Rocky Mountain Juniper

Rocky Mountain Juniper

Cupressaceae (Cypress Family)

Rocky Mountain juniper.  Appressed leaves.

Quick ID
Rocky Mountain juniper is a small conical tree that grows to be around 30' high.  The bark is raggedy and shredding, reddish-brown to gray.  Its leaves are actually made up of thousands of tiny little needles, about 2 mm long.  If you look close, you'll see that some of these needles stick out all over the stem like a Doug Fir.  These are the juvenile leaves.  Mature leaves are squashed up flat against each other (known in the botany world as appressed), layered like shingles on a roof.

Common juniper.  Nothing appressed about these leaves.

There are three other species of juniper native to Montana.  Common juniper (J. communis) is a small shrub that's easy to recognize.  Its needles aren't apressed; they go poking out all around the stem in whorls of three, and have distinctly white undersides.
Creeping juniper (J. horizontalis) has leaves much like the Rocky Mountain juniper, but it grows in dense mats, never more than 2' tall.  The leaves are usually a dark green, whereas J. scopulorum tends to be more blueish-gray.  And finally, the Utah juniper (J. osteosperma) is another 30' tree.  Everything about it somehow seems more blunt: broader needles, a squarish crown, and a generally more squat appearance.  In Montana, you'll only find it in Big Horn and Carbon counties, south of the Pryor mountains, where it's at the northern edge of its range.

~Western Red Cedar~

You might confuse juniper with the western red cedar (Thuja plicata) in northwest Montana.  The leaves are similar, but the branches are more flattened, spray-like and brighter green.  The cones are also woody, whereas juniper bears seeds in what look like blue berries (they're technically female cones).  Juniper "berries" form in May or June and take two years to mature; you'll find green immature berries all over the branches along with the blue ones, which are usually covered with a white bloom.  If you're looking to harvest the berries, remember that, unlike most trees, junipers are dioecious (from the latin for "two houses"), meaning that individual plants are either male or female.  

"Male Bark"

Only the female plants have berries; the male ("staminate") cones just look like little brown nubs at the tips of branches, which scatter pollen to the wind.  Female trees also tend to have shreddier bark, as opposed to the patchier bark on males.

What's in a Name?

The species name of Rocky Mountain juniper, scopulorum, comes from the Latin 'scopul'  meaning rocky crags or cliffs, which is just where you'll find these bristly trees on your botanical field excursions.The origin of the common name juniper (and genus Juniperus) is shaky.  I've been combing through a lot of suggestions this morning, some silly and some sensible, and I'm not sure who to believe.  I do love the salty old etymologist Bill Casselman's take on the topic as a whole, and found this article pretty enlightening.Juniper is also becoming a popular baby name.  Ultimately, the given name is probably not derived so much from the plant as from the Welsh name Guinevere (which also gave rise to the name Jennifer).

Gorgeous juniper habitat on the Madison river

Range

Look for Rocky Mountain Juniper in dry, rocky foothills and montane regions from BC and Alberta south to New Mexico and east to the Dakotas.  The range is extended somewhat due to the fact J. scopulorum hybridizes regularly with other juniper species and horticulturally cultivated varieties. 

Tidbits

Junipers, along with other members of the cypress family, have been around for a looooong long time.  Ever since the earth's land masses were clumped together in the super-continent  Pangaea, 250 million years ago.  This is why you can find the very same species, Juniperus communis, as a native shrub in North America, Asia and Europe.  This ancient plant, as you might expect, has a rich and fascinating history.Juniper's light, durable wood is naturally streaked with a lovely red and white grain, and makes fine tools and decorative utensils.  The shredded bark has been used in rope-making and padding for diapers.  The dried berries can be dried and strung into necklaces; Navajo mothers are said to have given these "ghost beads" to their babies to prevent bad dreams.

