Herb or Wildflower?

[darin]

In article <1995Jun15.133905.1 at titan>, falk at titan.arc.ab.ca (Alfred Falk
450-5185) wrote:

> In article <3rg0vf$rr6 at acme.freenet.columbus.oh.us>, kpearman at freenet.columbus.oh.us (Kelleyanne Pearman) writes:
> > 
> > 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
> 
> "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.
> 

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.
 
> > 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
> 
> 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.
> 
try  looking under the latin name:
 dame's rocket = hesperis matronalis
 purple coneflower = ecinacea purpurea
 foxglove = digitalis 

> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Alfred Falk                       falk at arc.ab.ca              A L B E R T A
> Information Systems Dept          (403) 450-5185            R E S E A R C H
> Box 8330, Station F                                           C O U N C I L 
> Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
> T6H 5X2
> http://saturn.arc.ab.ca/~falk/                     http://www.arc.ab.ca/

-- 
 darin
burleigh at tcg.anl.gov
"cogito cogito ergo cogito sum" - ambrose bierce