Snow on the Mountain Halloween Parties: Ghostly Roots, Sap, Shoots

Summary: Snow on the mountain Halloween parties scare guests and hosts, a little or a lot, when supplemented by same-flowering crown-of-thorns and scarlet plume.

Snow on the Mountain (Euphorbia marginata); Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge, southwestern Oklahoma; Thursday, Aug. 2, 2007, 20:20:52, image by George Bishop: US Fish and Wildlife Service Headquarters (USFWS Headquarters), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

Snow on the mountain Halloween parties audition ghostly white margins on the mature foliage of native North American herbaceous plants potted for less or more scary All Hallows Eve parties Oct. 31st.

The herbaceous nonwoody annual in the Euphorbiaceae family of cactus-like, spurge-related herbs, shrubs and trees bears all-white or white-edged bracts and green-yellow blooms with white appendages. It contains a ghostly, milky, white sap that causes irritating rashes upon contact with sensitive skin and various degrees of food poisoning in cattle and horses. The blistered, inflamed reactions of allergy-induced, toxin-ingested irritation of the esophagus, eyes, mouth, mucous membranes, skin and throats of livestock and people demand posted precautionary signage.

Otherwise, the ghostly, milky, white flowery and leafy displays of snow on the mountain emerge in June or July and endure all the way through October.

The ghostly, snow-like foliar edges of the native North American annual furnish the scientific name Euphorbia marginata (Euphorbus's [flourished 1st century A.D.] [spurge with white] margins).

Snow on the mountain, described by German-American botanist Friedrich Traugott Pursh (Feb. 4, 1774-July 1, 1820) from Großenhain, Saxony, gets alternate-arranged, elliptical, oblong or oval leaves. The 0.79- to 3.94-inch- (2- to 10-centimeter-) long, 0.5- to 1-inch- (1.27- to 2.54-centimeter-) wide foliage has blunt- or sharp-pointed tips and rounded to short-tapered bases. It includes smooth margins and is light to medium green higher up on the 1- to 6-foot- (0.32- to 1.83-meter-) tall stems and yellow lower down.

Snow on the mountain Halloween parties juggle all-white or white-edged floral, petal-like leaves called bracts, green-white somewhat hairy stems, green-yellow branch-tipped flower clusters and green-yellow foliage.

Snow on the mountain keeps year-round colors in United States Department of Agriculture hardiness zones 10 to 11 and within microclimates in zones two to nine.

Mature, 1- to 2-foot- (0.32- to 0.61-meter-) thick shrubs locate cup-shaped, 0.16- to 0.24-inch- (4- to 6-millimeter-) long inflorescences on red-yellowed stems atop branching, short taproots. Every flower cluster maintains along its upper rim four glandular appendages, each with a green, kidney-shaped, 0.02-inch- (0.5-millimeter-) long glandular pit surrounded by petal-like, white-winged extensions. Petal-, scent-, sepal-free flowers, whether male with yellow anthers on stamens or seedy females with three-celled, three-styled pistils, need nectar- and pollen-seeking bees, flies and wasps.

Self-seeding of ash-colored seeds in white-haired capsules occurs six to eight weeks before spring's last frost, well in advance of snow on the mountain Halloween parties.

Female flowers produce 0.19- to 0.28-inch- (5- to 7-millimeter-) long capsules, 0.24 to 0.32 inches (6 to 8 millimeters) across, atop stout-stalked, 0.39-inch- (10-millimeter-) long pedicels.

The knobby, oval, 0.12- to 0.18-inch- (3- to 4.5-millimeter-) long seeds quit their capsules quickly in drought-tolerant, sun-absorbent, well-drained meadow-, prairie-, roadside-, slope- or upland-like soils. Mourning dove-friendly, toxic seeds require chalky, clayey, limey, loamy, rocky, sandy pHs, 6.8 to 7.2, from which snow on the mountain removes air-, soil-, water-borne pollutants. Snow on the mountain, commonly named smoke on the prairie, variegated spurge and white-margined spurge, shows less attractively clumped growth habits in other than minimal shade.

Snow on the mountain Halloween parties terrify guests and hosts, less or more, with related, simultaneously blooming scarlet plume (Euphorbia fulgens) and torturous crown-of-thorns (E. milii).

