Plant legends and lore

"Sowing wild oats" in western society means pursuing a worthless project. In the US it has become limited in meaning. Wild oats (Avena fatua) produces a few seeds which immediately drop to the ground. They are identicle to domestic oats which produce many seeds which are held thru havesting. When the oats bloomed the Romans had to immediately pick out the worthless ones.

Interesting UUallace, I thought that it meant doing things that society at large doesn't
approve of, but people excuse the behavior because the person misbehaving is though to be inmature and thereby is excusable.
But I don't feel that is right to excuse bad behavior.

I love this kind of information about plants UUallace. Thanks for posting it!

Aztecs ate turkey with an unsweeted Chocolate sauce.

There were food fads going around Europe. When hot chocolate was served (in water or millk) it had to be stirred before every drink. C. J. Van Houten in The Netherlands found by squeezing chocolate you would get cocoa and 'cocoa butter'. Cocoa being somewhat soluble. Some of us older folks remember ingredients listing 'Dutch Processed Cocoa'.

Henri Nestlé (ne' Heinrich Nestle) was working on baby formula and invented powdered milk. His wife worked with babies. The mother may have had insufficient milk, mastitis or had died in chilbirth.

Swiss chocolatier, Daniel Peter combined cocoa butter and powdered milk to create a candy bar.

One of the celeries is known well, but celery seed and celery root are different plants:
Celery (Apium graveolens)

Smallage, Celery Seed, Wild Celery, Chinese Celery (Apium graveolens)
Skinny stalks are very tasty, but wilt quickly. You can buy Celery Seed in the spice aisle and plant it.

Celeriac Celery Root, Turnip Rooted Celery (Apium graveolens rapaceum)

The Legend of the Beautiful Passion Flower, Passiflora incarnata. I love this plant.
http://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=PAIN6

They are so beautiful! Love hearing plant stories.