The Catch-All Botany Thread

[thesummerqueen]

Bump!

Some serious nerd shit for Rhythm: http://aobblog.com/2011/11/the-mysteries...-proteins/

Some serious nerd shit for everyone: http://aobblog.com/2011/11/black-is-the-...%A6-green/

...if Jack O’Malley-James – PhD Student in Astrobiology at the University of St Andrews ... – is correct, extraterrestrial plants may appear black to us humans.

Awesomeness for anyone in the San Fran area (take pictures if you go, you bastards):

http://www.conservatoryofflowers.org/atc...wicked2011

Paralysis, strangulation, derangement – these are just a few of the misdeeds of the plant kingdom as chronicled by award-winning author Amy Stewart in her 2009 New York Times Bestseller, Wicked Plants: The Weed that Killed Lincoln’s Mother & Other Botanical Atrocities. And now, something wicked this way comes. It’s mayhem under glass, as the Conservatory of Flowers transforms its Special Exhibits Gallery into an eerie Victorian garden full of Mother Nature’s most appalling creations.

Daily strange fungus:

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

Although edibility for C. ruber has not been officially documented,[33] its foul smell would dissuade most individuals from consuming it. In general, stinkhorn mushrooms are considered edible when still in the egg stage, and are even considered delicacies in some parts of Europe and Asia, where they are pickled raw and sold in markets as "devil's eggs".[21] However, an 1854 report provides a cautionary tale to those considering consuming the mature fruit body. Dr. F. Peyre Porcher, of Charleston, South Carolina, described an account of poisoning caused by the mushroom:

"A young person having eaten a bit of it, after six hours suffered from a painful tension of the lower stomach, and violent convulsions. He lost the use of his speech, and fell into a state of stupor, which lasted for forty-eight hours. After taking an emetic he threw up a fragment of the mushroom, with two worms, and mucus, tinged with blood. Milk, oil, and emollient fomentations, were then employed with success."[34]

British mycologist Donald Dring, in his 1980 monograph on the Clathraceae family, wrote that C. ruber was not regarded highly in southern European folklore. He mentions a case of poisoning following its ingestion, reported by Barla in 1858, and notes that Ciro Pollini reported finding it growing on a human skull in a tomb in a deserted church.[20] According to John Ramsbottom, Gascons consider the mushroom a cause of cancer;[35] they will usually bury specimens they find.[6] In other parts of France it has been reputed to produce skin rashes or cause convulsions.[35]

And daily plant (related to a vine I'm currently studying in class):

Parthenocissus thomsonii

Parthenocissus comes from parthenos meaning "virgin" and kissos ("ivy"). It refers to the English common name of the eastern American Virginia creeper or Parthenocissus quinquefolia (Virginia was named for Queen Elizabeth I, the "Virgin Queen"). Parthenocissus is a genus of about 10 species of climbing plants that climb by means of leaf tendrils that either twine or have adhesive pads (Daniel: for more on the adhesive pads, see the previous entry on Parthenocissus tricuspidata 'Robusta').

Vines are actually a very interesting part of the plant world, and I have an article I might transcribe onto here discussing it, but the reason I think the Parthenocissus group is cool are the adhesive pads described above:



When you see them in real life they're tiny but they help keep entire loads of ivy clinging to a wall.