Dear WW: Here's a word you undoubtedly know: Portulaca
My wife's grandparents had a summer place on Gull Lake, MI. A nice kettle pond (caused by big block
of glacier ice having blowsand accumulate around it). But said sand got bonedry in summer, and
the only green things were obiigatory honysuckle around the Chick Sale (with obligaotory halfmoon
above the door for ventilation), and almost surrounded by a very large bed of Portulaca.
When I was a teenager, I spent more than a few hours trying to eradicate purslane from tennis
courts. I hated it, and was dimbfounded when a former college chum who was a archaeologist in
the Netherlands passed along the information that purslane was a Dutch prized potherb, which
as volunteer (technical word for desirable plant in undesirable place) had so tormented me.
I tried eating the leaves of purslane, and they are indeed quite acceptable. I was however very
much suprised that purslane is closely related to Portulaca grandiflora, with the large blossoms
I saw this morening for the first time. But I used to admire portulaca of many colors in poor
soil of property I owned on Cape Cod. So let's hear if for Portulaca, portulaca, siss, boom, BAH!
For pictures, see
http://members.tripod.com/~KeinHong/flowers-portulaca.html