Red berry, blue berry... cranberry, lingonberry?

In Scandinavia many forest berries are wild-harvested and then used for home canning of jams and sauces, and also sold commercially to companies to flavor drinks, juices, yogurt, desserts, jams, and so on.  Many of these are members of the Vaccinium genus in the blueberry family (Ericaceae).

lingonberry, also called cowberry, Vaccinium vitis-idaea
Public domain photo from Lindman's Bilder ur Nordens Flora

One of the most common ones is lingonberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea), a low-growing blueberry relative with small, red, shiny, and clustered berries on short upright stalks and with leathery oblong leaves.  They look like little tiny bushes sticking out of the soil among mosses and lichens in the taiga forests. Lingonberries are a very Swedish thing, and served with classic pancakes, blood pudding (maybe not so common anymore, but served in public school when I grew up in Sweden), and traditional cheese cake. It is an incredibly well-known and common wild-foraged plant in Scandinavia.

Common names are not regulated, they are just used by people as they see fit over the world.  This species is called lingonberry in English most of Europe and North America, cowberry in parts of North America, and lowbush cranberry in Alaska.  Other names are wortleberry and mountain cranberry. Which leads to giant confusion with the cranberry species below when you only use common names.  

(European) cranberry, Vaccinium oxycoccus
Public domain photo from Lindman's Bilder ur Nordens Flora

Other Vaccinium species also has red delicious berries, and among the most well known in the Northern hemisphere are the cranberries. In Europe it is mostly the cranberry species  Vaccinium oxycoccus, and in North American cranberry the larger-fruited Vaccinium macrocarpon. Cranberries grow mostly on the surface of the peat moss in bogs. They have lonely berries on long thin stalks that are laying on the ground, and long creeping branches with small leaves.  They are not grown commercially in Scandinavia, but are cultivated in other parts of the world.  Their tart flavor means that they are often used for jelly to be served with meat, and also for cranberry juice.

Cranberries and lingonberries are very different-looking plants when you see them side by side, but despite their large morphological differences there are common mistake.   As usual the stock photo market is among the worst, and here are an abundance of cranberry photos that actually show lingonberry (the opposite is much less common, so people seem to know how lingonberry looks like, but not how cranberries do). However, if the photos are from Alaska, they might be correct if they meant the low-bush cranberry(=lingonberry/cowberry), but there is no way of knowing if they use the Alaskan meaning of cranberry, or if they made a plant identification mistake (that is why we have scientific names to keep things in order) . Here are some examples of 'cranberry' photos featuring lingonberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea):

Herbal Extracts Plus website, showing lingonberry images on the cranberry page.
Screenshot by BotanicalAccuracy.com.

Dreamstime stock photo website, showing a cranberry image for sale, that actually shows lingonberry.
Screenshot by BotanicalAccuracy.com.

Botanic Innovations LLC website, showing a lingonberry photo on the page for Cranberry seed oil.
Screenshot by BotanicalAccuracy.com.

Seeds-Gallery website, showing a lingonberry photo on the page for American Cranberry seeds.
In this case we know what species they mean since they give the scientific name
Vaccinium macrocarpon, and that is Vaccinium vitis-idaea on the photo.
Screenshot by BotanicalAccuracy.com.

Stockphoto for sale on CanStock website, showing a lingonberry photo
marked as 'tranbär' (cranberry).
Screenshot by BotanicalAccuracy.com.

The problem is that many companies buy stock photos to illustrate websites and newsletters and commercial packaging, and that there is no taxonomic quality control nor scientific species names on the labeling of stock photos. Many companies appears to be unaware of that they are using the wrong species in their materials until someone points it out, and by then they have inadvertently provided false marketing and information by using inaccurately named images.  Here is a packaging example of cranberry herbal tea, showing lingonberries and cranberries on the box:

Caribbean Dreams Cranberry Herbal tea, showing branches of lingonberries, not cranberries, but with a cranberry bog in the background, and cranberries along the edge.

To further confuse the American public, there is also 'cranberry bush' or tree, which is a species in the unrelated genus Viburnum and have nothing do to with Vaccinium's.  But that will be a different story.

So, to summarize how to tell these species apart in a photo:

Lingonberry, cowberry, lowbush cranberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea): short plant with upright stems in forest, leaves leathery and oblong, often slightly curled at edges, berries clustered together

Cranberry (several species of Vaccinium, such as V. macrocarpon and V. oxycoccus): creeping plant on bogs, with long thin branches, leaves smaller, berries along on long thin fruit stalks

Teasels tousled with thistles

Thistles are such familiar plants to most of us, these spiky, thorny, sharp-leaved plants with fuzzy purple or pink, or less commonly yellow, flower heads.  We love them and hate them, as they are both beloved and tasty plants (artichoke, the Scottish symbol) and less liked since they can be weedy and sometimes invasive.  They get around with their little fruits attached to a pappus-umbrella of hairs that act like a parachute for long-distance dispersal.  Thistles are well-known and common in popular media and literature.