The berries and aromatic branches of the juniper have also been used medicinally since ancient times (the Greek physician Galen mentions it as early as the second century AD), for a list of ailments too long to go into here.  The essential oil does contain the diuretic compound terpinen-4-ol, as well as Amentoflavone, which has antiviral properties.  Juniper berry tea has a long, complicated, sometimes dangerous association with child-bearing.  It was used by Shoshone women as a contraceptive, and Zuni and Apache women drank the tea to promote muscle relaxation during labor.  Juniper oil does increase uterine contractions, and many native tribes (and pioneer women) used it to induce abortions, sometimes with fatal results.The berries are not particularly edible on their own, but they do lend their distinct flavor to that most delightful spirit, gin.  The earliest juniper-flavored alcohols were medicinal concoctions,  and would have borne little resemblance to our modern take on gin.  The species most often used in gin production today is the long lived Juniperus communis communis.

Camped out at my favorite (top secret) juniper picking spot

For the most part the berries (a thousand tons a year or more!) are still wild-harvested, coming principally from Tuscany, Morocco and eastern Europe.  Hand picking is long, laborious work because remember, there are berries in all stages of ripeness on each branch.  To only pick off the dark blue berries and leave the green fruit alone requires a lot of elbow grease and some skill with a good whacking stick. Once harvested, the berries are infused into a neutral base spirit (vodka) and violá!  Oh Captain, my Captain.  Distillers can be a little secretive about their recipes, but common additions often include angelica, orris root (a type of iris that acts as a fixative for other flavors), cardamom, bay leaf, citrus, ginger, grains of paradise (in the ginger family Zingiberaceae), lavender, coriander, fennel and cubeb (similar to black pepper). 

Hogarth's Gin Lane

We could go on and on about the history of gin.  It's production as "medicine" during prohibition.  England's 18th century Gin Craze.  The fascinating story of quinine.  Jenever, Old Tom and London Dry.  Bathtub gin.  So on and so forth.  If you'd like to read more, and in fact discover a whole incredible world of botanicals as they relate to alcohol, please do pick up a copy of Amy Stewart's The Drunken Botanist.  You'll be glad you did.

Wild Gardening

The Garnet Range is a great place to see giant J. scopulorum

The Rocky Mountain juniper is one of our toughest little trees, and is a perfect choice for natural gardens.  The tiers of branches, loosely woven, call the eye upward and beyond the borders, providing structure and texture in every season. Waxy-coated leaves make it incredibly drought resistant and winter hardy.  Junipers want full sun or part shade, and very little water.  If you are going to irrigate, mke sure the soil is really well drained.  Although very slow-growing, give it enough space to accommodate its mature size (about 20-30' high with an eight foot spread).

Try propagating juniper by taking heel cuttings after a couple of hard freezes, and using a rooting hormone.  If you want to try growing it from seed, sow them in the fall and cross your fingers.  It's possible, but expect your germination to be pretty low.  Plants are also readily available at nurseries, but ask questions to be certain you're getting the true native species.  There are a ton of Juniperus cultivars and ornamental varieties.  There might be nothing wrong with that per se, but as a general practice, the more your garden plants resemble the native species found in your area, the better they'll be at providing food, shelter and nesting sites for your local insects and other wildlife.

Juniper berries are relished in fall and winter by many small birds, especially waxwings and grosbeaks.  Junipers are larval host plants for the Juniper Hairstreak butterfly (Callophrys gryneus).  Watch for males perching amidst the branches on your next summer excursion.

So you want to build a Pollinator Hotel...

Well you can!  And you should.  Pollinator Hotels provide essential habitat for cavity-nesting insects like mason bees and leafcutters, as well as other beneficial critters like spiders, ladybugs, and butterflies.  You'll get to watch this mini-ecosystem unfold in your backyard, observing first hand its life cycles, food chains and day to day goings-on.  Your hotel can be tidy and symmetrical, or thrown together with wild abandon.  You can build them to suit your fancy, changing features and adding on over the years.  And with a little ingenuity and a bit of time spent gathering materials, they're inexpensive and easy to put together.

