Tasteless Linnaeus. Acmella oleracea, Electric Daisy, Amsterdam Zoo ARTIS, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Great Linnaeus describes two family members of our plant: Urens and Insipida, and then this Oleracea under the name Spilanthes, devised by Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin (1727-1817). But curiously he doesn't remark on the 'Electric' quality of this little daisy which hails from Central South America (Brazil and Paraquay). Whence its name in English: Para Cress.
A more complete and rather more fascinating description is given by Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet de Lamarck (1744-1829) in his Encyclopedia of 1785. Under the generic name 'Bidens' he describes it as numbing the mouth and causing an excess of saliva. In English it's sometimes called the Toothache Plant because chewing the buds or flowerheads masks any oral pain. And its taste - as I discovered, too, this morning - has an electric quality to it. In fact, I didn't just carefully chew a single floret but brashly popped an entire bud: an hour later my mouth was still numb...
Tasteless Linnaeus. Acmella oleracea, Electric Daisy, Amsterdam Zoo ARTIS, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Great Linnaeus describes two family members of our plant: Urens and Insipida, and then this Oleracea under the name Spilanthes, devised by Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin (1727-1817). But curiously he doesn't remark on the 'Electric' quality of this little daisy which hails from Central South America (Brazil and Paraquay). Whence its name in English: Para Cress.
A more complete and rather more fascinating description is given by Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet de Lamarck (1744-1829) in his Encyclopedia of 1785. Under the generic name 'Bidens' he describes it as numbing the mouth and causing an excess of saliva. In English it's sometimes called the Toothache Plant because chewing the buds or flowerheads masks any oral pain. And its taste - as I discovered, too, this morning - has an electric quality to it. In fact, I didn't just carefully chew a single floret but brashly popped an entire bud: an hour later my mouth was still numb...