If root beer plant doesn't make you smile

If the flower of the root beer plant doesn't make you smile, then you definitely do not have a well-developed sense of humor.

The fuzzy white stalk in this photo IS the flower of the root beer plant.  Sometimes they are upright like this one and sometimes they curve down into white candy canes. 

A native of Mexico, the leaves of Piper auritum are used in traditional cooking, chopped into salads, and used as meat wraps.  They are supposed to add a mild root beer flavor to food.  The raw leaves taste bitter to me and I couldn't detect anything like root beer.  However, when I crushed a leaf in my hands, the fragrance of a cold bottle of Dad's Rootbeer filled the air around me. 

In my garden, the root beer plants grows as a perennial shrubs in the shade garden.  It propagates itself through its root system.  Whenever I feel a need to know that God smiles, I visit my root beer plants.