I build these wild bee houses using salvaged fenceboards and shingles, blue-stain lumber milled from trees killed by bark beetles, and whatever else scraps I can find.  (If you want to buy one, here's my Etsy Shop!)
You can also expand on this idea and install a Pollinator Hotel on-site.  We did this recently as part of the Homestead Hey Day spring celebration at the historic Moon-Randolph Homestead in Missoula.  Volunteers pooled their craftsmanship and creativity, using scrap wood from around the ranch, locally gathered natural materials and hand tools to build a beautiful and functional house for helpful bugs.  We've still got some finishing touches to do, drilling holes in the logs and stuffing crevices with bee tubes, but for one happy afternoon's work, it turned out pretty incredible.  
If you want to build your own you'll want to follow just a few basic guidelines.  Here are some tips to help you get started.

1.  Build a frame
Anything goes, pretty much!  You might want to sketch out a plan before you begin.  How big?  Do you want formal rows of tubes and drilled holes, or rustic compartments of natural materials?  Will it be built on posts, or hanging?  Do you want to stack materials so the hotel can be dismantled and rebuilt easily, or do you want a frame that's held in place by screws...or cement, or...?  Do you want to include spaces to put soil and grow live plants on the structure?  If so, you might want to put them down low so you can water without drenching your insect nesting materials.

Whatever you decide, remember that native bees need one end of their nesting cavity closed.  If you're using completely hollow tubes, you'll want to put a backboard of some sort up.  If you're drilling holes through logs, you can opt to not drill all the way through (for example, drill a 6" deep hole in a 7" deep log).  I personally recommend drilling all the way through and putting up a backboard, however.  That way if you ever decide to clean out your bee holes, it's much easier.


2. Put it in the right place
You'll want to locate your Pollinator Hotel in a place that's at least somewhat shielded from heavy wind and rain.  Face the opening to the south or east so it gets plenty of warm morning sun.  If you live in a really hot sunny location, some afternoon shade in midsummer is helpful too.  Raising the frame off the ground a few feet deters ants, who have been known to sneak in and steal the pollen reserves left for developing larvae.  Just don't put it so high that it's out of insects' normal flight paths.  Somewhere between 4-8' off the ground is ideal.  And make sure the insects have access to a source of food (pollen from trees, shrubs, flowers or vegetables within a couple hundred yards), water and mud, which mason bees use to line their brood cells.  We located ours at the edge of the vegetable garden, facing out towards an ancient orchard.  The early spring flowers of fruit trees are perfect for mason bees (also known as blue orchard bees).  Remember that, once you start to fill in your frame, it will get heavy, so you might want to get it in place beforehand.

3.  Provide nooks and crannies
The idea is to mimic the natural nesting sites of insects in the wild.  This helps mitigate the effects of habitat destruction as native ecosystems give way to concrete, asphalt and (gasp!) turf grass.  So build one for environmental stewardship and conservation!  But also do it for yourself.  Attracting a diverse array of native insects to your yard and garden leads to a healthier ecological balance (thus reducing insect pests), better pollination of your fruits, flowers and veggies, and an awesome opportunity to observe these fascinating creatures up close.
Try to provide a diversity of cracks and crevices to accommodate different nesting habits.  Ladybugs, beetles, lacewings, beneficial spiders, moths and butterflies all seek shelter to raise their young and overwinter, and many native bee species nest in hollow tubes and cavities.  Use different sized sticks, dead flower stalks (sunflowers work great), straw, pine cones, dry grasses and pieces of bark to fill compartments.  Avoid wood that's been treated or recently varnished.

Things are starting to take shape!  Peter cuts plant stalks into tubes, Tyson saws logs, and Natasha slices bark rings to build compartments.