'Thistle clipart' search on Google yields this result - these are all thistles.
Screenshot by BotanicalAccuracy.com.

Most of the plantswe call thistles belong to Asteraceae (the sunflower family) and form their own group (a tribe called Cardueae (=older name) or Cynareae).  In this group you have genera and species such as Arctium (burdock), Carduus, Carthamus (safflower), Centaurea (knapweeds, corn flower, star thistle), Cirsium, Cynara (artichoke, cardoon), Echinops (Globe thistle), Onopordum, and Silybium (milk thistle).

A typical thistle flower looks like this:

Thistle, probably Cirsium. 
Photo from United Kingdom, by John Cooke on Flickr (Creative Commons).

The problem is the teasels (Dipsacus).  They are in the family Dipsacaceae, not too far away from Asteraceae's thistles, but certainly not true thistles, but they look a bit like them and get confused with them a lot.  Teasels also have large heads of small flowers and are plants that look ferocious with spines.  The teasel itself got its name from that the flower heads were used to tease out the wool before spinning (carding). Several teasels are invasive in the United States and you often see them along highways in  disturbed ditches and on road banks. Their flowering heads dry beautifully into gorgeous botanical stalks for flower arrangements.

A typical teasel look like this:

Teasel, Dipsacus.
Photo by Bev Currie on Flickr (Creative Commons).

So, can you tell teasels and thistles apart? Thistles have many (involucral) bracts below the flower head that form a cup below the flowers.  In teasels, there are just a few long bracts that stick out below the flower head.  The teasels have lots of sharp parts in the actual flower head, so the flower head looks like a spiny ball the whole season. In thistles, the bracts below the flower stays, but there are no persistent spiny parts inside among the flowers themselves.  The fruits, which are little nut-like, single-seeded achenes have a feathery pappus for wind-dispersal in thistles, but are naked in teasels.  Good teasel photos are available on invasive.org.

As usual for some of these misunderstandings and misapplications, the stock photo market is abundant with incorrectly identified plants.  There seems to be no taxonomic quality control of what photos actually show and what they are labeled on places like iStockphoto, Colourbox, and Getty Images.  For plants this is especially disturbing since commercial companies and media buy representative photos of that they think are thistles, poppies, and chamomile, and then use them in good faith. Unfortunately, this is a major reason why botanical inaccuracies are propagated and also the media companies paid for something they didn't got.  (The problems with chamomile images are especially abundant, but that is for a later post.) 


Here are some teasels that are labeled as thistles on stock photos for sale: 

Teasels presented as thistles on gettyimages (link).
Screenshot by BotanicalAccuracy.com.

More teasels listed as 'thistle plant', this time on Colourbox (link).
Screenshot by BotanicalAccuracy.com.

Dried flowering heads sold as 'dried thistle' by Country Creations (link).
Screenshot by BotanicalAccuracy.com.

Wikiherbia: Anise is not the same as star anise

The website wikiherbia promotes itself as the 'complete herb database' and provides information on medicinal plants.  It is in no way complete and lists only a little over 100 plants, and doesn't appear to be a very active website.  However, the information is still there, and people will search for information and find this resource, so it is important that the information is as correct as possible.  Unfortunately, there are some grave errors.

Screenshot of Wikiherbia web page on "anise / Pimpinella Anisum", by BotanicalAccuracy.com

The herb anise (Pimpinella anisum) is featured in wikiherbia, but not only is the Latin name wrongly formatted, but the associated image is of another species, star anise (Illicium verum).  The photo on the web page shows the fruit of star anise. The text is fully focused on anise, not star anise.

Anise and star anise are unrelated plants with different chemical profiles, with the only similarity being that they both have a compound that gives a taste that is somewhat similar to licorice   Anise is a temperate plant in the parsley family (Apiaceae), and star anise is a subtropical/tropical shrub in the family Schisandraceae.

This is how anise (Pimpinella anisum) looks like 

(it is very similar to cilantro, same group of plants):

anise, Pimpinella anisum
Public domain image, from Köhler (1887), Wikimedia

And here is star anise:

star anise, Illicium verum
Public domain image, from Köhler (1897), Wikimedia

Star anise is used for the commercial production of the anti-viral medicine Tamiflu and in Asian cooking, whereas anise is mostly used in European cooking and herbal medicine.

The New York Times: Restaurant NOMA in Copenhagen

In July 6, 2010, The New York Times published an article by Frank Bruni about the amazing and world-renowned restaurant NOMA in Copenhagen and the foraging of food products from wild plants by its chef, René Redzepi.  

The well-written article was accompanied by a slideshow named "In Copenhagen, Cooking without Rules", showing some of the nature-provided ingredients in chef Redzepi's food. Unfortunately the text accompanying some of the images were incorrect. The New York Times was notified about these errors, but has not yet corrected the information.

