The plants of middle earth

[alatar]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Of course, if you want to associate Sauron with such companies . . .

Santa, Sauron - made that connection elsewhere, and all because of cats. And the genetic engineering is just to help people avoid the messiness from dyeing the cat's hair red.

Is the fireweed noted by the Hobbits journeying through the old forest a relative of Butterfly milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa) ?

There's another native plant for which I cannot find the name that has orange leaves in the fall that reminds me of the fireweed. As kids we used the dust on the leaves to paint our skin orange (not recommended, as it's probably poisonous to normal humans).

[Laurinquë]

Hmmm... this is a very interesting and original thread, I wish I knew more about the plants of Middle Earth so I could say something witty here, but as of now I just want to say that you guys are amazing to know so much about the plants of Middle Earth.

[zxcvbn]

This one's from the movies so I suppose it doesn't belong here, but Brian Sibley's The Lord of the Rings - The Making of the Movie Trilogy had an illustration of a herb called 'Autumn Crocus' used for treating gout. It was created as a prop for the Houses of Healing scene(gotta love the detail in those films).



You can read the writing and its translation here.
http://www.elvish.org/gwaith/movie_o...scr.htm#herbal

[Alfirin]

Not that anyone today would want to use autumn crocus on themselves, it's a powerful carcinogen. It is however beloved by plant breeders as it's where we get colchecine; the odd chemical that, when dabbed on flowers, can muck-up the division of the gametes and create ones which are polyploid (having more than 2 copies of each chomosome). If this number is odd (3n, 5n [n is the sybol for the number of copies of a chromosome an organism has. most complex lifeforms are 2n and thier gametes {sperm and eggs} are 1n] etc.) this tends to result in sterile plants which will produce seedless fruits (this is where seedless watermelons, as well as some kinds of seedless grape, come from). Even usually result in fetile but bigger fruited versions (commercial stawberries are usually hexaploid) Wheat is sorta an octoploid but sorta not. They was it works (as I was taught) was this.
The oldest wild wheat is called eikorn. Eikorn can naturally from time to time become a tetraploid (4n) called emmer. Emmer was the kind of wheat the Greeks and Romans were using. At some point a plant called goat grass managed to cross with an Emmer and produce the grain we call spelt. Spelt later crossed with other grasses to form modern wheat (8n). This last cross appprently happed many times and created many sorts of wheat. Bread wheat ([I] Triticum sativum var. sativum [/I) is high in gluten and is therefore good form making leavened things. Durum or hard wheat (var. durum) is used for semolina and pasta (it s is also the whate you sometimes see ears of in floral arraghments since it has the steroypical "ear of wheat" shape with the boxy long-bearded head and bread wheat usally doesn't) other more obsucre crosses yeild such things as Poulard wheat (var. polonicum ), which looks more like a bunch of of oats than a wheat ear, club wheat (var. compatum ) which has a tiny compressed beadless head (if you've ever seen Quaking grass basicaly one of its seed heads blown up 10x and mounted singly on a stalk upright) and shot wheat (var. sphaerococcum ) which as very rounded grains and is only still grown in a tiny region in northwest India.

By the way the plant below the crocus in the picture is common tansy (Tagetes Vulgare [the traslation left out the final "e"]) also used tradinally as a cure for joint problems, as well as a flavoring agent and dye.

Though of herbs actually brings up a interesting point. In "Of herbs and stewed rabbit" Sam orders Gollum to find him sage, thyme and bay leaves to stew the conies with. Now I would understand if there was wild thyme and sage growing around (though not why Sam assumes Gollum would know what they looked like) but bay would be lot more unsual to find. Bay laurel requires a subtropical or at least Medditerean climate to grow well. Ithillien would have to be a fairly warm country to expect to find bays there (unless something in mordors blight has raised the temperature a lot.) To the UK poster does bay laurel grow in England?

[TheGreatElvenWarrior]

Originally Posted by Laurinquë

Hmmm... this is a very interesting and original thread, I wish I knew more about the plants of Middle Earth so I could say something witty here, but as of now I just want to say that you guys are amazing to know so much about the plants of Middle Earth.

Oh, Robi. Don't be sad, and you thought I knew so much!

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Now I would understand if there was wild thyme and sage growing around (though not why Sam assumes Gollum would know what they looked like) but bay would be lot more unsual to find. Bay laurel requires a subtropical or at least Mediterean climate to grow well. Ithillien would have to be a fairly warm country to expect to find bays there

In fact a Mediterranean climate was exactly what Tolkien intended; His description of Ithilien includes not only such plants as bay laurel, but also tamarisk and terebinth. Indeed, if you take Hobbiton to be at the latitude of Oxford, then Osgiliath is roughly at that of Tuscany (as he pointed out himself). After a vacation in Italy he wrote a letter referring to his return from Gondor!