4.  Make the bee holes the right size and depth

Mason bee cells in a milkweed stem

Tubes and drilled holes should be about 6" deep.  This is important.  Nesting mason bees will fill the first ~4" with female eggs, and cap each tube with a couple males.  The eggs hatch into larvae, which pupate into adult bees at the end or the summer.  The males emerge first (presumably to be offered up to any predators lurking outside the nest) followed by the females a couple weeks later.  If your tubes are too short, you risk having all female eggs.  Cavity nesting bees also avoid holes that are too deep, so try not to go over 8" or so.

There are thousands of species of wild bees...all different sizes and with varying preferences.  When drilling holes or cutting tubes, the standard recommended diameter is 3/8".  I've seen bees nest in holes down to 1/8" and as big as 5/8".  I try to provide a variety of sizes, to see what different species I can attract.

Gathering tubes

Finding hollow-stemmed plant materials can be tough.  If you live in an area with bamboo, that works perfect.  I try to use the previous year's dry stalks of Japanese knotweed (an abundant noxious weed), Fuller's teasel (a pain to process, with all the prickles), Queen Anne's lace, milkweed, elderberry, even corn stalks.  Remember that many species have nodes that go all the way through the stem, so these parts need to be cut out or placed towards the back of your hotel.

5.  Protect it
Besides choosing a sheltered location, it helps to put some sort of slanted roof on so rain rolls off.  And if you're worried about birds, squirrels or deer getting into your nesting materials, put some small-gauge chicken wire over the front entrance.

6.  Maintain it over time
If you're using straw, dry grass or other decomposables, clean out the compartment and replace with fresh materials each spring.  In the case of bee cavities, mites and other pests can build up if the tubes aren't cleaned out periodically.  Once every four years or so you'll want to scrape out debris with a poker or replace the tubes entirely.  Some people recommend spraying the holes with a 5-10% bleach solution to kill mites.
Keep an eye on your Pollinator Hotel.  Over time, you'll have an idea of who lives where, what the most popular rooms are, and how well each material and arrangement is working.  Experiment!  Change it up.  Have fun.

If you want to learn more about native pollinators, visit my Wild House of Bees page.  Also check out this excellent compilation of insect habitats from Inspiration Green to see what people around the world are building.  And please, post pictures of what you come up with!

Western Yarrow

Western Yarrow
Achillea millefolium
Asteraceae (Sunflower family)

Quick ID
Yarrow forms a spreading carpet of soft, fern-like leaves that grow 3-5" long and have a little silvery tinge to them.  The flower stalks can get to be 3' tall (shorter where it's shaded) and are topped with clusters of creamy white flowers.  Leaves and flowers alike have a distinctive smell, kind of sharp and pungent.

At first glance, the flowers of the native White Spiraea (Spiraea betulifolia) look an awful lot like yarrow, but on closer observation they're pretty different.  Spiraea flowers (on the right in the photo above) have long stamens that waggle out past the petals, and the leaves are broad and toothed.

Tansy, blech!

There are plenty of non-native yarrows grown and sold at nurseries.  These are the yellow and pink-flowered varieties, and they have a strong tendency to be weedy in gardens.  There is also an invasive weed called Common Tansy (Tanacetum vulgare) that's often mistaken for yarrow.  It looks similar, but only in the crudest sense.  Tansy is a pretty plant, but, ahem, a HUGE pain in the ass, devastating to native plant communities, impossible to get rid of, etc etc.  Don't grow it.  Don't pick a bouquet and give it to your honey.  I see you looking at it with those doe eyes.  But it's so yellllowww...!  Quit it.  It's bad.  Tell your neighbors.

Range
Western yarrow is circumboreal, meaning it occurs all throughout the northern (boreal) latitudes of the globe, including every state and province in North America.  You find it especially in the west and central parts of Montana, in habitats ranging from streambanks to open hillsides to wooded forests.

What's in a Name?

