theplantzone

[theplantzone]

Dendrobium leucocyanum

December 11, 2019 

[theplantzone]

Red osier dogwood, Cornus sericea, adds some color to the wetlands in late fall. The berries are edible, but not really good to eat. The plant is used to add color to gardens and sometimes the bark is used as a red dye.

[theplantzone]

Phipps Conservatory October 2019

*photographs an orchid* *immediately forgets the name of the orchid*

[theplantzone]

#1480 - Petrophile linearis - Pixie Mops

Yet another endemic of south-west Western Australia, and other example of just how impressive our range of Proteaceae is. 

The shrubs grow to about 1m tall and produce these soft, pink flowers between August and December. It occurs in south-west Western Australia from south of Geraldton to Cape Leeuwin, on sand, often over laterite. This one was growing near wetlands in Canning Vale, Perth.

It’s not clear what pollinates this species - insects, birds, bush rats and honey possums are all possibilities, but the latter less likely up here in the city. 

[theplantzone]

Have you learned the forbidden knowledge about citrus/hesperidiums yet?

what? that theyre defined by the oily pores on the fleshy outer surface? that they literally have oily skin? that the oils very readily evaporate into the air when the outer surface is punctured, which is why when somebody opens an orange everybody in a 2 mile radius can immediately smell it? that theyre smelling oily pore juice 

[theplantzone]

[theplantzone]

are isoetes the plants that used to be like... Bigger than every other type of plant? Idk how to describe it better than that I just vaguely remember hearing something like that a while ago. Like they were the Head Chungus of plants

they were the head chungus!! well, the megaflora in their family were the head chungus. like there were big versions and small versions going on and when the continents split and the swamps dried up, the big chungus versions died and the small versions evolved a bit and became what we know as isoetes today. this means that modern isoetes are a whole six or so classes of extinct giant prehistoric trees away from their closest living ‘cousin’, Lycopodium, which looks COMPLETELY different from them to the point where its confusing at first. this is also why their anatomy is so incredibly fucked up: there’s literally nothing else like it on earth bc everything close to it is dead.

but yeah, during the first real ‘boom’ of plants all over the world in the carboniferous period, the isoetes family was the primary base of ecosystems in a ton of massive prehistoric swamps. because fungus hadn’t evolved yet to break down the plant tissues, when these massive 100 foot tall Units (members of a subgenus called lepidodendron) would come down shit would just pile on top of them and compress them, making what we now know as coal. most coal veins are the remains of these prehistoric swamps, and its (from what ive heard from the paleobotany person at my uni) actually not uncommon to come across fossils of them around old mines. 

this is what these swamps used to look like btw: 

ive found that the funky look of these plants as we see them in fossils is best understood if u consider how the sister family Lycopodium i talked about earlier in this post looks:

mixing that with how isoetes looks (note the tiny woody section under the leaves of the cut open one in the middle; this is believe to be what remains of those giant prehistoric tree trunks, which is Wild):

and you can almost imagine like….how something Like Those might have lived/looked. ive called them ‘uncanny valley plants’ before and i stand by that 

[theplantzone]

Hoya kerrii is in the milkweed family Apocynaceae. Commonly known as Sweetheart Hoya, it is native to southeast Asia. This species, like many other Hoyas, is a vining plant that can grow to over 2 meters tall. Sweetheart Hoya produces thick heart-shaped leaves, which make it popular as a gift for Valentine’s day in some parts of the world. Arguably more attractive are the terminal clusters of star shaped flowers. The flowers give off a sweet fragrance, and produce copious amounts of sweet, amber colored nectar that collects at the tips of the petals.

[theplantzone]

Corybas sp.

Orchidaceae: Diurideae.

By Tomas Bajza. [x]

[theplantzone]

Rosa carolina, Rosa laxa, Rosa nitida, Rosa Lyellii, Rosa cinnamomea, Rosa lutescens, Rosa caucasea, Rosa sinica, Rosa acicularis, Rosa macrophylla.

Illustrations taken from ‘Rosarum Monographia’ by John Lindley. Published 1820. Printed for James Ridgeway.

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Biodiversity Heritage Library.

https://archive.org/details/rosarummonograph01lind

[theplantzone]

15.07.16 Magical! Arranging my final internship for the last year of my studies applied biology. I’ll help in the Economic Botanical Collection of Naturalis Biodiversity Centre in Leiden under supervision of Tinde van Andel. I hope to learn a lot and do good work there.    

[theplantzone]

[theplantzone]

[theplantzone]

[theplantzone]

Red valerian (Centranthus ruber)

[theplantzone]

Isopropyl alcohol will kill them you just have to keep an eye on the plants and reapply any time you see new mealybugs (mealybug predators are supposed to be a good solution but I haven't tried that)

Anyone know any good tricks to keep these bugs off of the plants? They’ve been attacking all the plants in our greenhouse

[theplantzone]

g33k.mk That is so cool! #Repost@natures(@get_repost) ・・・ Growing kidney bean, 25 day timelapse 🌱 Follow @naturesfor more!👈