Showing posts with the label Plants

The Great Vine of Hampton Court Palace

Sep 6, 2021

The Great Vine of Hampton Court Palace, on the River Thames in London, is the largest and the oldest vine in the world, having being planted...

Gympie-Gympie: The Stinging Plant Which Can Inflict Pain For Months

Jun 24, 2021

Gympie-Gympie sounds adorable, but if you pay any attention to its scientific name Dendrocnide moroides , you would know its to be avoided. ...

King’s Holly: The 43,600 Year Old Plant

Apr 7, 2021

Lomatia tasmanica, commonly known as King's lomatia or King’s Holly, is an unusual plant. It bears flowers, yet produces neither fruit n...

Graft Chimera

Aug 4, 2020

On a small traffic island on Rodney Road, in Backwell, in the English county of North Somerset, stands a horticultural curiosity—a cherry tr...

The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary

May 6, 2020

When cotton first came to Europe from Central Asia during the Middle ages, people were fascinated by the fluffy, fibrous balls that resemb...

Glass Flowers And Sea Creatures: Leopold And Rudolf Blaschka’s Ultra Realistic Glass Models

Jan 7, 2020

A glass flower at the Harvard Museum of Natural History. It is nearly impossible to preserve a dead specimen in a pristine manner. Larg...

Sargasso Sea And Sargassum

Dec 23, 2019

The Sargasso Sea in the North Atlantic Ocean, near the Caribbean, is unlike any other sea in this planet. The boundaries of the sea are defi...

Vivipary or Why My Tomatoes Are Mutating?

Aug 17, 2019

Sometimes a seed will start developing and germinate while they are still inside their parent, the fruit. The seed first breaks through the ...

Why Victorian People Loved Posing Next to Aspidistra Plants

Apr 26, 2019

Potted plants have been a part of households for thousands of years. The ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans all kept houseplants in thei...

The Cactus That Crawls Across The Desert

Mar 12, 2019

The narrow peninsula of Baja California Sur, sticking into the central Pacific off Mexico’s west coast, is home to a unique species of cactu...

The Humongous Fungus

Jul 7, 2017

Beneath the soil in the Malheur National Forest in eastern Oregon, the United States, lurks a very large fungus that has been slowly weaving...

The Orange Rocks of Bay of Fires

Oct 1, 2016

The Bay of Fires, on the northeastern coast of Tasmania in Australia, is a large bay that extends for about 30 km from Binalong Bay in the s...

Quiver Tree Forest, Namibia

Sep 7, 2016

The Quiver Tree Forest is located about 14 km north-east of the town of Keetmanshoop, on the road to the small village of Koës, in southern ...

Welwitschia Mirablilis: An Extraordinary Plant

Jun 17, 2016

This tangled mess of tattered and withered leaves has been called one of the ugliest plants in the world. While it certainly isn’t pretty, i...

Butcher’s Broom: Can Fruits Grow on Leaves?

Mar 16, 2016

Butcher’s Broom, or Ruscus aculeatus , is a low-growing perennial shrub with tough, erect, stems and very rigid leaves that terminate in a s...

Pholisma Sonorae: A Strange Looking Flowering Plant

Feb 5, 2016

Pholisma sonorae, commonly known as sand food, is one of the most bizarre wildflowers of North America. Growing out of sand dunes, the flowe...

Warm Blooded Plants

Oct 20, 2015

Between late February and May, in woodlands and wetlands throughout eastern Canada and the northeast United States, you’ll find a low growin...

The Mysterious Phenomenon of Bamboo Flowering

Sep 30, 2015

Bamboos are the fastest-growing plants on Earth. A typical bamboo grows as much as 10 centimeter in a single day. Certain species grow up to...

Crested Saguaro Cactus

Aug 24, 2015

The giant saguaro cactus is a universal symbol of the American west. These plants are native to only a small region of southern Arizona, the...

Watermelon Snow

Jun 9, 2015

In the high alpine region, at altitudes of 10,000 to 12,000 feet, sometimes patches of pink or red appear on snow. The phenomenon is commonl...