Everything about yarrow is steeped in rich history, and its name is no exception.  The common name comes directly from the old Saxon word for the plant, gearwe. The genus Achillea honors the Greek hero Achilles of the Trojan wars, and hints at this plant's long importance as a medicinal herb.  Achilles was taught of yarrow's healing properties by Chiron, his centaur tutor.  Achilles had no need of it himself, of course, having been rendered invulnerable to wounds due to a good dunking in the river Styx as a baby.  The only spot that remained vulnerable was the small place where his mother Thetis pinched his heel as she dipped him in the water, and this is where Apollo shot the arrow that was the death of him.  (Turns out Apollo was also the one who taught Chiron all that good stuff about plant medicines!  Hmmm...)  Anyhow, during his life as a war hero, Achilles is said to have carried the yarrow plant with him into battle to heal his soldiers' wounds.  The fresh leaves are indeed a clotting agent, and can be used to staunch nosebleeds and bloody scrapes.   For this reason, yarrow has also been known in the past as bloodwort, sanguinary, soldier's woundwort, stanchweed and thousand seal.  The name for this blood-clotting alkaloid is achilleine, which is still used in modern medicine to suppress menstruation.
The species name millefolium literally means a thousand leaves, and leads to another common name for yarrow, "milfoil".  Also included in the long list of traditional names is death flower, eerie, bad man's plaything (!), old man's mustard, seven year's love, knyghten, snake's grass and devil's nettle.

Tidbits
Yarrow isn't considered a great grazing plant for domesticated or wild animals.  It's one of those "they'll eat it if they have to" plants, which makes it good for landscaping where deer are a problem.  Milk from cows that graze on yarrow is considered "disagreeable" tasting, and I can tell you from experience that honey from a yarrow patch tastes...really weird.  Very strong.  Disagreeable, you might say.  In fact, the alkaloids, volatile oils and glycosides in yarrow are so apparent, so in your face, that some people just can't stand it.  Late in the summer, when the white flower clusters are starting to brown, the smell coming off a yarrow stand is strong.  "Literally smells like vomit," says a friend of mine.  Whelp, says I.  Smells like yarrow.  You either love it or you hate it.  For me, it's both at the same time.

Those same smelly chemicals are what has made yarrow such an illustrious plant for thousands of years.  The medicinal properties go on and on.  Besides being a blood coagulant, it's also reported to be a good anti-inflammatory chest-rub for colds, induces sweats to break a fever, eases toothaches and earaches, soothes burns, brightens your eyes and repels mosquitoes.  I believe it.  If you dig up a bit of yarrow, you'll see little pink tips on the roots.  Chew on these.  They taste like carrots and make your tongue go all numb and tingly.  There are powerful chemicals at work in this plant.  I've never seen anyone poisoned from it, but it could happen.  Don't say I didn't warn you.  I have seen it be irritating to some people's skin.

Wild Gardening
In many ways, yarrow is a wild gardener's dream.  It's so easy to grow from seed.  Just wait till the flower heads are brown, shake them off into a bag, and make sure they're good and dry so you don't get mold.  The seeds don't even need cold stratification; you can just sprinkle them on any old soil and they'll grow like gangbusters.  They also transplant like nobody's business.  I've literally yanked yarrow out of my yard, thrown it onto a patch of roughed up ground, done a two second "cover up, smoosh down and water," and had a healthy new yarrow patch within a week.
Obviously, this plant is tenacious.  In an irrigated yard, it will take over if you let it.  Maybe that's a good thing!  I'm letting a chunk of my lawn get taken over this summer.  It's nice because you don't have to mow it (it's a wildflower!) but if you do, it's fine.  Just nice soft ferny lawn.  Never have to water or fertilize.  But this tenacity also means that stray yarrow plants are constantly popping up in every other part of my yard.  I'm semi-okay with it, because the foliage is nice and I don't have to feel bad about ruthlessly yanking it out when it's gone too far.  And it will go too far.  So if you want a tidy controlled environment where everybody follows the rules and steps in time, yarrow's probably not for you.  If you want a crazy-easy native plant that needs next to nothing in terms of upkeep, look no further.  In fact, if you don't irrigate at all (and live in a really dry climate like ours) yarrow will be much less of a pain.  So really what you should maybe do is go native, quit watering, and embrace wholeheartedly the plants like these that thrive on neglect.
Also, make sure you like the smell before you plant a bunch.  Some people don't.
The pollinators love it though!  Prolific flowers, nice big landing pad for bees and butterflies, and a long bloom season.  The seed heads look really nice if you don't cut them, too, and add great winter interest to your landscape.  Oh, yarrow.