Snow on the Mountain (Euphorbia marginata); Wind Cave National Park, southwestern South Dakota; Tuesday, Sep. 18, 2007, NPS (National Park Service) photo by Jim Pisarowicz: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Snow on the Mountain (Euphorbia marginata); Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge, southwestern Oklahoma; Thursday, Aug. 2, 2007, 20:20:52, image by George Bishop: US Fish and Wildlife Service Headquarters (USFWS Headquarters), CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/50838842@N06/8471001301

Snow on the Mountain (Euphorbia marginata); Wind Cave National Park, southwestern South Dakota; Tuesday, Sep. 18, 2007, NPS (National Park Service) photo by Jim Pisarowicz: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Euphorbia_marginata_NPS-1.jpg

For further information:

"Euphorbia marginata." Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center > Native Plants > Plant Database.
Available @ http://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=EUMA8

"Euphorbia marginata." Missouri Botanical Garden > Gardens & Gardening > Your Garden > Plant Finder.
Available @ http://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/PlantFinder/PlantFinderDetails.aspx?kempercode=e473

"Euphorbia marginata Pursh." Tropicos® > Name Search.
Available @ http://www.tropicos.org/Name/12800160

"Euphorbia marginata Pursh Snow on the Mountain." United States Department of Agriculture > Natural Resources Conservation Service > Plants Database > Plant Profile.
Available @ https://plants.usda.gov/core/profile?symbol=euma8

Pursh, Frederick Traugott. 1814. "14. Euphorbia marginata." Flora Americae Septentrionalis; Or, A Systematic Arrangement and Description of the Plants of North America. Vol. II: 607. London, England: White, Cochrane, and Co.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/401934

"Snow-on-the-Mountain (Euphorbia marginata)." Illinois Wildflowers > Weeds > Plants.
Available @ http://www.illinoiswildflowers.info/weeds/plants/snow_mountain.htm

Americanized Field Violet Gardens Need Not Be Seedy and Weedy

Summary: Americanized field violet gardens do not have to be seedy, weedy invasions of edible and ornamental plots and of strawberry and winter wheat fields.

closeup of field violet's flower; bridleway west of Stevenage, Hertfordshire, East of England; Monday, May 6, 2013, 13:53:26: Peter O'Connor aka anemoneprojectors, CC BY SA 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

Farmers, gardeners and nurserymen allude to aggressive seeding against edible and ornamental plants, especially strawberry and winter wheat, even though no North American country applies weed designations to American field violet gardens.

Federal, provincial, state and territorial legislation generally bases official weed status upon blaming species for bringing down crop yields, eco-system well-being, human health and species diversity. They consider natives and non-natives seedy weeds even though Eurasia's English or sweet violet and Europe's field violet and Johnny-jump-up thus far collect no such designations. The common names European field pansy, field pansy, heartsease and wild pansy discourage weed sanctions against field violet, literal translation of the scientific name Viola arvensis.

Exasperation eclipses enjoyment of introduced culinary, medicinal and ornamental roles in kitchen gardens when 250 seedlings emerge per 10.76 square feet (square meter) of pre-allotted space.

Blunt-tipped, oval to square, 0.12- to 0.19-inch- (3- to 5-millimeter-) long, 0.12- to 0.16-inch- (3- to 4-millimeter-) wide cotyledons function as embryonic leaves during seedling stages.

Mature field violets give off somewhat upward to straight up-and-down growth habits because of partial shade, partial sun tolerances and wintergreen scents from crushed fibrous roots. Mature members of the Violaceae family of herbaceous violets have semi-upward to straight up-and-down, 3.94- to 13.78-inch- (10- to 35-centimeter-) tall stems with hairy branch angles. The alternate-arranged, oblong to lance-shaped, 0.79- to 3.15-inch- (2- to 8-centimeter-) long, 0.39- to 0.59-inch- (1- to 1.5-centimeter-) wide upper foliage includes margins with rounded teeth.

The bases of the upper foliage in Americanized field violet gardens juggle leaflike membraneous structures called stipules and divided into five to nine distinct, narrow segments.

Rounded to oblong, 0.39- to 0.59-inch- (1- to 1.5-centimeter-) long, 0.28- to 0.47-inch- (7- to 12-millimeter-) wide basal leaves keep their margins toothed and stipules small.

Basal foliar clusters called rosettes link basal leaves on alternate-arranged, 0.39- to 0.79-inch- (1- to 2-centimeter-) long stalks and look up into sparse-haired, veined foliar undersides. Axil unions of stalked leaves with stems maintain mauve- or purple-marked, pale yellow to white, solitary flowers on 0.79- to 1.58-inch- (2- to 4-centimeter-) long stalks. The lateral and the lower of the irregular, perfect flower's petals respectively need to be bearded and, to 0.08- to 0.16-inch (2- to 4-millimeter) lengths, spurred.

