{"id":109,"date":"2008-08-18T05:56:41","date_gmt":"2008-08-18T13:56:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/garden\/?p=109"},"modified":"2015-11-24T07:33:01","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T15:33:01","slug":"plantain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/plantain\/","title":{"rendered":"Plantain"},"content":{"rendered":"

PLANTAIN
\n<\/font><\/font><\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>In many parts of America, it is possible to eat fried plantain while sitting near a bed of plantain lilies and wondering what product to use to rid the lawn of common plantain. \u00a0How can the same word describe hostas, edible relatives of the common banana and garden weeds?\u00a0 The plantain phenomenon is a perfect illustration of the confusion that can arise from the use of common names and the reason why botanical names come in handy. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Let’s start with the common hosta, which is part of the genus Hosta, named after Nicholas Host, an Austrian botanist who lived in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.\u00a0 There are hundreds of commercially available hosta species, hybrids and varieties and a good many of the hybrids are virtually indistinguishable from each other.\u00a0 Whether they are plain or fancy, the majority of these hostas have relatively broad leaves with distinctive veins that run the length of each leaf.\u00a0 <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Hostas, which the plant geneticists have recently made members of the Agavaceae or agave family, used to be assigned to the Liliaceae or lily family, making the common name, “plantain lily”\u009d seem somewhat logical.\u00a0 It’s possible that at one time or other, someone saw the resemblance between the leaves of the common hosta and the leaves of a much smaller, but equally persistent garden weed that often goes by the name, plantain.\u00a0 Both the weed and the ornamental plant tend to multiply like rabbits, though the weed is much more prolific.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Plantain, the common weed, is known by the botanical name Plantago major.\u00a0 It has lots of colorful common names, and some of them are even printable.\u00a0 Those common names include “bird’s meat,”\u009d “dog’s ribs”\u009d and “rat tail plantain”\u009d.\u00a0 Plantago major forms a rosette of small, rounded leaves that grow nearly flush with the ground, making them relatively impervious to death by mowing.\u00a0 The leaves also have characteristic lengthwise veins.\u00a0 Plantain, which spreads by seeds, produces a relatively unattractive greenish-brown flower stalk that grows several inches high.\u00a0 This stalk’s appearance probably gave rise to the “rat-tail”\u009d nickname.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Plantain will grow almost anywhere–in lawns, gardens, city lots, the edges of farm fields and even in sidewalk or asphalt cracks.\u00a0 You can dig the plants out, kill them by pouring boiling water on them or treat them with herbicides.\u00a0 I guarantee that whatever you do, they will continue to pop up all around you.\u00a0 Because plantain grows low to the ground, you can easily walk right over it, getting the seeds on the soles of your shoes and spreading them here, there and everywhere.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And the key to this whole discussion of plant names is soles.\u00a0 Whether you are talking about the plantain lily or the rat-tail plantain, the word “plantain”\u009d is derived from the Latin word “planta”\u009d, which describes the sole or widest part of the foot.\u00a0 This is the same region of the foot that is the site of those two banes of human existence, plantar warts and plantar fasciitis.\u00a0 Even the most persistent infestation of common plantain causes less discomfort than either of the aforementioned conditions.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

But what about edible plantain?\u00a0 <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

The edible plantain is a hybrid species that goes by the botanical name Musa x paradisiaca.\u00a0 It looks like a banana, and indeed, is related to the common fruit.\u00a0 Though plantains are beloved in the Caribbean as well as Central and South America, they are native to southern Asia.\u00a0 Some sources say that the plants came to the New World with Portuguese missionary brothers.\u00a0 Depending on the degree of ripeness, edible plantain can be fried, steamed or boiled.\u00a0 An internet search yields scores of plantain recipes that vary according to the culture of origin.<\/font><\/p>\n

So, does edible plantain also have something to do with the sole of the foot?\u00a0 Trees in the banana family generally have large, broad leaves, so the interpretation might work.\u00a0 Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a handy connection.\u00a0 “Plantain”\u009d in this case comes from the Spanish words “plantano”\u009d and “platano”\u009d which are used to describe the banana tree as well as the common plane tree.\u00a0 This in turn comes from the Latin “platanus”\u009d, which also describes the plane tree.\u00a0 Plane trees, which are known in America as sycamores, grow on planes or flat areas, hence the Latin name.\u00a0 Why the banana tree reminded botanists, Portuguese missionaries or anyone else of plane trees is a mystery.\u00a0 <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

Knowing all of the above will not help you keep slugs off your hostas or eradicate Plantago major from your lawn.\u00a0 It will not help you if you don’t know how to cook edible plantain.\u00a0 You can live a rich, full life without ever knowing about the three kinds of plantain.\u00a0 On the other hand, it’s a good reminder that Latin has its uses, especially in the garden.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PLANTAIN \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In many parts of America, it is possible to eat fried plantain while sitting near a bed of plantain lilies and wondering what product to use to rid the lawn of common plantain. \u00a0How can the same word describe hostas, edible relatives of the common banana and garden weeds?\u00a0 The plantain phenomenon is … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-interest","category-summer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1674,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109\/revisions\/1674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}