One More Thing...
I don't suppose I've mentioned, here on Flora montana, my great love of story songs and old folk ballads, but there, I've said it.  Oh I love them, and an old Scottish standard, The Dowie Dens of Yarrow, just happens to be one of my favorites.  Especially Ewan MacColl's version.  So good.

Penstemon

Penstemon

Scrophulariaceae (The Figwort Family)

What's in a Name?
It's most often told that "penstemon" is from the Greek for five stamens,  but the word may actually be derived from the Latin for "almost a thread (stamen)," in reference to it's sterile fifth "staminode".  And while the new family, Plantaginacea (more on all this later...), is from Plantago (L. "plantain"), the Scrophulariaceae family has a much more interesting naming story.

Now, a word about names.

Am I allowed to love etymology and loathe taxonomy?

Meriwether Lewis' 1806 specimen 

I remember when I started to learn botanical Latin; how the whole world opened up in a new way.  I love the roots hidden in the names of plants, and the puzzles.   In them, we can hear the real words of Pliny and Virgil and Theophrastus. Cornus. Acer. Betula. Salix.  There's Greek and Latin, medieval history and ancient mythology. Calypso. Achillea. Hypericum. Traditional languages and foods and medicines. Poisons.  Camassia. Lavandula. Apocynum. Many names are metaphorical, a poetic interpretation of the plant.  Echinops. Pteris. Ipomoea.  We learn their color, their parts, the way they hold themselves, where they come from and how they grow.  The way they taste. Ranunculus. Sylvestris. Aquilegia. Saccharum.  We learn who has stolen the botanist's heart.  Aloysia. Luciliae.  Many were named during the surge of scientific curiosity that marked the Age of Enlightenment, when botanical exploration was much more harrowing than it generally seems today.  The explorers who "discovered" and documented and named these North American species often had epic, adventurous times doing so, and the tales of their expeditions are full of drama, danger and mystery.  Charles Darwin and Lewis and Clark are famous for their discoveries, but there are tales to tell in all the lives of David Douglas, Thomas Nuttall, John Lindley, John Charles Fremont, William Baldwin, William Darlington, Frederick Pursh, Joseph Dalton Hooker, John Torrey, Archibald Menzies, John Bartram...and so many others.  There's a lifetime of stories behind these plant names, and I tend to grow attached to them.  They're part of my story too, of my growing and learning and exploring my own world.

I learned the Penstemon species when they were in the Scrophulariaceae family, as they have been for 150 years.  For me, penstemon is the poster-child scroph, with its puckered, pouty lips.  In my heart, this is where they belong, alongside the monkeyflowers and blue-eyed marys.  But while the sport of taxonomy is full of mysteries and stories of its own, it's also a notorious pain in the ass.  Full of unpronounceable, impossible to remember words that are always changing. For a word-romantic like myself it could be maddening, if not for this simple, secret coping mechanism:  I just ignore it.  It's very un-scientific of me, I know, and very stubborn.  But as far as I'm concerned, penstemons are figworts and not plantains and in my heart of hearts, there they shall remain.  Molecular phylogenies be damned.
 
