Fireweed

Somewhere I heard about ‘fireweed’, and my imagination immediately jumped to a vision of a weed with flowers that were bright yellow and red, with long slender petals that stuck up in the air and ‘flickered’ in the breeze.

The real fireweed isn’t like that. The flowers are a solid purple or pink that don’t look a thing like flames. It gets its name because it is probably the first plant to establish itself in an area that has been burnt.

Since then, I have also discovered that the parts of the plant that occur above ground can be used as a natural medicine. Would it surprise you to hear that fireweed has been used to treat fevers, inflammation and infections? It is also used to treat pain and swelling, tumors, wounds and an enlarged prostate. Certain forms of it have been used as an astringent and as a tonic.

And it’s edible! New shoots can be cooked like asparagus, while young flowers and leaves can be eaten raw. (They are slightly sweet and mildly astringent.) Older stems can be peeled and enjoyed as a snack. Older leaves and the flowers can be cooked as a vegetable, and will both flavor and thicken soups, stews, and the like.

If that’s not enough, you can stuff a doll or start a fire with the stuff contained within the seed pods. The seed pods are about 3 inches long, and when they pop open (with or without any help from you), the minuscule seeds are released, each with its own feathery tuft that allows it to ride the breeze to a new home. I’ve also read the adjective ‘cotton-like’ in reference to the seeds and tufts, which made me think it could be used to stuff a child’s doll. Or, use the stuff inside the seed pods as kindling to make a fire.

I like the concept of a fireweed. I think I might use the term for a plant on some other planet in one of my stories. Only I think my version of fireweed will have those red and yellow flickering flowers. And maybe those flowers are ghost-pepper hot!

Now, that strikes me as a real fireweed, in all ways.

http://wildfoodsandmedicines.com/fireweed/

https://medium.com/invironment/wild-edibles-fireweed-is-everywhere-8ea22e6d0a0e

https://www.rxlist.com/fireweed/supplements.htm

Super Continents 1

In geology, a supercontinent is when all or most of the Earth’s continental blocks form a single landmass. But earth scientists may use a different definition; ‘a clustering of nearly all continents’, which leaves room for interpretation.

The land masses have conjoined and separated several times. The most recent mass that joined them all is called Pangaea. This conjoining began about 335 million years ago, and began to break up about 175 million years ago.

Pangaea looked more or less like a crescent or the letter ‘c’. The Eurasian continent sat at the top, with the area now forming southeast asia stretching south and east. To the southwest lay North America, and along the NA ‘east coast’ lay the west coast of the big hump of Africa, which was pushed clockwise a bit off its southern tip. The bump of Brazil of South America lay snuggled against North America and Africa. India and Antarctica rested along the southeast of Africa, from the ‘Red Sea’ area south. Australia nestled against India and Antarctica.

I used the words ‘lay’, ‘snuggled’ and ‘nestled’, but the drawing I looked at indicated all sorts of irregular-shaped bits and pieces scattered between all these known continents. I didn’t see anything that resembled the Arabian Peninsula, so I can’t say where that particular piece was hiding at the time of Pangaea.

Pangaea stretched from the south pole to within spitting distance of the north pole. It was a solid body of land that would not have allowed any ocean currents to go around the globe horizontally.

Pangaea began to break up about 175 million years ago. Once India broke away from its neighbors, it raced toward Eurasia at 6 inches a year. Is it any surprise that when they slammed together, they formed mountains like the Himalayas? India (as well as Australia) is still moving northeast at 2-3 inches per year. In a few million years, Australia could scoop up bits and pieces of Indonesia and then head for the northern Pacific. Will it?

I don’t know. Isn’t there a trench somewhere along Indonesia? Seems like a deep ditch would slow Australia down or something. Something else for me to look up and think about.

By the way, this is the first of probably several blogs on super-continents. How long they take me and how often other subjects insinuate themselves into the lineup of blogs remains to be seen. Thems the chances you take when you decide to read my blog.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercontinent

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangaea