A Beautiful Silky Alien

We call it mimosa. It is also known as silk tree. Those of use who prefer to breathe life into dead languages call it Albizia julibrissin.

Mimosa has become such a familiar part of the landscape in the American South that we simply don't give it much thought; unless to curse it as a weed.

A great weed it is, one of the more beautiful of our invasive aliens. One next to my house started as a volunteer three years ago. Now it is as high as my two-story house; fast-growing, able to thrive on neglect, tolerant of soils good or bad -- a survivor by all definitions. One hundred forty-seven year old seeds on herbarium sheets at the Natural History Museum (London) germinated following bomb damage in World War II.

It's one of our oldest alien introductions. In 1749, an Italian for whom the genus is named, Cavaliere Filippo Albizzi, took the tree from Constantinople to Italy. The species name julibrissin is derived from the name of a type of Persian silk weaving, honoring the silky flowers.

When French botanist Andre Michaux arrived in America from France in 1785, he brought seeds with him. By 1814, mature mimosa trees were well established in the gardens of John Bartram in Phildadelphia, America's first botanical garden. Thomas Jefferson planted it at Monticello.

Albizia, a genus in the pea family (Leguminosae or Fabaceae) is mostly found in East Asia. Our mimosa hails from a broad range extending from Japan westward to old Persia (roughly Iran and Iraq).

In China, both the bark He-huan-pi (pi means bark) and flowers He-huan-hua (hua means flowers) were adopted as herbal medicines at an early date. The bark appears in a Tang Dynasty work from the year 720. The flowers were first mentioned in a Song Dynasty work from the year 1116.

In China the tree is called he-huan which means "enliven the spirit." Both are used in modern Chinese herbal medicine, a common stock in all Chinese herb shops. The bark is included in prescriptions to "ease the mind" for its mild sedative effects. Flowers are used in prescriptions to treat anxiety, depression and insomnia. Seems like a good thing to have in Eureka Springs.

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