The World’s Weirdest Plants

Mother Nature has produced some mind-boggling oddities, and though most of them may be members of the animal kingdom, the world’s flora has its share of weirdos as well.  From a gigantic, fleshy, parasitic flower that smells like rotting flesh to water lilies that can hold the weight of two people, the strangest plants on Earth are a sight to behold.

ABC Action News has rounded up 7 of them:

Rafflesia arnoldii

Found in the rainforests of Sumatra and Borneo, the Rafflesia arnoldii produces the largest individual flower on earth.
The flower can grow up to three feet across and weigh up to 24 pounds.
It’s a parasitic plant that attaches itself to a host plant and feeds off of it for nutrients and water.
And boy, does it smell.  Rafflesia arnoldii emits an odor similar to rotting meat to attract insects for pollination purposes.
This plant is rare and hard to find.  The flower takes months to develop and only last a few days.

Titan Arum

Here’s another real stinker.
Also found in Indonesia, the titan arum is known as the “corpse flower” for its awful smell of rotting meat.
The titan arum can grow up to 10 feet in circumference, reach heights of 7 to 12 feet and weigh up to 170 pounds.
Unlike the equally bad-smelling rafflesia arnoldii, the titan arum is not a single flower, technically speaking.  It is formed by a cluster of much smaller flowers, called an inflorescence.

Check out five more, along with slideshows of each natural oddity, at ABC Action News.

Global Warming Could Make Allergies & Asthma Worse

Allergy and asthma sufferers will be even more miserable as global warming continues to worsen. Experts say global warming makes pollen seasons last longer, creating more ozone in the air and expanding the areas where insects flourish.

From Health Day via Yahoo News:

“Climate change will cause impacts in every area. Wet areas will get wetter, and drier climates are getting drier,” said Dr. Jeffrey Demain, director of the Allergy, Asthma and Immunology Center of Alaska, and a clinical associate professor at the University of Washington.

Those changes will mean more people with allergies and asthma will suffer. In wet areas, mold allergies will spike, while in drier areas pollens and other airborne irritants will become more of a problem, he said.

In addition to longer pollen seasons, the plant and tree life is changing along with the warmer temperatures. Demain said it’s estimated that 90 percent of the Alaskan tundra will be forested by 2100, and that the types of trees that are most common are changing, too.

The warmer temperatures are also attracting insects. In the past, Alaska hasn’t had too many stinging insects. But, said Demain, northern Alaska has recently seen a 620 percent increase in the number of people seeking care for bee stings.

That’s definitely not good news for people who spend much of their lives wheezing, sneezing, and rubbing their itchy eyes. Experts offer the standard ‘go to your doctor’ recommendation for those seeking relief; homeopathic allergy medicine like BioAllers can also be helpful.

Link [Yahoo News]
Photo credit: Flickr user Brooke Novak

Plant Tells You What it Needs via Twitter

Twitter, the social networking site that allows you to keep your friends updated on what’s going on in your life in 140 characters or less, is all the rage these days – and not just for actual humans. The Tweet-a-Watt blew the competition out of the water in the Greener Gadgets Competition, and now a new gadget allows your houseplants to communicate with you electronically, letting you know when they need attention.

Pothos the houseplant has over 2,300 followers on Twitter, who wait with bated breath for earth-shattering updates like “URGENT! Water me!”

From Discover Magazine, via The Huffington Post:

Granted, all it wants is water, but when plant owners are forgetful or just don’t have a green thumb, their green friends often go thirsty. The solution? Botanicalls, a device that sends wireless signals to Twitter. It’s made of soil moisture sensors that transmit information (too much moisture? too little?) through a circuit board to a microcontroller, just like a mini-computer.

The software has settings that allow you to program specifically for the type of plant and the unique qualities of the soil, and the language sent to Twitter can be customized—so the message can vary in tone from the polite “please” to the urgent “I’m desperately thirsty”—or, as Mr. Ikea Plant will tweet, “I’m wicked thirsty.”

Check out a sample of Pothos’ updates below:

So, now computers can allow our houseplants to talk to us. Kind of creepy, kind of amazing.

Link [Discover Magazine] via [The Huffington Post]

How to Grow Your Own Fresh Air

You can dramatically increase the health of the air in your home, office buildnig or business with just a few plants. Research has shown that with only three varieties of plants, we can “grow our own fresh air” in indoor environments – the Areca palm, Mother-in-Law’s Tongue and the Money Plant.

This idea was tested at the Paharpur Business Centre and Software Technology Incubator Park in New Delhi, India where they filled the 20-year-old, 50,000 square foot building with 1,200 plants – 4 for every occupant. It has since been found that there is a 42% probability of increasing blood oxygen by 1% if one is inside the building for 10 hours, and incidences of eye irritation, respiratory symptoms, headache, lung impairment and asthma have decreased dramatically.

Surprisingly, one effect of placing so many plants in an indoor space was energy conservation. GreenSpaces found in an experiment that energy costs were reduced by an amazing 15%. They now plan to test this concept on an even larger scale, in a 1.75 million square foot building – using over 60,000 plants.

