The Catch-All Botany Thread

[KichigaiNeko]

Have you never burrowed your face into the heart of a rose?

Oh YES!
Such a wonderful scent...virtually orgasmic!! Not quite as good a sex...but it comes close!!

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Now TRY and tell me that this plant hasn't got SEX written all over it's flower and fruit!!

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[The Grand Nudger]

I will tell you no such thing. You're preaching to the choir. Hehe, the wife loves Jethro. She commands some powerful air on just about any woodwind herself.

[thesummerqueen]

Less sex, more science:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21...d-mud.html

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Botany photo of the day:

Morinda citrifolia is now fairly widely distributed around the world and goes by many names in different countries; it is often called noni, a Hawaiian term, and its English names include rotten cheesefruit, Indian mulberry, and canary wood. Though the species originated in southeast Asia and Australia, it is now naturalized in tropical regions of the Pacific, North America, and South America. Evidently, Morinda citrifolia (PDF) has been known to successfully establish after spreading to new areas, giving it the potential to become invasive. A unique trait the seeds have is the ability to stay viable for several months while in water--a useful skill when dispersing across oceans or rivers. However, the species is not currently considered a major threat.

Morinda citrifolia grows as a shrub or small tree, blooming in the summer and autumn. From a cluster of its flowers comes a single compound fruit or syncarp; the still-developing fruit in the photograph can be expected to turn yellow-white and grow to 5 to 10 cm in length. If you're looking for a possible natural remedy for ailments such as headaches, high blood pressure and muscle pains or if you just need some Vitamin C, the juice of the fruit can be drunk and is sold commercially. The species has also been investigated for prevention of cancer.

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I'm being annoying, I know, but there's some good stuff popping across my feeds today. Here's once for Kichi:



I found out about this one from the blog http://phytophactor.blogspot.com

My old friend Woody introduced me to this plant on our first trip to Australia 30 years ago for another botanical congress. “Stand next to that plant for a size comparison”, he said. Pointing to it, the Phactor said, “This one?” And the pointed finger was too close and a small hypodermic needle of a trichome (hair) slipped under the edge of my finger nail. The stinging sensation that resulted was something to behold because even though there was no visible injury at all, it felt like a hot ice pick had been shoved under my finger nail. The pain was severe and it just throbbed, and after subsiding 3-4 hours later, it would begin throbbing again every time my hand was in water. The rather innocent looking shrub that does this is Dendrocnide moroides, the stinging bush, one of the nastiest members of the nettle family. Another colleague tripped and fell into one, and the reaction and pain required a trip to hospital. Imagine how his showers felt after this! The fruit is a rather attractive red raspberry looking thing, but all those stinging hairs give you real pause about trying it. So visual ID of this plant is one of the first things you learn before doing field work in rainforests of Queensland. Slow learners will get a lesson they won’t forget.

[The Grand Nudger]

Amusingly knowing this gives you more ammunition with which to assault the superstitious. Noni juice comes from these little guys. Hilariously most of the juices and extracts you find in the "supplementals" aisle come from invasive or potentially invasive plants.

People are being sold diluted weed juice as a cure for cancer (and everything else).

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Actually had a guy who worked in the "r/d" dept of one of the leading nutricueticals suppliers here in the states bring me on as a consultant. He eventually offered me a job as production manager, I declined for personal reasons (I'm not a fucking snake oil salesman). He wanted to start a christian commune on-site as well. So he probably got off easy when I declined..lol.

(By christian commune he of course meant live-in volunteer labor. This was his response to my labor cost estimate.)

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My daughters have been getting an education in anthropocentric thinking all morning. There's a family of squirrels that were born early spring. Three of them survive (out of 8). Hawks and cats and whatnot. Those that are left use my garden as a safe forage site. They've carried more produce out than I have. We've been watching them from the sliding glass. You can't see the little bastards but the cornstalks and tomato vines are shaking violently. My daughters suggested genocide when they caught one carrying off a watermelon. That was just too much for them to bear.

Obvious marks of my seed.

[thesummerqueen]

Your kids are so cute.

[The Grand Nudger]

Hey, speaking of nettles, they made a decent tea.

[thesummerqueen]

fucking hurt when you're not expecting them though! That shit started growing in a portion of my mom's yard and here I am not paying a bit of attention, happily yanking out the over-grown weeds and WHAM! Blistered skin!

[The Grand Nudger]

"Giant Hogweed is a phototoxic plant. Its sap can cause phytophotodermatitis (severe skin inflammations) when the skin is exposed to sunlight or to UV-rays. Initially the skin colours red and starts itching. Then blisters form as it burns within 48 hours. They form black or purplish scars that can last several years. Hospitalisation may be necessary.[1] Presence of minute amounts of sap in the eyes can lead to temporary or even permanent blindness.[3] These reactions are caused by the presence of linear derivatives of furocoumarin in its leaves, roots, stems, flowers and seeds. These chemicals can get into the nucleus of the epithelial cells, forming a bond with the DNA, causing the cells to die. The brown colour is caused by the production of melanin by furocoumarins. In Germany, where this plant has become a real nuisance, there were about 16,000 victims in 2003"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Hogweed

Aerosol, distributed from UAV, at night. (better than a bronze sword)

[KichigaiNeko]

Weird thing is that I am immunes to Nettles but allergic to everything else go figure!!

IF you are talking about the natural world you are talking about Predator and prey, and sex...please stop fooling youself that this is not the case.

IF you are talking about science then you are talking about predator and prey...and SEX hock:

These are the fundementals of life on this rock (and the rest of the universe for that matter)

[thesummerqueen]

FROM BLOSSOMS

From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward
signs painted Peaches.

From laden boughs, from hands,
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into
the round jubilance of peach.

There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.

- Li-Young Lee

Can you guess what I've been eating? "Do I dare to eat a peach?"