Solved: Deertongue

[Tom]

Ok, if ID14 is Dandelion.....what is this?
                                 

[CHARLIE]

A plantain TREE.

[Tom]

wrong Charlie, A Plaintain Tree is a banana.

I don't have a banana board around here anywhere.  I cut one once but it didn't last but a few hours.  It got mushy and rotted instead of drying.

[CHARLIE]

Webster Time: Plantain, any of the genus  (Plantago of the family Plantaginaceae, the plantain family) of short stemmed elliptic leaved herbs with spikes of minute greenish flowers.  So a bananna tree is a plantain, but a plantain is  also a plantain :-/ I'll bet you learned something here Tom.

[Tom]

A plantain is a banana and a plantain is a plantain but a plantain isn't a plantain because it isn't a banana. A banana isn't a plantain either but a plantain is a banana.........I've got a Dandylion board around here someplace.  :-/

Now what you see is not a plantain either, even though it looks like one a little bit.  It's actually a Trilisa odoratissima rather than a Plantago of the family Plantaginaceae or a banana either one.

Louise understands.  yep.  

[Tom]

I sawed for a fellow who lives in the woods south of Race Pond who reminisced about the good smell of Deertongue in the Tobacco barns.

I wonder if that was the sweet taste in a Lucky Strike?  They were certainly different and like sugar compared to a Pall Mall.  

Sure glad I put them down.  Quit in January of 1980 but the taste and all that is still in my mind.  I quit anything having to do with tobacco for fear that something may make me start again.  Now I can't stand cigarette smoke, even in the open when I'm sawing. If a puffer gets upwimd 100' away, my eyes water.

I wish kids would understand that the best way to quit is to not start.

[Jeff]

I'm a quiter too. Always liked em, but knew they would kill me, and just before I quit, I thought they had. How long ago did I quit? About 40lbs ago...

[Tom]

It even makes spinach taste better, huh Jeff?  

[L. Wakefield]

   So that's it in living color, eh? What does it smell like when crushed fresh? Sweet and vanilla-ey? I will look for it when I go down south in late Aug/early Sept.   Thanks for the pic   lw

[Tom]

LW,

you won't have to look down too close to the ground then.  It is already beginning to send up bloom stalks and I've seen some that were 4 feet tall.  I have crushed and smelled a whole bunch of leaves since you mentioned its smelling like Vanilla but I guess my nose doesn't work. It just smells "green". I don't know how else to describe it.

I've talked to folks who are familiar with it curing in the tobacco barn and they tell me it smells "wonderful".  Perhaps the odor comes from being dried out.

[L. Wakefield]

   There is another plant that does that- sweet woodruff- Asperula odorata- and when dried it smells like 'new mown hay'- that vanilla, coumarin smell. It is the 'active ingredient' providing the supposedly tonic effect of May wine. A few sprigs added to white wine and left to steep were a traditional spring drink- as it has blood-thinning properties this might have been a good idea after a winter of bratwurst and potatoes. Woodruff keeps that lovely odor for years. You can detect it in the green plant if you crush the leaves, but the drying process must accomplish some type of change. I have found it a nice addition to my homemade incense blends when finely powdered.
  Woodruff naturalizes very nicely, and likes the woodland shade borders. I think it is native to Europe- I have never heard of an indigenous strain.
  Keep me posted if you see the 'Carolina vanilla' produce mature seed. I would be glad to buy seed from you. I know it would hate this zone, but I could do it as an annual, and/or try it in WV if I don't find it there already.    lw

[Tom]

Here we are in October and the stuff is blooming.  It started, sporatically, at the end of Sept. but is everywhere now.  It has taken a likening to the spot that I park my plow, harrow, etc so I can't work until the flowers are through.

 

Right pretty for a weed, doncha' think?

I should have corrected the color of the close-up.  It was taken under an incondescent lamp.  The scene out-of-doors has the truer color, a beautiful blue to deep purple.

[L. Wakefield]

   You are right, a lovely flower. Does the bloom have any particular scent- and/or did you get around to checking out dried leaf for scent?

  Those plants were so kind to you, to park themselves in and about your equipment..  lw

[CHARLIE]

Well LW.....Tom took those pictures while we were out splitting wood and tipping a bottle a bit.  If I remember correctly, Tom did sniff those flowers, stood up and said....and I quote...."Hey brother! These purple things smell just like that Jack!"

[L. Wakefield]

   aah, SOOO- I should be able to locate them easily ... but I'd best take some Jack along in a flask- just, you know, for sustenance and comparison should I encounter the deertongue- and my compass, in case my head should spin and I see twice as many plants as I rightly should..

  can't put em back like I used to, but that's some smooth sippin.   lw