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weird plants, strange, unusual, bizarre, mysterious, killerplants, killerplant, kp, plant, plants, cool plants, newsletter, newsletters, ezine, e-zine, email newsletter, email newsletters
Of all of the approximately five hundred thousand plant species on the face of the Earth, here is where you will find the weirdest of the weird! Some might even be lurking in your own garden and you simply did not realize just how weird they were. Enjoy
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The greatest service which can be rendered any country is to add a useful plant to its culture.
- Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826
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posted: September 6, 2007
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The gumbo-limbo (Bursera simaruba (L.) Sargent) is a New World tropical member of the frankincense family, the Burseraceae. The tree forms only three or four branches from the trunk which gives it an open, domed crown. It is a strikingly beautiful tree with shiny pinnate leaves and red exfoliating (peeling) bark. Better still, this is a huggable tree. Even on a hot day, the bark feels cool to the skin. [Click here to read more...]
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posted: December 21, 2006
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White crownbeard or frostweed (Verbesina virginica Linnaeus) is a tall perennial of open woodlands and disturbed places from Pennsylvania to Iowa and south to Texas and the tip of Florida. There are eighteen species of crownbeards in the U.S.; the genus is a member of the Asteraceae, the daisy family. [Click here to read more...]
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posted: August 11, 2005
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The mirliton or chayote (Sechium edule (Jacquin) Swartz) is a member of the Sicyinae, a subtribe of the Cucurbitaceae, the cucumber family. Members of this subtribe have spiny pollen and produce a single-seeded pendant fruit. The chayote is native to southern Mexico and Guatemala. Depending upon the authority, there are three to seven species of Sechium. [Click here to read more...]
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posted: April 21, 2005
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Garlic is a well-known aromatic plant that probably originated in Central Asia. Since taken into cultivation at least 7500 years ago, humans have selected hundreds of varieties based on personal preferences. Cultivated garlic is botanically classified into two major lineages or varieties—the soft-necked (Allium sativum var. sativum) and the hard-necked or rocambole (Allium sativum var. ophioscorodon). [Click here to read more...]
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posted: March 3, 2005
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Biogeographers study the dispersal of life-forms around Earth—how things got where they are, how they changed along the way. They include in their studies both the extant (living) and the extinct. Some plants like bracken (Pteridium aquilinum) and whisk fern (Psilotum nudum) are cosmopolitan (worldwide) and have changed very little over the eons. The theory is that these evolved long before the breakup of the supercontinent, Pangaea. Other plants are limited in distribution; these are considered to have evolved after the separation of the continents. [Click here to read more...]
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posted: January 27, 2005
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The chía (Salvia columbariae Bentham) is a sage native to the southwestern U.S. and northwestern Mexico. This winter blooming annual is adapted to the arid climate by living 'around' the driest time of the year. The seed germinates within days of a heavy rain growing through the cool wet winter. It has blue or white flowers in late winter and early spring and sets its small seeds by the time the desert dries out for the long hot summer. Generations of chía survive because the plants evade the extreme heat and drought. [Click here to read more...]
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posted: November 1, 2004
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The shikimi or Japanese star anise (Illicium anisatum Linnaeus = I. religiosum Siebold & Zuccarini) was introduced to Japan by Buddhist monks. These small evergreen trees, native to China, were planted in groves about the temples. Shikimi is one of forty-two species of Illicium. The anise trees have an odd disjunct range—southern Asia, northeastern Mexico, and southeastern US. [Click here to read more...]
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posted: September 23, 2004
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Some of the oldest specimens of the common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris Linnaeus) come from the Guitarrero Cave in Peru. Hunter-gatherers had collected and set these seeds aside 11,000 years ago. Beans especially boiled then fried (frijoles) remain an important food throughout the Andes. Through the centuries, beans were domesticated to numerous varieties from hard beans eaten at maturity—black, kidney, and pinto—to pod beans like green, string, and wax. [Click here to read more...]
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posted: July 22, 2004
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The white santal (Santalum album Linnaeus) has been the source of highly prized wood and fragrant oil since at least the fifth century BCE. Known in the ancient Sanskrit as chandana, the wood and its valuable oil traveled from India along the ancient Silk Roads to Persia "sandal", to Greece "santalon", and to Rome "santalum". Perhaps best known in stick incense form, sandalwood ground into a paste is rolled around bamboo skewers. [Click here to read more...]
