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Botanical Forteana / Fortean Plants (Non-Carnivorous)

An old but wonderful story that I haven't seen before:

2,000-Year-Old Seed Sprouts, Sapling Is Thriving

By John Roach,
National Geographic
PUBLISHED NOVEMBER 22, 2005


A sapling germinated earlier this year from a 2,000-year-old date palm seed is thriving, according to Israeli researchers who are cultivating the historic plant.

"It's 80 centimeters [3 feet] high with nine leaves, and it looks great," said Sarah Sallon, director of the Hadassah Medical Organization's Louis L. Borick Natural Medicine Research Center (NMRC) in Jerusalem.

Sallon's program is dedicated to the study of complementary and alternative medicines. The center is also interested in conserving the heritage of Middle Eastern plants that have been used for thousands of years.

Continued:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/051122-old-plant-seed-food/
 
As this article reminds me, I was given Datura medicinally as a child!

It was an active ingredient in Potter's Asthma Remedy. A spoonful of the brown powder was placed on a saucer and ignited with a spill to start a small, spitting volcano. The fumes were quite calming and pleasing.

It may just have been habit and expectation producing a placebo effect but the little green tins were called on several times a year. I never progressed to the cigarettes - advertised on the tin. Whether my feverish imagination was inflamed by this substance is hard to say . . . :oops:

...and a couple of years later, via another post about herbal asthma remedies which I'm now unable to locate...

Datura is definitely a bronchiodilator (sp?). I knew that my maternal grandmother smoked asthma fags but have had to quiz my mum for the details. As it turns out the brand was indeed Potter's (and she recognised the googled green packaging of the powder tins immediately).

Although she smoked the cigarettes at home it was a different story when on holiday as she used to take the powder instead - the reasoning being that the cigarettes produced much more 'unusually' scented smoke and they were worried that a seaside B&B landlady might mistake this for your marijuanas and chuck them out for being dope fiends (or worse still, get the police involved). Even my mum didn't really know what cannabis smelt like at the time, but they were keen to avoid holiday-ruining complications.

Her asthma must have been a real problem as she also had cylinders of oxygen/ephedrine at home; the mixture to be inhaled through a metallic face mask. This was also administered to the kids (my mum and aunt) when they had heavy colds and definitely made them feel much better (this being years before you could pay through the nose to get a shot of oxygen in a trendy bar or spa hotel!)
 
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A farmer on the west coast of Ireland thinks that brambles could be considered carnivorous plants -
I've lost count of the sheep I've cut out of brambles, can't remember any other creatures caught up in them but a dead sheep would spread nutrients about for a good area.

And Datura, I've got 7 of them,thought I'd lost my original 3 in the winter ordered 4 more, original 3 started sprouting when I got the new ones !. Fantastic plants.
 
And Datura, I've got 7 of them,thought I'd lost my original 3 in the winter ordered 4 more, original 3 started sprouting when I got the new ones !. Fantastic plants.

Do you make use of their psycho-active effects or do you just like their appearance?
 
I've lost count of the sheep I've cut out of brambles, can't remember any other creatures caught up in them but a dead sheep would spread nutrients about for a good area.

And Datura, I've got 7 of them,thought I'd lost my original 3 in the winter ordered 4 more, original 3 started sprouting when I got the new ones !. Fantastic plants.


Once had a ram hooked up in pig wire while shifting a few woolies in a bush fire - They're silly bloody things Bullseye. Dorpers aren't bad - they have a few brains about them but merino crosses - ye gods and little fishes.

Where are you Bullseye - NZ?
 
them but merino crosses - ye gods and little fishes.

Where are you Bullseye - NZ?
No, East Sussex, England.(Though my parents emigrated to NZ when I was about 5 years old,I absolutely loved it,lived down an old dirt track on the very outskirts of Auckland, my father could'nt get up to his old dodges and scams over there so we came back after a year,I really did'nt want to come back.) Lots of the woolly buggers around here on the South Downs ,soft high hills,got their own breed of sheep called the er, South Down,famous for dying if they get on their backs, and nearby on Romney Marsh another breed called the ,er, yeah you guessed it, Romney,which I believe was crossed with a Spanish breed to get the Marino,so that explains a lot about them!.
 
first flower just forming.[/QUOTE said:
Forgot to post a couple in flower, I prefer the simple single flowers,I have white,pink and yellow. Then there's the double pink which to me looks somewhat sinister......
20180909_183847.jpg
 
With reference to Datura sp. It's one of those plants that the smell of (cut foliage, flowers) just makes me want to heave. Others delight in it. Similar to Elder trees, which smell of wet dog. Plants are as wondrous as animals, but they just do it a lot more slowly...

