3 Amazing Things You Never Knew About Plants

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by Beth Buczynski on November 26, 2010

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Plants feed us and provide the fabrics that help protect us from the elements, but that's not all they can do.

When's the last time you thanked a bush for all the things it does to keep you safe and warm? Fossil fuels have dominated the manufacturing and energy industries for so long, it's easy to forget that plants can be just as versatile, and usually much cleaner.

Plants can...

1. Make Plastics
Gizmag reports that researchers at the U.S Department of Energy (DOE) are are engineering plants to produce chemicals needed for plastics that have traditionally come from fossil fuels. The discovery of the genes that code for the enzymes responsible for producing these FAs encouraged researchers to explore ways of expressing these genes. "The key to the research is getting plants to produce higher yields of particular fatty acids (FAs) in their seeds. Of interest is the group of omega-7 FAs which are used in the production of plastics," writes Grant Banks.
2. Clean The Air

According to the EPA, scientific evidence indicates that indoor air can be more seriously polluted than the outdoor air in even the largest and most industrialized cities (Care2). With other studies showing that people spend around 90 percent of their lives indoors, the air you breathe while sleeping, eating, and talking with your family could be one of the biggest threats to your health.

In the late 1980s, a study by NASA and the Associated Landscape Contractors of America (ALCA) concluded that common houseplants such as bamboo palms and spider plants not only make indoor spaces more attractive, but also help to purify the air.

3. Power Our Vehicles

According to Richard Parnas, a professor of chemical, materials, and biomolecular engineering at UConn, one of the most exciting things about hemp is that it grows "like a weed", even in infertile soils. This would allow industrial hemp to be grown for biofuel production without taking up primary crop lands.
And hemp isn't the only alternative plant that's being considered as a future source of energy. Chilean entrepreneur Mario Llanis was inspired by the cactus-riddled desert of his native country, and is working on a way to turn the versatile pear cactus into a bio-energy source that could change the industry forever

RAPID GROWTH OF TREE IN TEMPLE
                                                                                                                                                                                          Rapid and Accurate Measurements For a Wide Variety of Leaf Types.

www.licor.com/areameters

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One of the most amazing things about plants is their ability to grow through all kinds of obstacles. When trees manage to do so, the spectacle is even more amazing because it is on such a grand scale. There are even more cool ones when you follow the link.
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Amazing Things Plants Do * Sugarbabies and Abundance

23 Aug ’11

Our ‘Amazing Things Plants Do’ section of the magazine features “an interesting fact about plants”. The interesting fact (or truth) about Sugarbaby Watermelons is that, when you grow them in your garden, you are surprised by a sense of abundance when they begin to fruit and swell into little planets hiding under leaves!

It’s at this time that the shift toward coolness has arrived in the garden. Soon it will be cutting back time. Cutting back the overgrown leggy vines, massive plants that are beginning to get beaten down by the returning rains, and a general late summer clean-up to prepare for the fall seedlings that will go in, in about a month. The butternuts didn’t make it due to the squash vine borers we get in the Mid-South, and all other summer foods are declining, but the Sugarbabies are just reaching their fullest potential (we planted late).

They are so beautiful in their deep, almost black, color that at once is silver and green. They are miraculously, perfectly round, and they provide a perfect dark background to show off the pattern of their large lacy leaves.

Inside there awaits sweet, red, juicy flesh. They appeal to my sense of aesthetics and and my sense of sustainability, and that’s pretty sweet too. Right now, I am grateful for the abundance they bring.

❊ SCM

You might also like:

The Untended Garden * Village Creek, AR

Flora * ‘Iron Butterfly’

Amazing Things Plants Do * Mustard Seeds

Concept * Cover Crop Pasture

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TOP 4 BIGGEST PLANTS IN THE WORLD
                                                                                                                                                                These are the top 4 of the most Unusual plants & flowers, enjoy!
1. Rafflesia arnoldii: this parasitic plant develops the world’s largest bloom that can grow over three feet across. The flower is a fleshy color, with spots that make it look like a teenager’s acne-ridden skin. It smells bad and has a hole in the center that holds six or seven quarts of water. The plant has no leaves, stems, or roots.


2. Hydnora africana, an unusual flesh-colored, parasitic flower that attacks the nearby roots of shrubby in arid deserts of South Africa. The putrid-smelling blossom attracts herds of carrion beetles.


3. Dracunculus vulgaris: smells like rotting flesh, and has a burgundy-colored, leaf-like flower that projects a slender, black appendage.

4. Amorphophallus: means, literally, “shapeless penis.” The name comes from the shape of the erect black spadix.

Find more gold charms and other gold necklaces at Birks.com.

The amazing Carnivorous Plants of the world

September 28, 2010 | Cool Travel | by Zolton |

If you happen to find yourself wading thigh deep in some remote tropical jungle, lost and hungry, tired and itching for a drink, it’s probably best to avoid any of this greenery featured in this awesome photo series of meat eating plants which ran on the Vaartaaha website.




Tagged: amazing plant photographs