The Illustrated Plant Nut: Farkleberry on the 36th Parallel

There we were on the 36th parallel in the Sarah P. Duke Gardens, in Durham, North Carolina, and I couldn't help but laugh at this plant sign, identifying the "FARKLEBERRY".

For many of us baby boomers, the word "Farkle" conjures up some very funny television.

During our teen era 1968-1973, we were well aware of the battles between television censors and television writers. The Laugh-In show was full of words that sounded bad but were not: "Look that up in your Funk and Wagnalls", "Want a Walnetto?", and "Ring my Chimes!".

The sketches with the Farkel Family contained the introduction of all the F-named family members (Fanny, Frank, Fritz, Flicker) and and funny rhyming names (Mark, Sparkle, Simon and Garr) and their red-haired freckled neighbor Fred Berfel.

True, the family name is spelled Farkel and not farkle, but is there a connection?

Meet the Farkel Family here on youtube with Wally Cox (1970?) and with Jonathan Winters (1970?). Once you've seen this illustrious family, can you stand in front of a Farkleberry sign without laughing?

Here's the real farkleberry:

Picture from Vanderbilt University

Despite its funny name, the farkleberry is a real plant. The farkleberry is a Vaccinium, relative of the blueberry, huckleberry, lingonberry, cranberry, etc. It is native to the southeastern US and it doesn't appear to be that tasty, except to birds. Another name used is sparkleberry.

"This is the

36th Parallel of

Latitude

36° 00 00 N

3990 kilometers

2480 miles

North of the

Equator"

Here's the 36th parallel monument that is next to the farkleberry:

The 36th parallel starts in Lucia, California and ends on East Coast in North Carolina. You can find where it crosses different states and countries here in wikipedia.

Farkleberry at Duke Gardens.
there are a couple of immature berries
in the center of the picture.

References where other people don't take farkleberries seriously:

The Governor of Arkansas was called Governor Farkleberry possibly after a photo op gone bad or after he said his family had to eat farkleberries, they were so poor.
The Pittsburg fundraising campaign slogan: "Start your heart, eat a farkleberry tart" (farkleberry tart from About.com)

Serious references where people do not make fun of the name, farkleberry:

Who named it the farkleberry and did they think it sounded funny when they named it? From a long look through google books, I did not come up with the answer, but found that it was the farkleberry at least as far back as 1824.

The North Carolina Native Plant Society, Vaccinium arboreum
The farkleberry (Vaccinium arboreum) (wikipedia)
Foraging Texas Merriwether's Guide to Edible Wild Plants of Texas and the Southwest.
A Sketch of the Botany of South-Carolina and Georgia, Stephen Elliott 1824. The following are snippets from this book, if you are curious.

Interesting to see what books Stephen Elliott uses for his reference.
Perhaps one of those references will tell where farkleberry comes from.

Here's Vaccinium #274 under "Mongyna"

Here's the section for Vaccinium arboreum, farkleberry.
The flavor is "not unpleasant" and used as a remedy
for chronic dysentery and diarrhea.
There is no indication where the name comes from.

A final digression only for the botanically obsessed:

"Decandria monogynia" - what's this mean? I've taken lots of botany classes and hadn't heard of this terminology. This book published in 1824 is after Linnaeus proposed his taxonomy by many years. The Wikipedia article on Linnean taxonomy lays out the classes. "Decandria" is a flower with 10 stamens. "Monogyna" refers to a plant with one pistil. I will have to look into the history of this at a later date. Here is a 1735 English translation of Systema Naturae.

Here's a somewhat later 1802 book Elements of Botany: Or, An Introduction to the Sexual System of Linnaeus; to which is Annexed an English Botanical Dictionary. Illustrated by Copper-plates