Mimosa pudica is a favourite of mine, if you lightly brush the leaflets, they'll immediately close up and the leaf stem will droop. They'll re-open within the hour, when there's been no more touches detected and the plant 'knows' it will be safe.

 
Does anyone know what causes the patterns of Chioggia beets? (chemistry, diffusion, oscillation, etc.) I can't find it on the internet.

No, I don't. But I am prepared to eat lots if it'll help? :)
 
I remember reading somewhere (it may have been an old FT) accounts that the flowers of marigolds, the old pot marigold, Calendula officinalis not Tagetes sp; were seen to be bioluminescent. Apparently noticable at dusk and according to the witness not attributable to the bright colour of the flowers.
Also musk flowers, Mimulus sp were known for their scent in Victorian times but now none are scented. The Victorians grew many varieties of bedding plants that are now lost, particularly larger variants which lost out to dwarf varieties because of smaller gardens. Hybridisation may have been the cause but doesn't seem to have happened with other plants known for their scent but which have non scented varieties (Roses, carnations, etc.)
Somewhat off topic the plant known in England as Sweet William was allegedly named after the Duke of Cumberland, victor of Culloden and was known north of the border as Stinking Billy.
Accounts of the plant hunters, people who went out seeking new plants for gardens or hothouses may not be Fortean but are worth a read. Some were very eccentric characters - some still are.
 
Mignonette was said to have lost its scent back in teh 60s and 70s. I think it may have been bred back in?
 
They know when you're about.

A highly sought after plant used in traditional Chinese medicine has evolved camouflage to make itself harder for humans to spot and collect, reports Jonathan Lambert for Science News.

The plant, Fritillaria delavayi, grows on the rocky alpine slopes of China’s Hengduan Mountains, and for more than 2,000 years its dried bulbs have been used to treat heart and lung ailments. Historically, the plant was not hard to find—a bright sprig of green amid a sea of gray scree—but demand for the powder made from its bulbs has made it rarer and more expensive. A kilogram of the powder now costs $480 ($218 per pound), and requires harvesting more than 3,500 individual plants, which only begin to flower in their fifth season, according to Science News.

But just as many animals have evolved camouflage to better evade predators, human harvesting behaviors have spurred many Fritillaria plants to shift from loud greens to the muted grays and browns of the rocks they grow between, the researchers report in a study published this week in the journal Current Biology. The researchers also found that this effect is especially pronounced in areas where the plants are most heavily pursued by people looking to pluck them, reports Patrick Barkham for the Guardian.

“Like other camouflaged plants we have studied, we thought the evolution of camouflage of this fritillary had been driven by herbivores, but we didn’t find such animals,” says Yang Niu, a botanist at the Kunming Institute of Botany and co-author of the study, in a statement. “Then we realized humans could be the reason.” ...

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smar...ve-evolved-camouflage-evade-humans-180976394/
 
Work sharing plants.

High in the forest canopy, a mass of strange ferns grips a tree trunk, looking like a giant tangle of floppy, viridescent antlers. Below these fork-leaved fronds and closer into the core of the lush knot are brown, disk-shaped plants. These, too, are ferns of the very same species.

The ferns — and possibly similar plants — may form a type of complex, interdependent society previously considered limited to animals like ants and termites, researchers report online May 14 in Ecology.

Kevin Burns, a biologist at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, first became familiar with the ferns while conducting fieldwork on Lord Howe Island, an isolated island between Australia and New Zealand. He happened to take note of the local epiphytes — plants that grow upon other plants — and one species particularly caught his attention: the staghorn fern (Platycerium bifurcatum), also native to parts of mainland Australia and Indonesia.

“I realized, God, you know, they never occur alone,” says Burns, noting that some of the larger clusters of ferns were massive clumps made of hundreds of individuals.

It was soon clear to Burns that “each one of those individuals was doing a different thing.”

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/staghorn-fern-colonies-first-plants-share-work-ants
 
So, was listening to some guy on R5 yesterday...

Was talking...

Trees breathe apparently. Something happens phyisologically to them akin to what happens to other animals during sleep. Made me wonder if they therefore dreams.

They also have a heartbeat, it's a contraction and expansion action that occurs over 4 to 5 hour cycles...pumps water and nutirents up to the top braches and leaves.

Sleeping, breathing...


Made me think a lot.
 
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