including food, drinking from the coconut oil in the seed’s endosperm, building materials, and cosmetics. The tree is native to Southeast Asia. Seeds spread easily in the water.

Next is sugar, most commonly from sugar cane, Saccharum spp., In the grass family Poaceae, or the sugar can be from beet, Beta vulgaris ‘Altissima’ in the Amaranthaceae family. We know more than we want to know about our daily intake of this sweet substance.

Of course there is wheat in the flour, Triticum aestivum, or another grass family grain used in the traditional crust, or maybe we prefer graham cracker crust. Wheat is the largest vegetable source of protein in the world, although it lacks certain amino acids and is therefore best combined with other crops; this deficiency in certain essential amino acids applies to many grasses, hence the brilliance of the diet of many indigenous peoples such as corn and beans. Of course, animal proteins also belong on the menu with pie. Vegetable oils of various origins can also be used in the production of the crusts, such as olive, soy or cotton seeds or, as with the most heavenly cake crusts, lard made from pork fat.

Finally, there is vanilla extract from one of the 100+ types of vanilla orchids, most commonly Vanilla planifolia, which is commonly used in vanilla extracts. The best thing, however, is to use the pods, and the word “vanilla” is actually derived from these fruits: the Spanish word “vaina” means “little pod”. So add a touch of salt to the crust as you prepare it, and voila, this coconut cream cake is: animal, vegetable (like in plants) and mineral.

Golden larch (Pseudolarix amabilis). This tree is one of four types of deciduous conifers, which means that although the tree has needles and cones, it colors and falls off in the fall. It is one of my all-time favorite plants, with the golden and rust-red needles now shown and with their golden upright cones that glow in the long autumnal sun angles before they break. I now have a 10 foot tree in my yard, but was particularly impressed with a much larger golden larch in the Secrest Arboretum. I first found out about this tree around 30 years ago in the natural kingdom of Seiberling. Enjoy this great tree in every season, but especially in autumn. And enjoy your cousins: the numerous species of larch (Larix), especially in the moorland parks in Portage County, Baldcypress (Taxodium) and Dawnredwood (Metasequoia).

Oak trees (Quercus). In my last column, I talked about New York City oak plantings becoming legendary and local specimens of interest, but I continue to enjoy them as the season progresses. As with the fruit of many plants, this was a great fruit (acorn) harvest: from clapboard oaks along the Missouri River in the beautiful town of Rocheport – tiny striped acorns – and some of the new hybrid oaks at the Secrest Arboretum in Wooster. As for foliage, the narrow leaves of willow oaks, which are becoming increasingly popular in Ohio, made a lovely straw-colored display among the trees at Sidwell Friends School in DC

Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve. On the way to Denver we crossed the Great Plains on Route 70 and drove a little south to the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve. Wide plains and slightly elevated hills where bison and not deer or antelopes are involved. The visitor center promises a wildflower fantasy in spring, but some fall species are still in play, thistles are mostly extinct, but a bright lavender blossom blooms along with Asteraceae flowers scattered throughout the prairie. The autumn color of sumac reflects the purple-red and sumac adorns the highways in both the west and the east.

The chalked daily schedules, the students’ desks and recitation bench, the teacher’s chair and desk were interesting for Laura, who was a retired second-grade teacher at Hazel Harvey Elementary in Doylestown. The school has been lovingly restored by a group of 15 Kansas gardening clubs, including my favorite, the Hoe and Hope Club in Wilsey. Garden clubs are great resources nationwide, including the Akron Garden Club here in Summit County.

One intriguing rule for Kansas teachers, enforced from the late 19th century through 1940, was that not only were women teachers allowed to marry or meet men, but they were also “forbidden from loitering in town ice cream parlors.” To be ashamed of.

End: A bit of prairie poetry and prose from the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve Visitor Center in Kansas:

“The prairie sings to me in the morning and I know that at night I rest quietly in the arms of the prairie, on the heart of the prairie.” – Carl Sandburg

“Every American has the right to stand head-high in the grass as part of their cultural heritage.” – William H. Elder

Jim Chatfield is a horticultural educator and professor emeritus at Ohio State University Extension. If you have any questions about maintaining your garden, write to chatfield.1@osu.edu or call 330-466-0270. Please include your phone number when you write.