Madwoman's Milk

Last March I became infatuated with an acid green weed growing in the cornfield adjacent to my parent's place.  I dug a few clumps and planted some in my mom's garden and some in my own. I knew it was some sort of Euphorbia, but was unsure as to the exact species.  Fellow blogger Entangled suggested it may be Eurphorbia helioscopia (Sun Spurge, Madwoman's Milk), and I am now pretty sure that identification is correct. This species is a winter-blooming annual native to Europe, North Africa and Asia, and is apparently now quite at home here as well. Further reading on this plant told that although it is considered poisonous and a carcinogen, its extract is used medicinally and is easily found for sale on the web.  My clump had whithered by late April of last year, and I thought that was likely the last I would see of it.  This week I noticed about a dozen separate plants coming up in the hell-strip, not far from where my clump was planted.  So it looks as if I have introduced this weed to my neighborhood. I am sorry neighbors!



Here is another reminder that my Winter Walk-Off 2012 is going on until Monday the 19th.  All bloggers are welcome to join in.

A Sincere Thanks to the Nuccio Family

Here in Tidewater we are the traditional first notch in the camellia belt that stretches down the coast, across the south all the way to east Texas.  In Charleston, where I once spent a three-year vacation, Carolina gardeners are quite proud of their camellias and proud of the fact that the first camellia garden was established at Middleton Place. So I was surprised to learn that actually the first camellias in the country were imported by John Stevens of Hoboken, New Jersey in 1797 or 1798 (after all, it is the Garden State).  I was also surprised to learn that three out of my twelve camellias orginated in, California (another great camellia state) at Nuccio's Nurseries, including one of my favorite's, Camellia japonica 'Nuccio's Gem'. Ultimately, all camellias originated in the Orient and have a history there spanning millennia, so I should just let go of the notion that they are somehow especially southern.



There is something about Nuccio's Gem that captures my attention.  Perhaps it is a combination of the formal-double form, its vigorous, prolific nature and the purity of white, even though white is not my favorite flower color.  In camellias, I normally tend to gravitate to the deep reds and the variegated, but that is forgotten when this plant blooms.



(Just to remind you there is still plenty of time to enter my Winter Walk-Off Challenge.)