CURIOUS PLANTS

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 March 1936, Page 12

CURIOUS PLANTS

FLOWER A YARD ACROSS

A flower over a yard across; no «tprn no leaves. The flower is the whole plant, except for a few brownish scales at the base-a P a ™ site the roots and trunks ot a vine. The buds are like tight cabbages, flesh-coloured' mottled P« £al & over a foot long and . f Jetthick. There is a foul smeJof taint ed meat, much beloved of flies. The flower weighs fifteen pounds and its cub holds a dozen pints. Such Rafflesia, a native of Java and_Sum< - tia, named after -Governor Ra £ tlcs Who found it in Sumatra in ISIS, it is the largest flower known The largest tree known is the-coni fer Sequoia, the Mammoth Tree of California. It attains an age of ovei a thousand years, a height of over three hundred feet, and a circumfeience of over ninety feet. smallest flowering plant is one of the Dai. y family, Chamoerosphoeion. This name is Greek for “ball-on-the-ground. It looks rather like a large pea lying on the earth. It grows wild in Western Australia (writes H. F. Wernham m John o’ London’s Weekly).

Boeder is British, and pretty common: a relation o£ Woodbine. The whole nlaht consists of reddish threads twining .about, the ; stems. of other plants, the-feather/ior example, beaiing compact'bunches of flowers at intervals. "It feeds ‘entirely on its fester-plant, by means of suckingroots growing into the tissues. In some West Indian forests long tutts of grey hair seem to be hanging from the trees. These are really flowering plants, of the Pine-Apple family. The Suwarrow is a cactus from the hot deserts of New Mexico. It grows over sixty feet high. The older ones have side-branches, curving vertically upwards. These plants give a strange aspect to the landscape, ot Which they form the principal feature; like a lot of gigantic candelabra. A kindred species growing in Honduras has magnificent crimson flowers

I over a foot across. The Rose of Jericho is one of the Cabbage family, from the Syrian and Algerian coasts. When its seed ripens, the whole plant becomes perfectly dry, curling up to look like a wicker ball. It gets loosened from the soil, and is blovjn great distances. A wonderful device for seed-dispersal. When the ball reaches a wet place, it unfolds into an ordinary green plant again.

A CRAVAT FROM BARK Monstera, a water-plant related to the familiar Arum-Lily, has holes of various size arranged irregularly in its large leaves. Ouvirandra is the Lattice-Leaf of Madagascar. The oblong leaf consists of a lattice-work of nerves intersecting at right angles. The inner bark of the Jamaican Lagetta forms a material just like delicate lace. Charles 11, was presented by the then Governor of the island with a cravat, frill, and ruffles made of this. To this day it is used' for the same purposes as ordinary lace. The Cow-Tree of South America is not remarkable in appearance; but if a knife be stuck into its trunk, a fluid pours out that is almost indistinguishable from cows’ milk, in both appearance and nutritious properties. The familiar monkey-nut, the peanut of the Americans, has a queer habit. After the flower withers the stalk of the long pod grows rapidly long, curving so that the pod is buried in the ground, where alone it can ripen. Hence it is often called “Ground-nut.”

The Calabash Tree of tropical America has egg-shaped fruit with woody shells so hard that they are made into pots, pans, kettles, and other cooking utensils. They are familiar to us as tobacco pipes, deliciously cool to smoke. Another woody fruit, also tropical American, bursts when ripe and’ dry with a sound like a gun-shot. It is called the “Monkeys’ Dinner Bell.”

The Double Coconut was found in the Seychelles when they were discovered in 1743. It grows on a magnificent Palm, with a perfectly upright stem as high as a hundred feet, and fan-shaped leaves twenty feet long and twelve feet wide. The nuts average forty pounds in weight, covered with a thick fibre, and float for miles on the sea. The shells are black, very hard and thick: Half-way down they are divided into two lobes, whence their name. They are made into various kinds of vessels, both useful and ornamental, and may often be seen in the shops of dealers in marine stores.

The familiar cucumber belongs to a large family of climbing plants, characterised chiefly by their tendrils, peculiar structures that are neither leaves nor stem-branches, and by their gourd-fruits, often of gigantic size, and weighing as much as two hundredweight. They live for the most part in hot countries, but a few inhabit temperate regions. One, the White Bryony, is a common British plant. These tendrils are wonderful things.i When young, they stick out in all different directions, more or less curled at the tip, seeming to feel for somthing, as indeed they are, as a support. Then they twine into a close spiral in midair, and, after growing straight for a short length, form another spiral in the opposite direction, as if in caprice. At last they find a support in the hedge over which they sprawl. This is the highest form of tendril in the vegetable kingdom. The Squirting Cucumber, from which the drug Elaterium is prepared, is a native of waste spaces in Southern Europe. The berry-like fruit bursts when ripe with explosive violence, and so the seeds are scattred far and wide.