IT'S ALL ABOUT PLANT!

Plants are living organisms belonging to the kingdom Plantae. Precise definitions of the kingdom vary, but as the term is used here, plants include familiar organisms such as flowering plants, conifers, ferns, mosses, and green algae, but do not include seaweeds like kelp, nor fungi and bacteria. The group is also called green plants or Viridiplantae in Latin. -

HOUSEPLANTS

A houseplant is a plant that is grown indoors in places such as residences and offices. Houseplants are commonly grown for decorative purposes, positive psychological effects, or health reasons such as indoor air purification. Plants used in this fashion are most commonly, though not always, tropical or semi-tropical. -

FLOWERING AND FOLIAGE SHRUBS

A shrub or bush is distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and shorter height, usually under 5–6 m (15–20 ft) tall. A large number of plants may become either shrubs or trees, depending on the growing conditions they experience. Small, low shrubs such as lavender, periwinkle and thyme are often termed subshrubs. -

TREES AND HERBS

In general use, herbs are any plants "with leaves, seeds, or flowers used for flavoring, food, medicine, or perfume" or parts of "such a plant as used in cooking". In botanical use, the term "herb" is employed differently, for any non-woody flowering plant, regardless of its flavor, scent or other properties, and thus includes only grass-like plants and forbs -

AQUATIC PLANTS, VINES, CACTUS, etc.

A cactus is a member of the plant family Cactaceae, within the order Caryophyllales. Cacti have a variety of uses: some species are used as ornamental plants, others are grown for fodder or forage, others for food (particularly their fruit). Most cacti live in habitats which are subject to at least some degree of drought. -

Saturday, September 15, 2012

15 Rare, Exotic & Amazing Plant Species

rare-and-amazing-plants-main
Plants that eat rats, slimy alien-looking fungi, leaves that dance all by themselves and flowers that smell like the rotting corpse of a horse: all of these wonders of nature are among the most rare, exotic and unusual plant species in the world. Some are astonishingly beautiful despite the foul odors they emit, while others look like they emerged from the mind of a horror writer, but they’re all fascinating examples of the diversity of Earth’s flora.

1) Rat-Eating Pitcher Plant (Nepenthes attenboroughii)

rat-eating-pitcher-plant

Even the most benign of pitcher plants is strange and amazing, but the species discovered in August 2009 may just be the weirdest carnivorous plant yet. It’s believed to be the largest meat-eating plant in the world, and is capable of digesting rats. Scientists found it on Mount Victoria in the Philippines and named it after famed nature broadcaster Sir David Attenborough.

2) The String of Hearts (Ceropegia woodii)









































This houseplant looks like an artist’s rendering of extraterrestrial flora come to life: a bizarre flower with fused petals and what looks like a hairy lollipop coming out of it. The flower forms a tube lined with small hairs that point downward, so that insects attracted to the plant’s foul smell get trapped inside. The flower doesn’t consume the flies, though – it holds onto them until its hairs wither, and when the insects escape, they’re covered in the flower’s pollen.

3) Stinkhorn Mushroom (Mutinus Caninus)

stinkworm-mushroom

Could these be the ugliest fungi ever? Stinkhorn mushrooms pop up out of the ground in all their creepy, stinking glory, distributing their spores through the malodorous, muddy-looking slime found at their tips. This particular variety, mutinus caninus, is so named because it resembles a certain unmentionable body part of dogs.

4) Dancing Plant (Desmodium Gyrans)

dancing-plant


Have you ever watched a plant move all by itself? The “dancing plant”, also known as the
telegraph plant, actually moves its leaves in jerky motions when exposed to direct sunlight, warmth or vibration – hence their reaction to music. Its leaflets, each of which is equipped with a hinge at the base that allows it to move, rotate along an elliptical path. This plant is famous for being a favorite of Charles Darwin, and is featured in depth in his book The Power of Movement in Plants.

5) Pelican Flower (Aristolochia grandiflora)

pelican-flower

These flowers are almost beautiful in their strangeness, with big inflated chambers instead of petals and intricate, colorful patterns of veins. But don’t get too close, or you won’t be able to get the dead mouse smell out of your nose for hours. No, this plant isn’t a carnivorous rat-eater like the Nepenthes attenboroughii – it just uses a decaying rodent smell to attract pollinators.

6) Sensitive Plant (Mimosa pudica)

sensitive-plant-mimosa


You might say this pretty little plant with its starry pink blossoms and fern-like leaves is shy. Reach out and touch it, or even just blow on it, and its leaves will close up as if startled or protecting themselves. When it’s disturbed, the stems release chemicals that force water out of the cells, which makes the leaves appear collapsed. It’s not known exactly why the plant has evolved to possess this trait, but scientists think it may be to scare off predators.

