Posts tagged flowers
#flower #flowers #leaves #closeup #petals #red #purple #berries #fruit #green #garden #tree #nature #beach #field #beautiful #igers #botany #botanist #botanical #lincolnpark #chicago #picoftheday #photooftheday #instaflower #instagram (Taken with Instagram at Lincoln Park Zoo)
These are Black Pearl Peppers!
Why trees can’t grow taller than 100 metres
TYPICALLY, the taller the tree, the smaller its leaves. The mathematical explanation for this phenomenon, it turns out, also sets a limit on how tall trees can grow.
Kaare Jensen of Harvard University and Maciej Zwieniecki of the University of California, Davis, compared 1925 tree species, with leaves ranging from a few millimetres to over 1 metre long, and found that leaf size varied most in relatively short trees.
Jensen thinks the explanation lies in the plant’s circulatory system. Sugars produced in leaves diffuse through a network of tube-shaped cells called the phloem. Sugars accelerate as they move, so the bigger the leaves the faster they reach the rest of the plant. But the phloem in stems, branches and the trunk acts as a bottleneck. There comes a point when it becomes a waste of energy for leaves to grow any bigger. Tall trees hit this limit when their leaves are still small, because sugars have to move through so much trunk to get to the roots, creating a bigger bottleneck.
Jensen’s equations describing the relationship show that as trees get taller, unusually large or small leaves both cease to be viable (Physical Review Letters, doi.org/j6n). The range of leaf sizes narrows and at around 100 m tall, the upper limit matches the lower limit. Above that, it seems, trees can’t build a viable leaf. Which could explain why California’s tallest redwoods max out at 115.6 m.
Source: New Scientist.
Images: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4.
Praytell does anyone know the name of this plant?
That looks like a Staghorn Fern to me!
These Zinnias are still looking great!
Plumbago auriculata (by Poker Face (Pastilan pasaway!))
Akureyri Iceland
Creeping Lilyturf, Liriope spicata flowers
ASPARAGACEAE
17 Aug 2012, HK Island east.
Also known as that stuff you see everywhere.
Something about this bloom is so romantic. It’s called Bleeding Heart Vine or Clerodendrun thomsoniae ‘Variegata’ — but If I were naming it I think I’d call it Hearts on Fire. You’ll find it on the left-hand side as you enter the Conservatory, look for it on your way into Butterflies LIVE!
~Jonah Holland, PR & Marketing Coordinator.
Someone just brought in a picture of this to be identified!
source: petersoncara
national orchid garden in singapore
Cypripedium calceolus Walter
Photo originally published in here. #orchids #gardening #flowers
Unknown Dudleya Species I found in Baja (by pete@eastbaywilds.com)
I don’t really see myself as a photographer. I take lots of pictures, but I see my photos as more a matter of necessity than as any sort of artistic endeavor. Without photos, I would have no visual record of lots of cool plant stuff, and I’d have nothing to share with my readers at home. Therefore, I need to take them.
The only time this is not true is if there are insects, arachnids, or any other manner of invertebrates involved, as I definitely have a soft spot for bug photos. This is doubly true when the subject is a “beneficial” bug of some kind. A lazy bee took up residence in a marigold near the instant garden, and my natural response was to get as close as possible to it with my lens and start snapping photos before it flew off.
I’ve included just the mega closeup for now, which can be further enlarged for dramatic effect. I will probably post the regular photo later today.
SO BEAUTIFUL. Keep posting pictures!
Five Important Plants in Pharmaceuticals (in no particular order):
1. Papaver somniferum, the Opium Poppy: Gives us opiates such as morphine, thebaine, codeine, and heroin. All opiates are powerful analgesics and most derivatives of the poppy also have a strong sedative effect. The smooth muscle in the body is also relaxed by these substances.
2. Digitalis purpurea, Purple Foxglove: Gives us digoxin, one of the most important cardiac glycocides that exist. Causes the heart to beat more slowly and effectively at the correct dosages.
3. Filipendula ulmaria, Meadowsweet: Gives us salicin, and salicylic acid. While salicylic acid in the form of white willow bark powder had been used for centuries as an analgesic, the salacin of meadowsweet caused much less gastric upset, and was mixed with acetyl chloride to create aspirin - the antipyretic, analgesic, and anti-inflammatory that is still the most common pain relief medication in the majority of the world.
4. Atropa belladonna, Deadly Nightshade: Gives us atropine, a powerful smooth-muscle antispasmodic and pupil dilator. In fact, the name itself (belladonna) comes from the fact that women used to use the plant to increase their pupil size at several points in history, as was considered attractive. Atropine was also used as an anesthetic during surgery in the Middle Ages.
5. Physostigma venenosum, the Calabar Bean: A very toxic plant with a rich history of poisonings and trial-by-fire incidents, the calabar bean also provides us with physostigmine. Physostigmine is a powerful cholinergic agent, and can be used to counteract poisonings by anticholinergics (such as deadly nightshade, mandrake, henbane, and datura plants). Conversely, those plants provide the anticholinergic agent used to treat calabar bean poisoning.
Every single one of these plants is easily fatal in the incorrect dosages, but by discovering the ethnobotanic history of plants (traditional cures), and isolating the active ingredients in plants identified, effective and relatively safe medications can be produced. Over 85% of our modern medications have been derived from plant compounds to some degree, and ethnobotanists have played a huge role in that.
Image: Atropa belladonna, Deadly Nightshade - Flora von Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz. Dr. Otto Willhelm Thome, 1885.
and now my heart stumbles on things i don’t know by manyfires on Flickr.
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