Subject: Herb or Wildflower?

From: [email-masked] (Kelleyanne Pearman)
Date: 11 Jun 1995 20:15:43 -0400

Are herbs and wildflowers different families of plants, or can a herb be a
wildflower and vice-versa?  I am growing some wildflowers and I wondered
if they had any herbal benefits.  I couldn't find any of them in my herb
encyclopedia.  I thought perhaps they had other names.  They are
pheasants's eye, malope, garden clarkis, sweet william, scarlet flas,
dame's rocket, larkspur, catchfly, farewell to spring, shirley poppy,
dwarf red corepsis, purple coneflower, foxglove, lemon mint, toad flax,
cnaterbury bells, pink mallow, balsam flower, maltese cross, painted
tongus, red wallflower, dahlia flowered zinnia, and scarlet gilia.  If
anyone can give me any info on other names these might have, it would be
greatly apprecaited.

kaeleh
       .
        \\  *
      *  !!
        //
       '
-- 
kaeleh/chinadoll
"She had rings on her fingers and bells on her shoes.  And I knew without
asking she was into the blues.  She wore scarlet begonias tucked into her
curls.  I knew right away she was not like other girls - other girls."

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From: [email-masked] (Alfred Falk 450-5185)
Date: 15 Jun 95 13:39:05 MST

> wildflower and vice-versa?  I am growing some wildflowers and I wondered

"Herb" and "Wildflower" are words to describe plants in their relation to
humans.  The terms have little to do with the plants themselves.  ... sort
of like dividing humans by categories "Blue-eyed" and "American Citizen".
Some belong to both categories, some to neither.

A "herb", according to my dictionary is "a plant or plant part valued for
medicinal or savory qualities", or "a seed plant that lacks woody tissue
and dies to the ground at the end of a growing season".

On the the other hand, a "wildflower" used to mean a plant not cultivated by
humans, especially plant native to a region.
These days many seed packagers use the term to mean any herbaceous
plant that self-seeds.

> anyone can give me any info on other names these might have, it would be

Many of these are not native to North America, and of those that are, many
are not native to your area, so the term "wildflower" is debatable.
As to herbal value - I leave that to some one else.

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Alfred Falk                       [email-masked]              A L B E R T A
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From: [email-masked] (darin)
Date: 22 Jun 1995 01:49:13 GMT

In article <1995Jun15.133905.1@titan>, [email-masked] (Alfred Falk

> These days many seed packagers use the term to mean any herbaceous

e.g. purple coneflower is a beautiful wildflower which is native 
to the midwest prairies, but is now also grown comercially and sold
as 'echinacea'; it is reputed to have medicinial effects.
 
> As to herbal value - I leave that to some one else.
try  looking under the latin name:
 dame's rocket = hesperis matronalis
 purple coneflower = ecinacea purpurea
 foxglove = digitalis 

-- 
 darin
[email-masked]
"cogito cogito ergo cogito sum" - ambrose bierce