From GreenSpaces:

Kamal Meattle reported the results of his efforts to fill an office building with plants, in an effort to reduce headache, asthma, and other productivity-sapping aliments in thickly polluted India. After researching NASA documents, he concluded that a set of three particular common, waist-high houseplants—areca palm, Mother-in-Law’s Tongue, and Money Plant—could be combined to scrub the air of carbon dioxide, formaldehyde and other pollutants.

At about four plants per occupant (1200 plants in all), the building’s air freshened considerably, and the health and productivity results were staggering. Eye irritation dropped by 52 percent, lower respiratory symptoms by 34 percent, headaches by 24 percent and asthma by 9 percent. There were fewer sick days, employee productivity increased, and energy costs dropped by 15 percent.

GreenSpaces believes that the use of indoor plants could help reduce energy consumption around the world. By “growing” fresh air indoors, there’s less need for a constant supply of external fresh air in air-conditioned buildings.

Bringing plants indoors is such a mood helper, too – especially during the winter. You can keep the air you breathe cleaner & healthier, beautify your indoor space and brighten gloomy days just with a few inexpensive houseplants – who wouldn’t want that? We can’t wait to see what the results are of the test in the new GreenSpaces building.

Link [GreenSpaces]

Kudzu Ethanol Plant Planned in Tennessee

We told you a couple months ago about Kudzu, ‘the vine that ate the South’. Kudzu, originally from Japan, was introduced to the U.S. nearly 130 years ago and has since taken over the entire Southeast, with masses of it completely covering trees, fences and buildings. Kudzu has long been thought of as a nuisance, but recent research has revealed that Southeastern landowners might be sitting on goldmines: kudzu can be used to produce energy. A new plant in Tennessee aims to turn the stuff into ethanol, a great alternative to corn since it doesn’t require irrigation.

From Chemically Green:

So what does Kudzu have to do with ethanol? Simply, due to the starch (sugar) content, kudzu can be used to replace corn to make ethanol. Will kudzu take the place of food ingredients being used to make ethanol? A resounding “Yes!” is stated by Mr. Doug Mizell, co-founder of Agro* Gas Industries in Cleveland, Tennessee. Mizell and company co-founder, Tom Monahan, have dubbed the kudzu-based-ethanol, “Kudzunol.” Kudzu is an obvious resource: “There’s 7.2 million acres of kudzu in the south that’s absolutely good to no one,” said Mizell. “It grows a foot a day, 60 feet a season and can be harvested twice a year and not even hurt the stand.”

Agro*Gas plans to break ground on an ethanol producing plant in McMinn County or a surrounding county by end of the year and hopefully begin production in 2009.

The eco-friendly plant will be privately funded. How awesome is it that we can use this ‘weed’, which grows rampant all over an entire region of the U.S. as fuel? Plus, the entire plant is used in the fuel making process, so no part goes to waste, and it won’t be tied to the commodities market, so the price won’t raise and lower in relation to the stock markets. We love it. Go Green Kudzu!

Link [Chemically Green]
Photo credit: Jack Anthony

Houses Covered in Gold: When Kudzu Attacks

Earlier this week, we told you about kudzu, the ‘scourge of the South’, a vine that spreads like crazy and has now been found to have quite a few promising uses. It’s being looked to as a possible source of renewable energy, plus it has the ability to leach chemicals out of contaminated soils and has additional food and medicinal uses.

Well, that would mean that these folks are sitting on (or, rather, under – if anyone can even get in the house) a veritable gold mine. This is the sort of thing I see often driving from North Carolina down to my home state of Florida: structures totally taken over by kudzu.

Photographer Jack Anthony has some amazing photos of what he calls ‘natural sculptures’, including an awesome series showing the progression of the kudzu growth over four seasons. No doubt, the owners of this land were unhappy when the kudzu invasion started, but maybe they feel better after the recent kudzu-loving news. Before they know it, they might be standing outside their fences protecting this stuff with shotguns against would-be poachers!

Link [JJAnthony] via [Neatorama]

Photo credit: Jack Anthony

Kudzu: The Cancer of the South, Mankind’s Savior?

I live in the South, where Kudzu stretches for miles and miles. I’ve seen abandoned buildings completely taken over, and forests covered in an eerie Kudzu canopy. The oft-maligned, extremely invasive plant has been called ‘the plant that ate the South’. The idea of Kudzu ever having a positive use would leave many Southerners scratching their heads.

So it’s surprising to learn that Kudzu actually has many benefits – and might even be one answer to the world’s energy crisis.

What would you call a plant that may be mankind’s next great source of renewable biofuels?

That can leech the noxious chemicals out of contaminated soils?

That is an essential component of Chinese traditional medicines; a potential control drug for an alcoholic’s cravings; a plant whose starch makes pies and gravies light and delicious; not to mention a plant that can prevent stream banks from eroding, naturally increase the fertility of depleted farmers’ fields; can be ground up to produce fine paper and is a beloved by goats as forage?

I can tell you one thing – landowners around here would be more than happy to unload tons of this stuff on whoever wants it. That is, unless the greed that is such an ingrained part of human nature takes over and turns it into the next big cash crop. Yeah, that seems more likely.

Link [CBC News]

Photo: Flickr user meshmar2