Screenshot from NY Times article, by BotanicalAccuracy.com.

Image text: "Axel berry shoots are among the various petals, leaves and shoots Mr. Redzepi integrates into his food."

The problem and its correction:  This appears to be whitebeam flower buds from a small tree named 'oxel' in Swedish, 'whitebeam' in English, and its scientific genus is Sorbus (in the rose family Rosaceae).  The flower buds on this photo are probably from either Sorbus aria (akselrøn in Danish, common Whitebeam in English) or Sorbus intermedia (seljerøn; Swedish whitebeam).  
     The rowan tree (Sorbus aucuparia, rönn in Swedish, almindelig røn in Danish) is closely related to these, but in my experience that never has white-hairy flower buds. I have found no record that this species has ever been called 'axel berry' or 'axel', in English, Danish, or Swedish for that matter.  
     I think the photographer misheard the Danish name 'akselrøn' or the Swedish name 'oxel' when he took notes and then never checked the typed up name with the source. The seeds in the fruits might contain cyanide, just like many other plants of this family, but the photo shows young flower buds.

Screenshot from NY Times article, by BotanicalAccuracy.com.

Image text: "Thuja cone"'

The problem:  This is not a Thuja (arborvitae) cone, it is a cone from a pine tree, most likely Scots Pine, Pinus sylvestris (Pinaceae), the pine species that is native to Denmark.  The photo shows an immature pine cone, before the seeds have formed inside it.  Pines are edible plants, even if they often have strong resin flavor.  Thuja is a member of the juniper family Cupressaceae, and it contains the chemical thujone, which you don't want to ingest too much of since it can be highly toxic.  The cones of the commonly cultivated arborvitae (Thuja occidentalis) look totally different, so there is no easy way to explain this inaccuracy in the information provided by The New York Times.

  (Both images are screenshots from the NY Times website used under fair use, photos © The New York Times.)

This post was updated with new information on 28 January 2014. Thanks MF for sending new information! 

"Rosa arctica" - the Kiehl's plant that doesn't exist

Rosa Arctica cream.
© Kiehl's, fair use

Instead of using the wrong name for a plant, you can invent a new scientific plant name to help you market a new product. This is the case for Kiehl's recently released products named ROSA ARCTICA, based on the 'resurrection flower', a rare plant named Haberlea rhodopensis in the African violet family (Gesneriaceae) and used as an anti-aging ingredient. This plant has nothing to do with roses, and the genus Rosa. There is no species previously named Rosa arctica, but Rosa is the rose genus, and arctica stands for being from the Arctic (which this plant is not from). And there is no ingredient derived from real roses in the product either.

 It appears that the naming of this product is a total marketing scam and misrepresentation, and an attempt to come up with a scientifically sounding product name that is also attractive to buyers.

I guess Haberlea rhodopensis didn't sound too great to the PR department, so they just invented a new name - which you can't really do in science. In marketing, sure, but I would consider this false marketing since Kiehl's are using an irrelevant and incorrect scientific name.   But it works, and Vanity Fair likes the name, since they wrote:

"[...] Kiehl’s scientists have taken this flower and made a
fabulous cream with it, aptly named Rosa Arctica."

What is so aptly with a name that doesn't represent the source plant? Imagine if it had been a name of a chemical name that had been changed into a new name similar to a harmless chemical and used for marketing. 

This case is also similar to the renaming of Patagonian Toothfish to Chilean Sea Bass to boost sales, except in this case they adopted the highly regulated scientific naming system for species for their marketing name - Kiehl's didn't just invent a new common name, which would have been much less disturbing.

Here is Kiehl's website ad for ROSA ARCTICA:

ROSA ARCTICA, skin cream by Kiehl's.  Image © Kiehl's, fair use

The flowers in the foreground in the ad are supposed to be Haberlea rhodopensis, I assume, but the flowers in the ad are not very similar to the actual flowers of the plant (see photo here from Dave's Garden website). Not much is known about this plant, also called Resurrection Flower, found in the mountains of Greece and Bulgaria.  It can survive for a long time, over two years, without much water, and then 'come to life' again when watered.

Extracts from the plant has been shown to help human skin (reference link), but at least some of this research was done by the company, Induchem, that is selling the extract, not by independent scientists.

On the official ingredient list on the product packaging, the extract from the plant (listed as 'Haberlea rhodopensis leaf extract', correctly according to INCI) is in or near the very end of the ingredient list, meaning that it is the ingredient with the smallest concentration in the final product. However, the inaccuracies continue, because on the Kiehl's website, the ingredient is listed as "Rosa Arctica (Haberlea rhodopensis)", which is totally inaccurate.  There is nothing called this name in nature, nor in INCI's official list of plant-derived ingredients.  And the reason is, of course, that Rosa Arctica does not exist, except as a marketing ploy for selling more of Kiehl's products.  It might work great on your skin, but there is no logical or ethical reason why this product should have a fake scientific name.