Quick ID

There is a bit of variation in this genus, but the flowers are distinct.  Most are shades of purple, some leaning more towards blue or pink (even red).  White flowers are pretty common too, and there are a couple of yellow species.  All have five petals, fused into a tube at the base and flared out into two upper and three lower lips at the ends.  Inside the tube you'll find five stamens--one sterile (the staminode), the other four bearing anthers.  The plants are usually anywhere from 3" to 30" tall, some woodier than others, with simple, opposite leaves growing in clusters near the base of flower stalks.

Tidbits
Penstemon is the largest genus of flowering plants in North America with over 270 species.  Thirty-six of them are listed in Montana, with many of these designated as "species of concern" and only found in very localized areas.  They are also commonly called beardtongues.  Flowers in the genus Keckiella, found in the southwest, are also commonly known as penstemons or beardtongues, and are actually the progenitors of the Penstemon genus we have today. The ones I encounter most often in western Montana are Wilcox (P. wilcoxii), small blue (P. procerus) and fuzzytongue (P. eriantherus).  They're easy to tell apart, although you might encounter plants that look very similar to each that are a different species entirely.
In general, Wilcox penstemon is the classic, tall, super showy blue-lipped flower that you see all over rocky slopes just about the time the larkspur are beginning to fade.  They form basal rosettes of glabrous (hairless), narrow eye-shaped leaves, a couple inches long, that tend towards a reddish-purple edge.  Flower stalks generally reach ~12-18", but can be over two feet tall if the plants have access to more water.  The flowers are light-bluish to deep purple and are just stunning.

The small-flowered, somewhat woody Penstemon procerus is also common, with its stalks standing at attention.  You'll find this one in wetter places like meadows and gullies.  The plants and individual flowers are about 1/3 - 1/2 the size of the larger Wilcox variety, and tend to be darker shades of purple.  The leaves are also much more narrow and lanceolate.

Fuzzytongue penstemon is a knockout--one of my all-time favorites.  It's soft, small, and has a mesmerizing flower.  The tube formed by the petals is cavernous and very mouthlike, with the four anther-bearing stamens curved like fishbones around the bearded tongue of the fifth sterile stamen.  They grow in the toughest of conditions, on the driest, highest, windiest mountains.  They're incredible.

Wild Gardening

Penstemon is a snap to grow and propagate, thriving in difficult soils, drought and heat.  The many-seeded fruit capsules are easy to collect.  When the capsules start to split open the seeds are ready; just cut off the stalks and collect them in paper bags.  These plants need cool moist stratification to germinate, so either sow seeds outdoors in fall, or in pots that will be left outside for the winter. Once the leaves are up they transplant well, and are perfect rock garden specimen plants for an early summer show of color.  And the bees adore them.  I've spent many hours in my backyard watching the hubbub of activity around the Wilcox' penstemon in particular.  On a sunny afternoon, you're guaranteed to find dozens of native bees happily dipping their heads into each purple tube for a sip of nectar.

For a ton more information on growing penstemon, check out Susan Greer's Native Penstemons in our Gardens.  If you want to dig deeper, don't miss Myrna Jewett's really great article about growing shrubby beardtongues for rock gardens, with additional insight into the North American evolution of the Penstemon genus.  In it, she points out that penstemons are shifting slightly toward being hummingbird-pollinated, with an interesting discussion on why that might be. 

Dwarf Mistletoe

Dwarf Mistletoe
Arceuthobium spp.
Viscaceae (Mistletoe Family)

What's in a Name? 
Viscaceae has the same root as "viscus," and refers to mistletoe's sticky berries, which were historically used to make birdlime. Handfuls of ripe berries were chewed or boiled, formed into long strands and coiled around tree branches. A bird lands on the sticky branch and there he stays, until the bird-eating hunter returns to pluck him off. This is illegal in many countries now, by the way. Birdlime was also used to manufacture British sticky bombs in WWII.

