As Kew sees yet another titan arum flowering, Bonn Botanic Garden goes one better, with the amazing and totally unique site of three flowers emerging from the same corm. Just what have they been feeding it?
As a plant person and a Palace fan a story entitled Eden Project Plan For Crystal Palace Park would appear to have dual appeal.
But why do I find myself checking the date in the diary? I thought spoof articles only went out on 1 April, not Friday 13th? To be honest I’m a bit lost for words, so read it for yourselves and see what you think….
A press release from the Forestry Commission claims that Scotland remains home to britain’s tallest tree as dughall mor reaches new heights.
It seems that this particular douglas fir, whose name in Gaelic means big dark stranger, was claimed to have been overtaken by a tree in Wales, but that has now been refuted.
Come on England, what have you got to add in this aboricultural home nations battle?
The auction of the first batch, the so-called ‘collector’s edition’, of Wollemi pines appears to have been a great success, raising about 1 million Aussie dollars. But at the same time news reports are circulating that the wild population is threatened with a fungal infection.
If the Wollemi pine is new to you then there’s an overview on the Kew Gardens website (where you can see one of the first specimens to be planted outside the UK), or for the full story then visit www.wollemi.com
Google’s Beta News service is a great place to find odd stories. Where else could you come across a news piece entitled Police allegedly find couple’s pot plants, where the people involved are a certain Mr & Mrs Beckham, and the location is called (no, not Beckingham Palace) Traverse City.
No doubt if they go down they will claim their conviction itself was a Traverse City of justice. Groan.
2005 has seen a prolific number of titan arums flower around the world. The latest appears to be in Washington, and has attracted a fair bit of media attention. Currently (24 November) Google News is listing over 200 pages covering this, ranging from ABC News through to the DCist blog and any number of weird and wonderfully named regional sites that have picked up the AP syndicated story, such as Tuscaloosa News
This follows on from three flowering at Kew Gardens this summer. The Kew website has a great timelapse of a flowering, plus some shots of what they reckon is a unique event (now that the flowerings themselves are so common) of having a specimen in leaf, one in flower, and one in fruit, all at the same time.