[Alfirin]

I was reading another post and much talk was made of longbows. This leads me to a new question to post does Middle Earth contain yew trees? We know that it has beeches, ashes, willows, oaks, hollys etc. along with a lot of trees now long gone (mallorn, lebethron, etc.) But the question is can one assume that all trees native to Great Britan and europe in or times were present in Middle earth whether mentioned (implcitly or not), or are there actually trees we have that they didn't?

[Alfirin]

I know this thread is postively ancient by now, but I realized that there was one more thing to say with regards to my Aethelas arguments. In the time since I wrote it, I have discovered that there are mints with very long, grass like leaves. The one that really springs to mind (mostly becuse I grew it once) is Habek Mint Mentha longifolia (In England I believe it is called horsemint). I'm not saying this is Athelas but at least it does sew up that particular loophole.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Alfirin

I was reading another post and much talk was made of longbows. This leads me to a new question to post does Middle Earth contain yew trees? We know that it has beeches, ashes, willows, oaks, hollys etc. along with a lot of trees now long gone (mallorn, lebethron, etc.) But the question is can one assume that all trees native to Great Britan and europe in or times were present in Middle earth whether mentioned (implcitly or not), or are there actually trees we have that they didn't?

Yews are named directly in the poem "Kortirion Among the Trees", from "Cottage of Lost Play", BoLT 1.

[Galin]

Add, just for another example...

to bend whose bow, Balthronding named,
that the black yewtree once bore of yore

From the Lay of the Children of Hurin

[Alfirin]

Yes I found out about the yews in the time between when I wrote the question and now. I probably should have mentioned that.

[Selmo]

Originally Posted by alatar

Is the fireweed noted by the Hobbits journeying through the old forest a relative of Butterfly milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa) ?

The Hobbits' fireweed is almost certainly to be Rosebay Willowherb, Chamaenerion angustifolium, also known in the UK as fireweed and sparkweed. Tolkien would have been very familliar with it.

Like the fireweed in the Old Forrest, rosebay willowherb rapidly colonises disturbed ground, particularly favouring cleared woodland where wood has been burned. It became something of a UK national symbol of defiance because of the way in which it quickly covered areas blasted by German bombs in 1941.
.

[Alfirin]

Sorry to ressurect this truly Ancient thread again. But a thought just ocurred to me, I think I may have finally figured out a candidate for Yavannamire (albiet one that Tolkein would never have though of). The genus Santalum divides into two major branches. On one side are the Indian Santalums which tend to have fragrant leaves bark and wood, of which the most famous is Santalum album (sandalwood). On the other are the Australian Santalums which often have large and tasty fruit (which is red), of which the most familiar would be Santalum acuminatum (Quandong). It occurs to me that, if you imagined a tree that was in the middle of these two (so that it had the fragrance qualities of the Indian Branch of the Genus, and the fruit qualities of the Australian) and added on a few common to 1st age middle earth tree traits, like enhanced height (sandalwoods in our world are really more of shrubs than trees and when they are trees are pretty short) and a fertility in Erresea and Nisimaldar that allowed them to live independantly (real sandalwoods are actually parasite trees) youd get something pretty close to Yavannamire.

[Faramir Jones]

Alfirin, you began a thread I found very nice indeed, despite not being a gardener, although many of my family are gardeners.

William Cloud Hicklin is right in terms of the comparison of Ithilien to Tuscany:

If Hobbiton and Rivendell are taken (as intended) to be at about the latitude of Oxford, then Minas Tirith, 600 miles south, is at about the latitude of Florence. The Mouths of Anduin and the ancient city of Pelargir are at about the latitude of ancient Troy. (Letters, Letter 294, p. 376.)

There is a lovely description of the fauna of Ithilien ('the garden of Gondor') here:

All about them were small woods of resinous trees, fir and cedar and cypress, and other kinds unknown in the Shire, with wide glades among them; and everywhere there was a wealth of sweet-smelling herbs and shrubs.
|
|
Many great trees grew there, planted long ago, falling into untended age amid a riot of careless descendants; and groves and thickets there were of tamarisk and pungent terebinth, of olive and of bay; and there were junipers and myrtles; and thymes that grew in bushes, or with their woody creeping stems mantled in deep tapestries the hidden stones; sages of many kinds putting forth blue flowers, or red, or pale green; and majorams and new-sprouting parsleys, and many herbs of forms and scents beyond the garden-lore of Sam. The grots and rocky walls were already starred with saxifrages and stonecrops. Primeroles and anemones were awake in the filbert-brakes; and asphodel and many lily-flowers nodded their half-opened heads in the grass: deep green grass beside the pools, where falling streams halted in cool hollows on their journey down to Anduin.
(The Lord of the Rings, Book 4, Chapter IV: Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit.)