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[WanderingKid]

So, I got it in my head to go muck with the growth rates of different crops in DF.  That belongs in the modders forum once I get that figured out, however, I'd wondered what, if anything, different people associated the DF crops with?

Caveat: I am not, and never will be, a botanist.

Here's what I've come up with so far (and I'll edit as we go if there's enough interest).  I've also listed their growth rates:

Underground Plants
Plump Helmets: Wood Blewit (Clitocybe nuba).  I can't find growth rates on these so I'm going to use the one for Morels, 100 days.
Sweet Pods: Soy Beans (~3-5 months)
Cave Wheat: Rye, approximately 100 days.
Pig Tail: Flax
Quarry Bush:  Sesame ( 180 day best growth crop coeffecient.  Year round.)
Dimple Cup:    Larkspur (Dying plant).  Blooms about midspring when planted early spring, so 1.5 months

Surface Plants
Blade Weed::   Ain't much out there that produces green as a dye, and I can't find growing data on Mullein.
Wild Strawberry:   Ever fruit Strawberries (2 months, spring/summer/fall planting)
Prickle Berry:: Blackberries.  Need to find fruiting rate and or harvest expectations.
Longland Grass:  Wheat (4 months, year round)
Rope Reed: Hemp (4 months, year round)
Whip Vine: Kudzu
Hide Root:  Bloodroot
Fisher Berries: BlackBerries ( 5 months, summer/fall planting)
Rat Weed: Dandelions
Muck Root: Black Salsify (Scorzonera hispanica).  Seems to fit the bill.  I can't find a growth rate.
Bloated Tuber: Potato
Kobold Bulb: Some form of nasty smelling garlic.  Bulb = Garlic to me.  Or maybe an onion, but the idea of gnomeblight = garlic booze makes me laugh.
Valley Herb: Verbena
Sliver Barb: Cockle Burr.  Short flowering season, last summer - fall.  Figure 4 month growth then.
Sun Berry: Ambrosia grapes.  1 year growth.


Red: Undecided
Yellow: Needs growth rates if possible
Green: Pretty much static at this point.

[Gentlefish]

Rock nut could be canola?

There's everbearing strawberries that can be picked from spring to fall.

[WanderingKid]

Rock nut could be canola?

Who in their right mind named the source for canola a Rapeseed?  No, seriously... wtf?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canola

There's everbearing strawberries that can be picked from spring to fall.

Oooh, I need to find something on them, but 2 months for those sound decent then.

[Oaktree]

For prickle berry I'd suggest something like a species of currant:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribes_roezlii

I'd associate the potato with the bloated tuber.

Maybe quarry bush with something akin to an underground sunflower crossed with an herb like basil.  Edible leaves, plus a nut/seed that can be consumed raw or pressed for oil.

[Kumis]

I've always thought of the prickle berry as a gooseberry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stachelbeeren.jpg

[Bumber]

Can't be bothered to research the growth rates, but:
Pig tails could be flax or cotton (if we're already using hemp for rope reed.)
Dimple cups are fungi so they're a blue version of orange peel fungus.
Bloated tuber is a potato.
Rat weed is western ragweed.
Prickle berries are blackberries (they are prickly, IIRC.) {Or gooseberry, as Kumis posted as I was writing this.}
Hide root (makes red dye) is redroot.
Muck root could be basically any edible root. Marshmallow?

[Kumis]

I do like how redroot has more of a name that you'd expect from a RPG [than from real life] than hideroot.

Prickle berries as some sort of bramble-berry (i.e. blackberry) does make a look of sense actually! I'm conflicted now.

[Dorsidwarf]

I think prickle berries are blackberries/raspberries too.

[malimbar04]

Rock nut could be canola?

Who in their right mind named the source for canola a Rapeseed?  No, seriously... wtf?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canola

If you were really curious, you should have clicked the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapeseed

It comes from the latin for Turnip rāpa or rāpum, and came to english in the 14th century. Rape as you think of it is a more modern word, and it just fucked over the industry only when people started to care about eating the oil in modern society. Meanwhile Canola has no meaning whatsoever. Just sounds pretty.

