Cascadia Floristic Region hosts 1 native pond lily, nuphar polysepala. Drive southern German roads, winding along farm fences with properties divided by the bright flowers of the red poppy. These fence rows are remnants of the 2 World Wars where the German wounded needed pain relief (poppy opium made into morphine). Drive along our scattered NW lowland mountain lakes and streams and see remnants of US Army plantings of Spatterdock. Nupharine was known to have opium-like effects (Goris and Crete 1919). Yes,
the US Government has been helping native plants to migrate since 1917! Wonder why we report plant history? When this writer was a boy (1950s) classmates with childhood leukemia faced a 90% chance of a quick death; today it is 5% thanks to 2 drugs discovered in Madagascar (Caltharanthus roseus genome mapped in 2018). Think of the suffering now being relieved by the pretty Periwinkle that you can find today in many plant stores. Native plant extinctions should not be tolerated (as we do today in the NW) because we know: 1) plants have chemicals/compounds that can assist humans and 2) we’ve only begun to understand what that assistance might be. We wonder, “Does the NW have a Periwinkle?” Might protecting our native plant species from extinction be wise to do, including these small seemingly beacon of lights that dot our lakes?
http://naeb.brit.org/uses/search/?string=Nuphar
https://www.centralcoastbiodiversity.org/yellow-pond-lily-bull-nuphar-polysepala.html
https://burkeherbarium.org/imagecollection/taxon.php?Taxon=Nuphar%20polysepala
https://news.mongabay.com/2016/05/many-plants-world-scientists-may-now-answer
https://lemur.duke.edu/milestone-research-on-madagascar-periwinkle-uncovers-pathway-to-cancer-fighting-drugs/
https://www.yahoo.com/news/first-orangutan-seen-treating-wound-150254658.html
https://www.jic.ac.uk/blog/vinblastine-and-vincristine-life-saving-drugs-from-a-periwinkle/
What color is the Pond Lily’s blossom?
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