moimoi's Serene World of Plants

It did actually say "spiky pants" before I edited it. Where is my head at?

EDIT: I would welcome a thread on pants, if anyone wishes to start one

The corpse flower, titan arum.

Yreka Phlox.

kudzu!

Neato! People are actually making requests!

ganews - The titan arum will be coming up next, along with other plants that look like genitalia. 

Kudzu is an everyday edible, Jewelweed is medicinal, and Yreka Phlox is/was endangered. The rest I'll take a stab at on 4/24, including blue flowers, which are a personal favorite.

It's a temple or needle juniper (Juniperus rigida).

Dang.  Imagine how impressive that would have been if I was right, though.

Does it look like a campanula or balloon flower, only instead of just the pistil, there's four small, round petals coming out of the center?

This is representative of the shape of the blooms, but they don't have such tall clusters and they have another flower that looks just like it that grows out of the center of the main flower. 
Also the foliage is different but this is as close as I can find to show the shape. 

link

Hey, ya mook, this is a plant thread! You can start a fungus thread off somewhere else if you wanna talk about fungi! Catfeesh?

The gum arabic tree, Acacia nilotica (aka Vachellia nilotica)

Erotic Plants

With frigid temperatures and bothersome snow scuttling my V-day weekend plans , I turn my attention to nature in all its vibrancy. Plants have always been useful stand-ins for awkward discussions of sex, with talk of 'birds and bees' getting all up in flowers' lady bits (the pistil), rubbing on their man bits (stamens), and sucking on the sweet nectar within. As any adolescent biology student will tell you, kingdom Plantae is suggestive. In honor of Valentine's Day, I therefore submit:


Exhibit A: Psychotria elata (Hooker Lips)

Origin: the rainforests of South America

Features: Similar in structure to poinsettias, the red lip-shaped bracts attract hummingbirds and butterflies. Typically within a day, the bracts will open to reveal small white flowers.

Fun facts:

• Comes in other ‘shades’ from pale pink to nearly black
  
  
• This plant is endangered due to deforestation (okay, that wasn’t so fun)
  
  

Exhibit B: Iris germanica (Bearded Iris)

Origin: most likely native to southern Europe and the Mediterranean area, this garden favorite is grown in every temperate region of the world (USDA plant hardiness zones 4 through 10)

Features: The iris flower’s three upturned petals are called standards, while the three downward-facing petals, or sepals, are called falls. The groups of fuzzy hairs growing from the upper bases of the falls are called beards, leading to the common name. The beards, which can be either the same color as the petal or a contrasting color, may help attract bees to perform pollination.

Fun Facts:

• Birth flower of those born in February (like moi)
  
  
• The fleur-de-lis symbol that represented French monarchy since the 12th century is a stylized iris. It currently adorns the flag of Quebec, the flag of St. Louis, MO, and the logo of the New Orleans Saints.
  
  
• Perhaps out of modesty, a truly red bearded iris remains an unattained goal despite frequent hybridizing and selection. There are species and selections based on the beardless rhizomatous Copper iris (I. fulva) that have a relatively pure red color.
  
  
• Per the Wikipedia entry on Georgia O'Keeffe: "Her earlier work had been mostly abstract, but works such as Black Iris III (1926) evoke a veiled representation of female genitalia while also accurately depicting the center of an iris. O'Keeffe consistently denied the validity of Freudian interpretations of her art…[riiight…]
  

Exhibit C: Genus Amorphophallus

Origin: From Ancient Greek amorphos, "without form, misshapen" and phallos, "penis", this is a large genus of some 200 tropical and subtropical tuberous herbaceous plants native to Asia, Africa, Australia and various oceanic islands.

Features: From the top of a tuber grows a single leaf on a trunk-like stem, which can be several meters across in larger species, followed on maturity, by a single flower. The flower consists of an elongated or ovoid sheath, which usually envelops the spadix, a flower spike with a fleshy axis. The spathe can have different colors, but mostly brownish-purple or whitish-green. On the inside, they contain ridges or warts, functioning as insect traps.

Fun Facts:

• The species Amorphophallus titanum, 'corpse flower' or titan arum, is the world's largest unbranched inflorescence, with a height of up to 2.5 m and a width of 1.5 m. After an over 4 feet tall flower opened at Chicago Botanical Gardens on September 29, 2015, thousands lined up to see and smell it. The floriculturalist described it smelling "like roadkill, a barnyard, a dirty diaper, very strong, a little bit of mothball smell too". Native to the Indonesian rainforest, it takes 10 years to blossom.
  
  
• Amorphophallus konjac tubers are used to make konnyaku, a Japanese thickening agent and edible jelly
  
  

 titan arumkonjac

Exhibit D: Lodoicea maldivica (Coco De Mer)

Origin: the Seychelles

Features: Per Vice: “From the rear, a coco de mer seed is the fruit equivalent of a belfie. Frontally, it’s a life-size replica of a woman’s reproductive region, including thigh tops, an exposed belly, and a pudendal cleft. It even has a landing strip of pubes crowning the V…Not only is the male flower a huge brown phallic rod; the female blossoms are simulacra of DD+ breasts, each with its own nectarlactating nipple-like ovule. There’s a spermy white pudding inside the seed that hardens as the fruit ages….After a coco de mer falls to the ground, it sends out a freaky fingerlike umbilical cord from its vaginal orifice.
"
Fun Facts:

• Before the Seychelles were discovered by the explorer Dufresne in 1768, the fruit’s shell was periodically found floating in the sea, leading to speculation that it grew underwater, hence the name coco de mer.
  
  
• It holds three botanical records: the largest fruit so far recorded, weighing 42 kg; the heaviest seeds, weighing up to 17.6 kg; and the female flowers are the largest of any palm.
  
  
• Shells can be purchased at official outlets in the Seychelles for a price between $200 and $1,000 per nut, but the plant is protected, so eating the fruit is illegal. 
  
  

 


See also: red oriental poppy, matsutake mushrooms, eggplant, banana, zucchini, peaches, etc. and Naked Man Orchid (Orchis italica)

Michael Rennie was ill the day the Earth stood still....

Kudos to Wifemate! That's a great sketch! How did she get into botanical illustration? I've attempted some simple ones with pastel crayon, but nothing so scientific.