7) Hydnora africana

hydnora-africana



This plant isn’t just unattractive, rising out of the ground like the head of a blind sea snake and opening its jaws to the world. It smells like feces, too. A parasitic plant that attaches itself to the roots of other species, Hydnora africana emits its pungent odor to attract carrion beetles and dung beetles, its natural pollinators.

8) Cycad (Encephalartos woodii)

encephalartos-woodii

It’s one of the rarest plants in the world: a tall palm with dark, glossy leaves, once found only on a single south-facing slope on the edge of the Ngoye forest in Southern Africa. It’s extinct in the wild and produces no seeds – the only plants ever found were males. People have begun crossing it with its closest relative to produce ‘pups’ that, after 3 generations, are almost pure E. woodii again.

9) Dead Horse Arum Lily (Helicodiceros muscivorus)

dead-horse-arum-lily

When a plant’s name has the words ‘dead horse’ in it, you know it’s bad news. H. muscivorus is a giant flower bearing the distinct scent of rotting meat, meant to draw in female blowflies which it captures inside its swollen cavity and holds there through its first night after flowering. It releases the flies, now covered in pollen, the following day to move on to neighboring H. muscivorus plants.

10) Flypaper Plant (Pinguicula gigantea)

flypaper-plant
Call them opportunists, but butterworts – also known as flypaper plants – will grab hold of anything that lands on their leaves and immediately start digesting it. The upper surface of the plant is covered in sticky digestive enzymes to trap victims like mosquitoes and gnats, but it can also absorb nutrients from pollen.

11) Welwitschia mirabilis

welwitschia

If this desert plant looks like it came straight out of the age of dinosaurs, that’s because it did. Two succulent leaves continuously grow from the short, thick trunk, splitting over time into strap-shaped sections. The leaves can reach twelve feet in length. These odd plants are considered living fossils and can live up to 2,000 years.

12) Corpse Flower (Amorphophallus titanum)


































It’s the biggest flower in the world, and also the smelliest. The corpse flower, indigenous to the tropical forests of Sumatra, emits a pungent odor reminiscent of rotting flesh. Its central, phallus-shaped spadix warms to human body temperature during bloom to attract pollinators. The leaf structure of the flower can reach up to 20 feet tall and 16 feet wide.

13) Waterwheel Plant (Aldrovanda Vesiculosa)

waterwheel-plant

Closely related to the Venus flytrap, the aquatic, free-floating waterwheel plant has similar snap-traps on the end of each ‘spoke’ emerging from the main stem. Each trap is covered in ‘trigger hairs’ that cause the trap to close when stimulated.

14) Wollemi Pine (Wollemia nobilis)



Wollemi pines have been around for at least 200 million years, but weren’t known to science until 2004, when a field officer at Wollemi National Park in Australia noticed what he thought was an ‘unusual specimen’. Fewer than 100 trees are known to be growing in the wild, but a propo

15) Snowdonia Hawkweed

snowdonia-hawkweed

















It may not be smelly, oversized or weird looking, but Snowdonia Hawkweed may just be the rarest plant in the world. Botanists thought it had gone extinct decades ago, but in 2002 it was rediscovered growing on a mountain slope in Wales. “We were literally capering about for joy on the mountain ledges like lunatics when we found it,” said Tim Rich, head of vascular plants at the National Museums and Galleries of Wales.

All credits goes to webecoist.com for paragraphs in this post.

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WWF Message (Forests for Life)

WWF Message (Forests for Life)
Plants are disappearing. Every year over 11.5 million hectares of tropical forest is cut and then burned to clear land for farming and cattle grazing. This kind of change is called deforestation. With fewer trees and other plants to convert carbon dioxide to oxygen, too much carbon dioxide builds up. Deforestation is one cause of global warming. The conservation of plants and forests is now something more people and governments are beginning to discuss very seriously as one way to protect the environment.

WWF Message (Before It's Too Late)

WWF Message (Before It's Too Late)
Plants are one of two major Kingdoms of life forms. There are about 300,000 plant species on Earth. Plants are the only life forms that can produce their own food using energy from sunlight. Plants produce almost all of the oxygen in the air that humans and other animals breathe. Plants are also an important source of food, building materials, and other resources that make life possible for Earth’s animals.

International Aquatic Plant Layout Contest - 2012 Grand Prize

International Aquatic Plant Layout Contest - 2012 Grand Prize