(no subject)

[treeskin]

I suppose I'm not *stuck* in the shop this afternoon, but I've been in here waiting for rentals and waiting for folks to come pick up their keys all day, and it's now very windy and much cooler out, and I don't feel like going out and doing something more productive. And I've got a command performance at a meeting this afternoon; not sure why I'm needed there, it's mostly construction stuff, but I've been summoned, and I shall appear.

And so, to amuse us all, I offer the following plant pr0n links:

Spotty Dotty mayapple What can I say? It grows in shade, silvered leaves with a neato-keen red pattern, and it's poisonous. What's not to love?

Amorphophallus henryi A voodoo lily from Taiwan. Have I eve mentioned that the best part of this catalog is the descriptions in it? No? Silly me. Go read this one. Trust me.

Autumn Minaret Daylily My absolute favorite. I really need to get this one. Screw those silly 12" tall Stellas--you don't have to bend over to admire this one.

(links all to the wonderful selection at Plant Delights Nursery. It's like Penthouse, for gardeners.

Comments

Re: Amorphophallus henryi

[treeskin.livejournal.com]

"Amorphophallus" means "shapeless phallus". Not sure who classified and named the genus, but botanists tend to be very ...descriptive. For what it's worth, there's a genus in the pea family named "Clitoria" because well, that's exactly what the flowers look like. My advisor at KSU studied with the guy who named that one....anyway. I looked for but did not find info on the history and taxonomy of the genus.

"henyri" refers to the botanist who classified this particular species.

The suggestive flower structure is called a spadix, and contains male and female flowers. (Generally, these things have the male flowers on top, shedding pollen on the female flowers below.) Should pollination occur (rare in cultivation, because the female flowers open first, and most folks only grow one specimen), variously colored berries form where the female flower were.

According to a couple of sources, there are two species in the genus grown for edible tubers. I didn't know that before, cool.


Sorry, plant geeking again. My only excuse is the brain-numbing meeting I just got out of.