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posted: May 13, 2004
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The taguas or ivory palms belong to the Phytelephantoideae, one of six subfamilies of the Arecaceae (Palmae). There are three genera, Aphandra with one species, Ammandra with two species, and Phytelephas with several species (taxonomic authorities do not agree on the number). Taguas are native to southern Panama, northwestern South America, and the western Amazon. These palms are most frequently found growing on moist alluvial soils in stands called taguales [tah gwa lays]. [Click here to read more...]
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posted: April 8, 2004
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The wild red or animated oat (Avena sterilis Linnaeus) is the probable ancestor of the modern cultivated red oat (A. byzantina C. Koch). The wild red, like modern cultivated oats, is a hexaploid with 42 chromosomes. Sometime in its history, the plant tripled its normal diploid complement of fourteen chromosomes. [Click here to read more...]
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posted: March 11, 2004
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The witch hazels refer to the five or six species in the genus, Hamamelis Linnaeus. These large shrub/small trees are native to temperate eastern North America and eastern Asia. The 'witch' probably derived from the English, wych, meaning bend, a reference to the flexible branches. It also differentiated the trees from the hazels or filberts in the genus, Corylus. The 'witch' stuck to the name as the branches were used as divining or 'water-witching' wands. [Click here to read more...]
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posted: March 4, 2004
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The miracle or miraculous fruit (Synsepalum dulcificum Daniell ex S. Bell) is a large evergreen shrub in the Sapotaceae, the sapodilla family. The shrub is native to tropical West Africa where it is variously called taami, ledidi, and asaa. The leaves are leathery and four to six inches long with eight pairs of lateral or side veins. The white flowers are small and borne in clusters in the axils (angle between the stem and the leaf) of the leaves. Oval, fleshy, tasteless, single-seeded, red berries follow flowering. The berries contain a unique glycoprotein, miraculin. [Click here to read more...]
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posted: February 19, 2004
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Hornworts are members of the Anthocerophyta, plants that together with liverworts and mosses are classified as bryophytes. Hornworts are easy to miss; the leafy haploid gametophytes are only a couple of centimeters across, the spiky diploid sporophytes are only a centimeter or two tall. The sporophyte depends upon its parent, the gametophyte, for life. [Click here to read more...]
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posted: January 29, 2004
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The Namib Desert lies on the west coast of Africa against the cold waters of the South Atlantic. It seldom rains in the Namib; the plants make do with fog that rolls in from the sea or tap into the river systems that flow under the sands. The !nara* (Acanthosicyos horridus Welwitsch ex J.D. Hooker) is a melon; the genus designation is built of the Greek akanthos, meaning a thorny plant and sikyos, a gourd or melon. This cucurbit is supremely adapted to life in the Namib. [Click here to read more...]
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posted: January 22, 2004
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One truly wonders whether it was bravado or starvation that possessed the first person to eat a cardoon (Cynara cardunculus Linnaeus) and its probable cultigen, the artichoke (Cynara scolymus Linnaeus). These perennial plants are native to northern Africa and southern Europe and are members of the tribe, Carduus, the thistle group of the Asteraceae. [Click here to read more...]
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posted: January 8, 2004
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The mango (Mangifera indica Linnaeus) is a member of the Anacardiaceae, a family known for some notoriously toxic plants like poison ivy. The juicy mango is considered the "peach of the tropics". Depending upon the variety, and there are probably a thousand varieties, the rich fruit may be round, oval, oblong, or kidney-shaped and, when ripe, vary in color from deep green to yellow, to yellow with red 'shoulders' to all red. [Click here to read more...]
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posted: January 1, 2004
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The cork oak (Quercus suber Linnaeus) is a citizen of the maquis [mah key'], the scrub biome of the Mediterranean basin. The climate has hot, dry summers, cool, moist winters, and strong sunlight. Prior to the intervention of humans, wildfires maintained the maquis community. Cork oaks are broadleaved evergreens adapted to surviving the extreme summers and once-frequent fires. [Click here to read more...]
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