Now You Tell Me...

Here is our potted jalapeño plant. I'm really looking forward to the taste and heat it will add to our late summer dishes.

Notice anything unusual about it?

I didn't either for a long time but there is.

There are two plants in the pot. Even when you look at the surface of the soil, it looks like it's all coming from a common root but, as you can see above, there are two different leaves. It helps that one of the plants foliage is turning purple.

My wife tells me this is a volunteer from an epazote plant (Dysphania ambrosioides) that she planted last year. Some of the seeds must have blown over into this pot.

Epazote, my Mexican wife told me after 26 years of marriage, is used in Mexico to add with beans as a carminative...that is, mixed with the beans, it cuts down on the intestinal gas much like a natural version of Beano.

After all these years, now she tells me...

Another difference is the flowers. Here are the flowers from the jalapeño.

Here are the flowers from the epazote.

It'll be nice to mix this with the jalapeño, the chiles, and the beans we're sure to cook later on.

Darryl
Copyright 2013 - Darryl Musick
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