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.