Sensitive Plant Mimosa Pudica

The Sensitive Plant is native to Central and South America, and gets it name because its leaflets fold in and droop when they are touched. This is caused by a drop of pressure in certain cells, and leads to a very cool effect. The leaves also react to heat and light which causes the plant to fold up every evening.

Mimosa pudica (from Latin: pudica "shy, bashful or shrinking"; also called sensitive plant, sleepy plant and the touch-me-not), is a creeping annual or perennial herb often grown for its curiosity value: the compound leaves fold inward and droop when touched or shaken, to protect them from predators, re-opening minutes later. The species is native to South America and Central America, but is now a pantropical weed. It grows mostly in shady areas, under trees or shrubs.

Description

The stem is erect in young plants, but becomes creeping or trailing with age. It can hang very low and become floppy. The stem is slender, branching, and sparsely to densely prickly, growing to a length of 1.5 m (5 ft). The leaves of the mimosa pudica are compound leaves.

The leaves are bipinnately compound, with one or two pinnae pairs, and 10–26 leaflets per pinna. The petioles are also prickly. Pedunculate (stalked) pale pink or purple flower heads arise from the leaf axils in mid summer with more and more flowers as the plant gets older. The globose to ovoid heads are 8–10 mm in diameter (excluding the stamens). On close examination, it is seen that the floret petals are red in their upper part and the filaments are pink to lavender. The fruit consists of clusters of 2–8 pods from 1–2 cm long each, these being prickly on the margins. The pods break into 2–5 segments and contain pale brown seeds some 2.5 mm long. The flowers are pollinated by the wind and insects.The seeds have hard seed coats which restrict germination.

Common names

The species is known by numerous common names including

·         sensitive plant

·         humble plant

·         shameful plant

·         sleeping grass

·         touch-me-not

·         chhuimui

·         ant-plant

Publisher: Unknown - 12:31 AM

Lavandula

Lavandula (common name Lavender) is a genus of 39 species of flowering plants in the mint family, Lamiaceae. It is native to the Old World and is found from Cape Verde and the Canary Islands, southern Europe across to northern and eastern Africa, the Mediterranean, southwest Asia to southeast India. Many members of the genus are cultivated extensively in temperate climates as ornamental plants for garden and landscape use, for use asculinary herbs, and also commercially for the extraction of essential oils. The most widely cultivated species, Lavandula angustifolia is often referred to as lavender, and there is a colour named for the shade of the flowers of this species.

Description

The genus includes annual or short-lived herbaceous perennial plants, and suffrutescent perennials, subshrubs or small shrubs.

Leaf shape is diverse across the genus. They are simple in some commonly cultivated species; in others they are pinnately toothed, or pinnate, sometimes multiple pinnate and dissected. In most species the leaves are covered in fine hairs or indumentum, which normally contain the essential oils.

Flowers are borne in whorls, held on spikes rising above the foliage, the spikes being branched in some species. Some species produce coloured bracts at the apices. The flowers may be blue, violet or lilac in the wild species, occasionally blackish purple or yellowish. The calyx is tubular. The corolla is also tubular, usually with five lobes (the upper lip often cleft, and the lower lip has two clefts).

Publisher: Unknown - 12:30 AM

Hydrangea

Hydrangea is a genus of 70-75 species of flowering plants native to southern and eastern Asia and the Americas. By far the greatest species diversity is in eastern Asia, notably China, Japan, and Korea.

Publisher: Unknown - 11:37 PM

Calla

Calla (Bog Arum, Marsh Calla, Wild Calla, and Water-arum is a genus of flowering plant in the family Araceae, containing the single speciesCalla palustris. It is native to cool temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere, in central, eastern and northern Europe (France and Norwayeastward), northern Asia and northern North America (Alaska, Canada, and northeastern contiguous United States).

It is a rhizomatous herbaceous perennial plant growing in bogs and ponds. The leaves are rounded to heart-shaped, 6–12 centimetres (2.4–4.7 in) long on a 10–20 centimetres (3.9–7.9 in) petiole, and 4–12 centimetres (1.6–4.7 in) broad. The greenish-yellow inflorescence is produced on a spadix about 4–6 centimetres (1.6–2.4 in) long, enclosed in a white spathe. The fruit is a cluster of red berries, each berry containing severalseeds.

The plant is very poisonous when fresh due to its high oxalic acid content, but the rhizome (like that ofCaladium, Colocasia, and Arum) is edible after drying, grinding, leaching and boiling.

The genus formerly also included a number of other species, which have now been transferred to the separate genus Zantedeschia. These plants, from tropical Africa are, however, still often termed "calla lilies", but should not be confused with C. palustris.

 

Publisher: Unknown - 11:24 PM

Lantana

Lantana is a genus of about 150 species of perennial flowering plants in the verbena family, Verbenaceae. They are native to tropical regions of theAmericas and Africa but exist as an introduced species in numerous areas, especially in the Australian-Pacific region. The genus includes bothherbaceous plants and shrubs growing to 0.5–2 m (1.6–6.6 ft) tall. Their common names are shrub verbenas or lantanas. The generic name originated in Late Latin, where it refers to the unrelated Viburnum lantana.

Lantana's aromatic flower clusters (called umbels) are a mix of red, orange, yellow, or blue and white florets. Other colors exist as new varieties are being selected. The flowers typically change color as they mature, resulting in inflorescences that are two- or three-colored.

Publisher: Unknown - 11:13 PM

Romanesco Broccoli

Romanesco Broccoli is an edible relative of the cauliflower. It was discovered in the 16th century in Italy, and has become a fixation of mathematical types. For some reason, the plant grows in a self similar shape that spirals logarithmically towards the center. The design is similar to a fractal which is a complicated design produced by simple mathematic rules. This plant fascinated the STS staff so much that we acquired some seeds of our own, and we will be growing a dozen of these plants shortly.