According to some accounts, "mistletoe," originally mistelta in Saxon, comes from three Sanskrit words: Mas (the Messiah), tal (the womb), and tu (motion to or from). This is the first clue to the enormous cultural power Mistletoe has held throughout history. Read on.

Quick ID:   
In Montana, you'll find Dwarf Mistletoe, which looks a bit like coral, clinging to branches of Ponderosa, Lodgepole and Limber Pine, Douglas Fir and Western Larch. It's a hemiparasite, relying on its host conifer for most of its water and nutrients. There are 42 species of Arceuthobium worldwide (21 endemic to the US) that prey on members of the Pine and Cypress families. All have greatly reduced leaves (just scales, really) with the bulk of the plant living inside the host. Here's how it works:

Remember those sticky berries? Well, they're not just built to help ancient bird-eaters trap their dinner, oh no. As the berries ripen, they swell with hydrostatic pressure, which builds and builds until POW! The fruits burst open, sending seeds flying through the air at 50 mph. If they're lucky, these sticky little seeds land on a suitable host plant and get to work. Their root-like "haustoria" grow into the xylem (water pipes) and phloem (food pipes) of the host, thus beginning its slow decline and eventual death.

Sometimes the best way to spot Dwarf Mistletoe is to look for the peculiar "witch's broom" growths it creates on trees. These dense masses of branches could be mistaken for bird's nests, but they're actually just a bunch of branches growing out from a single point, and can be caused by fungi, insects, mites, nematodes, viruses, frost, forest thinning . . . and, of course, mistletoe.

Tidbits:

Folklore and Fables... Dwarf Mistletoe is cousin to the American Mistletoe (Phoradendron flavescens), the leafy plant we all know from the holidays. The mythology of mistletoe goes back thousands of years, far beyond that quick kiss at Christmas.  Perhaps it's because mistletoe's evergreen leaves seem a symbol of everlasting life (ironic, since it's also known as the "Vampire Plant" that sucks the life out of its host).

Throughout history and worldwide, mistletoe is considered a bestower of fortune, aphrodesiac, antidote to poison and curer of ills. In the Christian faith, mistletoe (mistelta) represented the time between the conception and birth of Jesus, and was supposedly "applied" to him as an infant...whatever that means. Mistletoe was considered sacred long before that, however.
  

Roman scholar Pliny the Elder (23-79 CE) wrote of the Druids' relationship with the plant, which they held to be the most sacred of all living things save oaks (the Gaelic word druidh means "oak-knower"). European Mistletoe figured prominently in Greek mythology, and Romanians still use the plant for its magical and medicinal properties. The use of mistletoe at Christmas dates back to the 18th century, but kissing under the mistletoe comes from a Norse myth. The story, basically, is this:

Baldr, god of vegetation, was killed by a spear made of mistletoe. His death brought winter to the world (no good!) so the gods restored him. His mom Frigga declared mistletoe sacred, a bringer of love rather than death. To celebrate Baldr's happy return, any two people passing under the plant now must make the obligatory smooch.

In Scandinavia, it's still considered a plant of peace, under which enemies can declare a truce or quarreling lovers make up.

Medicine... The plant has been purported to cure cancer and epilepsy, among other things. Suzanne Sommers made headlines when she opted for a mistletoe extract (Iscador) in lieu of chemotherapy following her treatment for breast cancer. There are several accounts, however, of mistletoe's poisonous properties that should not be taken lightly!

Ecology... Many Dwarf Mistletoe species are considered to be serious threats to forest health. Severe infection can lead to reduced growth, seed and cone development, poor wood quality, increased susceptibility to disease and insect attacks, and premature death. Most of western North America's commercially important conifers are hosts to at least one Dwarf Mistletoe species.  Interestingly, higher rates of mistletoe infestation have been linked with higher numbers and greater diversity of birds and other animals, perhaps by creating more nesting sites within the tell-tale witch's broom.