[WanderingKid]

Rock nut could be canola?

Who in their right mind named the source for canola a Rapeseed?  No, seriously... wtf?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canola

If you were really curious, you should have clicked the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapeseed

It comes from the latin for Turnip rāpa or rāpum, and came to english in the 14th century. Rape as you think of it is a more modern word, and it just fucked over the industry only when people started to care about eating the oil in modern society. Meanwhile Canola has no meaning whatsoever. Just sounds pretty.

Fair enough, and I did catch that (there's a blurb there as well), just... yeesh.  You'd think there'd have been a campaign to colloquialize it into something else.

[wierd]

plump helmets

It even contains simple sugars, making the possibility of an alcoholic beverage produced from it a theoretical possibility. (would probably need to be specially cultivated to produce the sugar in larger amounts though.)

For "muckroot", there are many kinds of marsh or swamp habitat tubers that can be eaten when cooked. here's a short list:

Cattail rhizome
Oyster plant
marshmallow

I agree with prickle berries being some form of bramble berry, raspberry or blackberry in particular.

fisher berry strikes me more as being like a cranberry. something aquatic.

[smjjames]

Prickle berries make me think of the prickly pear cactus, though the blackberry would be a better rl one.

Longland grass is definetly wheat or one of the grains.

Whip vine: You can make flour from it, so grapes can't be the RL plant association. I might think some kind of grass because of the grains, but it's a vine, so.....

Sun berry: Super grapes?

As for the plant dyes, there are TONS of plants that give dyes out there and some plants can produce more than one color. Hell, the native americans extracted lots of dyes from the native plants around them.

Silver Barb: Silver as a dye color isn't really given by RL plants, but there are plants that give a grey dye.

Blade Weed: While there aren't many that give green dye, there are plants out there.

Here are two links that could have possible RL associations for those two plants:

http://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/ethnobotany/dyes.shtml

http://pioneerthinking.com/crafts/natural-dyes

Also this: http://herb.umd.umich.edu/

Just shows how many plants there are out there that we have used for dyes.

[wierd]

bladeweed reminds me of gladiolus, superficially.  The pref string is, IIRC, "blade like leaves", which is why I think of it.

Gladiolus is named after the roman short sword, the gladius, because of the shape of its leaves.
Gladiolus is however, NOT a die plant. It is a perennial flowering plant. (my mom loves the silly things. those and irises.)

In terms of black dies, you don't have many choices in the real world. The most common are tannin based dies with a heavy iron and sulfur mordant. I'd therefor say that sliver barb (it IS "SLiver" not "siLver") is probably something like a nasty phytotoxic bramble, that is high in tannins. I imagine something like a nasty cockle-burr. The presence of tannins would also help explain the nastiness of the brewed alcohol one can derive from it as well.

[smjjames]

In terms of black dies, you don't have many choices in the real world. The most common are tannin based dies with a heavy iron and sulfur mordant. I'd therefor say that sliver barb (it IS "SLiver" not "siLver") is probably something like a nasty phytotoxic bramble, that is high in tannins. I imagine something like a nasty cockle-burr. The presence of tannins would also help explain the nastiness of the brewed alcohol one can derive from it as well.

Hm, I initially thought of stinging nettle, but that doesn't have tannins I don't think and it's used as a green dye. However, there IS one plant that I saw in my search that could match, which is canaigre dock or just canaigre.

http://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/ethnobotany/dyes.shtml The DYN has some facts on it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canaigre The roots have tannin apparently.

[wierd]

That list is very much incomplete.
(Dyestuffs are an interest of mine.)

One of the most important native yellows in my neck of NA is heartwood from osage orange. When boiled with alcohol, a powerful bright sunny yellow dye is released. More lightfast than several of the yellows on that list, and more intense too.

Indians from the great plains regions used it, along with yellow dock, and a few others as sources of yellow pigment.  The roots of the tree also yield the dye, but can be harder to harvest.