Romanesco, also known as Romanesque cauliflower or Romanesco broccoli, is an edible flower bud of the species Brassica oleracea. First documented in Italy, it is light green in color. Romanesco has a striking appearance because its form is a natural approximation of a fractal. When compared to a traditional cauliflower, as a vegetable its texture is far more crunchy, and its flavour is not as assertive, being delicate and nutty.

Romanesco was first documented in Italy (as broccolo romanesco). It is sometimes called broccoflower, but that name has also been applied to green cauliflower cultivars.

Description

Romanesco superficially resembles a cauliflower, but it is light green in colour, and its form is strikingly fractal in nature. The inflorescence (the bud) isself-similar in character, with the branched meristems making up a logarithmic spiral. In this sense the bud's form approximates a natural fractal; each bud is composed of a series of smaller buds, all arranged in yet another logarithmic spiral. This self-similar pattern continues at several smaller levels. The pattern is only an approximate fractal since the pattern eventually terminates when the feature size becomes sufficiently small. The number of spirals on the head of Romanesco broccoli is a Fibonacci number. In computer graphics, its pattern has been modeled as a recursive helical arrangement of cones.

As a vegetable Romanesco is rich in vitamin C, vitamin K, dietary fiber and carotenoids.

The causes of its differences in appearance from the normal cauliflower and broccoli have been modeled as an extension of the preinfloresence stage of bud growth, but the genetic basis of this is not known.

Publisher: Unknown - 11:07 PM

Venus Flytrap (Dionaea Muscipula)

The Venus Flytrap is the most well-known carnivorous plant, and is especially amazing to watch. There are small trigger hairs on the leaves which causes them to fold together when they are touched. The leaves close in less than a second, and the teeth-like spikes on the edge keep larger insects from escaping. The Venus Flytrap is native only to the nitrogen-poor bogs and savannas in North and South Carolina, US. A video of the Flytrap catching a fly can be found here, and a live Venus Flytrap can be purchased here if you are interested.

The Venus flytrap (also Venus's flytrap or Venus' flytrap), Dionaea muscipula, is a carnivorous plant native to subtropical wetlands on the East Coast of the United States. It catches its prey—chiefly insects and arachnids— with a trapping structure formed by the terminal portion of each of the plant's leaves and is triggered by tiny hairs on their inner surfaces. When an insect or spider crawling along the leaves contacts a hair, the trap closes if a different hair is contacted within twenty seconds of the first strike. The requirement of redundant triggering in this mechanism serves as a safeguard against a waste of energy in trapping objects with no nutritional value.

Description

The Venus flytrap is a small plant whose structure can be described as a rosette of four to seven leaves, which arise from a short subterranean stem that is actually a bulb-like object. Each stem reaches a maximum size of about three to ten centimeters, depending on the time of year; longer leaves with robust traps are usually formed after flowering. Flytraps that have more than 7 leaves are colonies formed by rosettes that have divided beneath the ground.

The leaf blade is divided into two regions: a flat, heart-shaped photosynthesis-capable petiole, and a pair of terminal lobes hinged at the midrib, forming the trap which is the true leaf. The upper surface of these lobes contains redanthocyanin pigments and its edges secrete mucilage. The lobes exhibit rapid plant movements, snapping shut when stimulated by prey. The trapping mechanism is tripped when prey contacts one of the three hair-like trichomes that are found on the upper surface of each of the lobes. The trapping mechanism is so specialized that it can distinguish between living prey and non-prey stimuli such as falling raindrops; two trigger hairs must be touched in succession within 20 seconds of each other or one hair touched twice in rapid succession, whereupon the lobes of the trap will snap shut in about one-tenth of a second. The edges of the lobes are fringed by stiff hair-like protrusions or cilia, which mesh together and prevent large prey from escaping. (These protrusions, and the trigger hairs, also known as sensitive hairs, are probably homologous with the tentacles found in this plant’s close relatives, the sundews.) Scientists have concluded that the Venus flytrap is closely related to Drosera (sundews), and that the snap trap evolved from a fly-paper trap similar to that of Drosera.

The holes in the meshwork allow small prey to escape, presumably because the benefit that would be obtained from them would be less than the cost of digesting them. If the prey is too small and escapes, the trap will reopen within 12 hours. If the prey moves around in the trap, it tightens and digestion begins more quickly.

Speed of closing can vary depending on the amount of humidity, light, size of prey, and general growing conditions. The speed with which traps close can be used as an indicator of a plant's general health. Venus flytraps are not as humidity-dependent as are some other carnivorous plants, such as Nepenthes, Cephalotus, most Heliamphora, and some Drosera.

The Venus flytrap exhibits variations in petiole shape and length and whether the leaf lies flat on the ground or extends up at an angle of about 40–60 degrees. The four major forms are: 'typica', the most common, with broad decumbent petioles; 'erecta', with leaves at a 45-degree angle; 'linearis', with narrow petioles and leaves at 45 degrees; and 'filiformis', with extremely narrow or linear petioles. Except for 'filiformis', all of these can be stages in leaf production of any plant depending on season (decumbent in summer versus short versus semi-erect in spring), length of photoperiod (long petioles in spring versus short in summer), and intensity of light (wide petioles in low light intensity versus narrow in brighter light).

When grown from seed, plants take around four to five years to reach maturity and will live for 20 to 30 years if cultivated in the right conditions.

Venus flytraps produce flowers in the spring

Publisher: Unknown - 10:57 PM