Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #Botany101
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Day 1 of #BlackBotanistsWeek
My name is Mizpah Hoffman and I am a South African botanist who specializes in medicinal plant biology, phytochemistry and ethnobotany.
My name is Mizpah Hoffman and I am a South African botanist who specializes in medicinal plant biology, phytochemistry and ethnobotany.
Growing up the use of plant herbal remedies was a common practice in our household, from preparing Aloe juice with Aloe picked from our backyard, to growing a small mint bush and adding it to rooibos tea. As a child I think I learnt about plants partly through my sense of taste.
I remember seeing Oxalis plants growing everywhere and once tasting its sour leaves. People usually called it 'suurings' where 'suur' is Afrikaans for sour. I now know that the sour taste is due to oxalic acid in the plant which can be toxic in large quantities. #Botany101
Today is the first day of #BlackBotanistsWeek and we're highlighting our #BlackRoots through our #BlackBotanicalLegacy. An unsung #Botany101 hero is Antione, a botanical genius who successfully produced a new variety of thin shelled pecan. 1/5
Antoine was a remarkable gardner and cultivated the extensive gardens and orchards of Oak Valley Plantation in the mid 1800s. Because of his renown talents, he was tasked with producing this new variety after multiple failed experiments by an amateur botanists in Louisiana 2/5
In 1846 he grafted a wild pecan to seedling pecan stocks creating his variety "Centennial" (named for winning an award at the Philly Centennial Exposition in 1876). By 1848 Antione had produced 110 thriving pecan trees thus resolving the problem of hard to crack pecans. 3/5