Field violets, whose bloom times occur from April to October in Americanized field violet gardens, offer one pistil, five petals, five stamens and five united sepals.

Biology produces 2,500 seeds per field violet and propels 75-seeded, spherical, tan-colored, 0.19- to 0.39-inch- (5- to 10-millimeter-) long capsules over 6.89-foot (2.1-meter) distances upon maturity.

Temperatures between 41 and 59 degrees Fahrenheit (5 and 15 degrees Celsius) at 0.19- to 0.39-inch- (5- to 10-millimeter-) depths quicken germination of field violet seeds. Glossy, oval to kidney-shaped, yellow- to black-brown, 0.04- to 0.08-inch- (1- to 2-millimeter-) long field violet seeds remain viable for six to 11 years in soil. Viable seeds from 400-year-old excavations suggest truculently survivalist life cycles for field violets, described by Stockholm-born Swedish botanist Johan Andreas Murray (Jan. 27, 1740-May 22, 1791).

Americanized field violet gardens in semi-shaded containers, indoors and outdoors, sometimes trick English or sweet violets, field violets and Johnny-jump-ups into targeting lower seed production levels.

flower and leaves of field violet (Viola arvensis), also known as field pansy; Hockenheimer Rheinbogen natural area, Hockenheim, northwestern Baden-Württemberg state, southwestern Germany; Tuesday, June 2, 2015, 15:52: AnRo0002, Public Domain (CCO 1.0), via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

closeup of field violet's flower; bridleway west of Stevenage, Hertfordshire, East of England; Monday, May 6, 2013, 13:53:26: Peter O'Connor aka anemoneprojectors, CC BY SA 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/anemoneprojectors/8731447790/

flower and leaves of field violet (Viola arvensis), also known as field pansy; Hockenheimer Rheinbogen natural area, Hockenheim, northwestern Baden-Württemberg state, southwestern Germany; June 2, 2015, 15:52: AnRo0002, Public Domain (CCO 1.0), via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:20150602Viola_arvensis1.jpg

For further information:

Dickinson, Richard; and Royer, France. 2014. Weeds of North America. Chicago IL; London, England: The University of Chicago Press.

Murray, Johan Andreas. 1770. "Viola arvensis." Page 73. Prodomvs Designationis Stirpivm Gottingensivm. Gottinga (Göttingen), Germany: J.C. Dieterich.
Available via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/stream/prodromusdesigna00murr#page/73/mode/1up

"Viola arvensis Murray." Tropicos® > Name Search.
Available @ http://www.tropicos.org/Name/33800006

Weakley, Alan S.; Ludwig, J. Christopher; and Townsend, John F. 2012. Flora of Virginia. Edited by Bland Crowder. Fort Worth TX: BRIT Press, Botanical Research Institute of Texas.

North American Carpetweed Gardens: Ground Cover, Scientific Research

Summary: North American carpetweed gardens pull down ground reflection losses by putting carpetweed, chickweed and lotus sweetjuice out on barren soils.

carpetweed's flowers and leaves; Broadmoor neighborhood, University District, central Little Rock, Pulaski County, central Arkansas; Saturday, July 7, 2012, 07:56: Eric in SF, CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons

North American carpetweed gardens adjust ground reflection loss rates downward on barren, compacted, disturbed, polluted, unbalanced ground even though they allow cucumber mosaic, tobacco etch and tobacco mosaic viruses into cultivated soils.

Carpetweed, also commonly called devil's grip, green carpetweed, Indian chickweed and whorled chickweed, batters cultivated and uncultivated soils with chickweed-like looks, stubborn seeds and viral diseases. Federal, provincial, state and territorial legislation in Canada, Mexico and the United States charges native and non-native vegetation with weediness for behavior unbecoming North American flora. No federal, provincial, state or territorial government in North America disparages the native North and South American tropical annual or related African and Eurasian lotus sweetjuice.

Carpetweed, scientifically named Mollugo verticillata (soft whorl), encourages its intolerance in gardens and row croplands and tolerance on railways, roadsides and wastelands with other weedy ornamentals.

Carpetweed seedlings foster atop brown stems hairless, oblong, thick, 0.06- to 0.14-inch- (1.5- to 3.5-millimeter-) long embryonic leaves, called cotyledons, under 0.05 inches (1.3 millimeters) thick.

First leaf stages give dull green upper-sides, pale undersides and spatula shapes but grow into whorled arrangements of three to eight elliptical, linear or spatula-shaped leaves. Mature, 0.19- to 1.58-inch- (5- to 40-millimeter-) long, 0.02- to 0.59-inch- (0.5- to 15-millimeter-) wide carpetweed leaves have 0.04- to 0.16-inch- (1- to 4-millimeter-) long stalks. Carpetweed, described by Swedish physician Carl Linnaeus (May 23, 1707-Jan. 10, 1778), includes dull upper-sides, pale undersides, sparse-haired lower margins and no chickweed-like, opposite-arranged, oval-shaped leaves.

Two to six flowers join, menorah-like, into single points on inflorescences called umbels in the axil angles of leaves and stems in North American carpetweed gardens.

The perfect, regular, white flowers keep together one pistil, three to four stamens and five 0.06- to 0.09-inch- (1.5- to 2.5-millimeter-) long sepals without any petals.

The sepals always look green on the outside and white on the inside while the 1.12- to 0.79-inch- (3- to 20-millimeter-) long flowers always look dainty. Hairless, mature, multi-branched, prostrate, 1.18-to 17.72-inch- (3- to 45-centimeter-) long carpetweed manages flowers June through September, foliage and, as dry, explosive, multi-seeded, oval, thin-walled capsules, fruits. Three teeth nose 15 to 35 0.019- to 0.024-inch- (0.5- to 0.6-millimeter-) long and wide seeds from each 0.09- to 0.13-inch- (2.5- to 3.3-millimeter-) long capsule.

The dark orange to brown, kidney-shaped, ridged, shiny seeds offer the sole reproduction mode even though carpetweed organizes into horizontal mats across North American carpetweed gardens.

Carpetweed seeds procrastinate their germination until the late spring and early summer months even though germinated seeds push their seedlings quickly through one growing-season life cycles.

Agriculturists, botanists and horticulturists question the in-soil viability of carpetweed seeds in the absence of any anecdotal or science-based information and qualify the topic as research-worthy. Similar-looking common chickweed repels farmers and gardeners with its 10-year in-soil viabilities but regains respect by reducing ground reflection loss rates, like carpetweed, and releasing nitrogen. Weedy ornamentals in the 14-genera Molluginaceae family of herbaceous and shrubby carpetweeds and in the 80-genera Caryophyllaceae family of herbaceous carnations survive deplorable and optimal soils.

Carpetweed, common chickweed and lotus sweetjuice transform North American carpetweed gardens into sites worthy of chickweed's fashionable relatives: baby's breath, bouncing bet, carnations and Maltese cross.

closeup of carpetweed plant's flower and leaves: Robert H. Mohlenbrock/Midwest National Technical Center, Public Domain, via USDA NRCS PLANTS Database

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

carpetweed's flowers and leaves; Broadmoor neighborhood, University District, central Little Rock, Pulaski County, central Arkansas; Saturday, July 7, 2012, 07:56: Eric in SF, CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mollugo_verticillata.jpg

closeup of carpetweed plant's flower and leaves: Robert H. Mohlenbrock/Midwest National Technical Center, Public Domain, via USDA NRCS PLANTS Database @ https://plants.usda.gov/core/profile?symbol=MOVE (new URL @ https://plants.usda.gov/home/plantProfile?symbol=MOVE)
For further information:

Dickinson, Richard; and Royer, France. 2014. Weeds of North America. Chicago IL; London, England: The University of Chicago Press.

Linnaeus, Carl. 1753. "4. Mollugo verticillata." Species Plantarum, vol. I: 89. Holmiae [Stockholm, Sweden]: Laurentii Salvii [Laurentius Salvius].
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/358108

Mohlenbrock, Robert H. 1989. Midwestern Wetland Flora: Field Office Guide to Plant Species. Lincoln NE: USDA Soil Conservation Service (SCS) Midwest National Technical Center.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/47568522

"Mollugo verticillata L." Tropicos® > Name Search.
Available @ http://www.tropicos.org/Name/700039

Weakley, Alan S.; Ludwig, J. Christopher; and Townsend, John F. 2012. Flora of Virginia. Edited by Bland Crowder. Fort Worth TX: BRIT Press, Botanical Research Institute of Texas.