What’s the Difference Between Oregano and Marjoram? If you've grown both, you know they look quite similar and they are often confused for one another. But, when it comes to flavor and taste, it is easy to tell them apart.   Oregano tends to be earthy, pungent, and spicy. It can easily overpower the other flavors in a dish. To subdue the pungency, cooks recommend using the dried form of oregano.   On the other hand, marjoram is more mild. Use that alliteration to help you remember, Mild Marjoram. Marjoram’s flavor is more refined; it's floral and woodsy. Because marjoram is sweeter and milder, chefs recommend using fresh marjoram instead of dried marjoram for cooking.   Brevities #OTD It's the birthday of the naturalist, botanist, ornithologist, prizewinning horticulturist, painter, archaeologist, historian, author of six books and a proud daughter of the great state of Louisiana: Caroline Dormon.  Her friends called her "Carrie." Carrie was a tiny woman;  she was also a powerhouse; she formed her own opinions and ideas about the natural world and she always wore dresses; she thought pants were quite scandalous.  Carrie was born at her family's summer home called Briarwood. In the 1920's at Briarwood, Carrie built a writing cabin she called Three Pines because of the trio of tall pines around it. Carrie told her friends it was a place for daydreams. In the 1950's, a second cabin was built at Briarwood. Carrie liked to take the screens off the windows every spring so wrens could build nests inside.  At Briarwood, Carrie installed trails through the woods, planted hundreds of plants and she even installed a reflecting pool for "Grandpappy" - her favorite tree on the property. Grandpappy is a longleaf pine and he's still alive today. Grandpappy is estimated to be over 300 years old. There's a story about Grandpappy that Carrie used to share with visitors. Once a forester wanted to "core" Grandpappy to determine a more exact age for the tree.  Carrie stopped him and said, "It's none of your business how old Grandpappy is, or how old I am for that matter."     #OTD   On this day in 1920, John Macoun, one of Canada's leading botanists, passed away. He was 90 years old. Here's a little story he shared about Macoun's early life, growing up in Ireland: "We had a garden well fenced in, she encouraged us to spend our idle time in it... I seemed to prefer taking an old knife and going out to the fields and digging up flowers and bringing them in and making a flower garden of my own. I only remember primroses and the wild hyacinth.   Another characteristic was the power of seeing. I could find more strawberries and more birds' nests ... than any other boy."   After arriving in Canada, Macoun had started out as a farmer. In 1856, he became a school teacher; partly to nourish his nearly "obsessive" interest in botany, but also to find a more balanced life. Macoun wrote that before teaching, "I never had had more than one holiday in the year and that was Christmas Day. [My brother] Frederick and I might take a day's fishing in the summer, but an eight-mile walk and scrambling along the river was not very restful." Within five years, Macoun had begun regular correspondence with prominent botanists like Asa Gray and Sir William Hooker. In Macoun's autobiography, there are many touching passages about his love of botany. Here's a little glimpse into how he cultivated his own understanding of plants: "I would take a common species of roadside or garden plant of which I knew the name and then immediately endeavor to work out its correct name from the classification. The Mullein was the species that I took first. I found it more difficult than I had thought on account of its long and short stamens, but I soon came to understand the arrangement of the stamens and pistils so well that most plants could be classified by their form alone." Once, Macoun was approached by his future father-in-law, who was a bit skeptical of Macoun's pro