"Smarty plants" - plant intelligence

Thought plants were dumb? Maybe we just don't know how to communicate with them. Here's a Wired online magazine article about plant intelligence.

Japanese maple, 'Beni kawa' in fall colors

Since we haven't had a killing frost yet the trees have been very slow to turn. Only a few of the sassafras, sumacs and street maples are slowly changing color.

For some reason this 'Beni kawa' (Beni=red, kawa=skin/covering/bark) Japanese maple started to turn very early in mid October. I bought the tree as a foot tall, one year old graft, two years ago and it has grown to be about 4 feet tall now.




I love the delicately colored pinkish yellow leaves contrasted by the bright red trunk and branches. A very lovely tree and it formed a wonderful shape with almost no pruning. I would highly recommend this small tree to anyone interested in planting a Japanese maple. I believe I bought it for $15 plus shipping by mailorder.

In the background to the left in the first photo you can see a Red dissectum Japanese maple and directly back of the 'Beni kawa', a 'Seiryu', green dissectum Japanese maple, both don't seem anywhere close to changing colors.


Here's another view of the tree. I have to remember to pick up those cedar shakes I drove into the ground to make a border to contain the pebbles. I thought cedar was rot resistant but not so, they deteriorated in a year or two.

Update on order from Shooting Star Nursery

I placed my order with Shooting Star Nursery online and received the plants within a week. They called to tell me that the Cypripedium orchids I ordered wouldn't be ready until next spring but they could send me the rest of my order or opt to have everything sent in the spring. Well being an instant gratification sort, I opted to have the partial order sent.



Last Friday the UPS man left a bright red Budweiser box which turned out to be my order from Shooting Star. So that's one way they cut down on the cost of shipping and they have a recycling ethic which already sets them apart from other mail order nurseries in my book.




I opened the box and everything was wrapped extremely well with recycled shredded paper filling the voids, brown butcher paper wrapping the plants and pots and enclosing more shredded paper around each plant.




The plants were fairly small but the pots were large. Much bigger and taller than I had expected from the usual ones you get through mailorder.




The gangly Euonymous americanus came in the largest pot which was about 6x6" and about 8" deep.




The other plants a Penstemon hirsutus, Penstemon smallii and a Meadow Beauty (Handsome Harry)
Rhexia virginica were in 4x4" 6" deep pots.

Though the plants were small I believe the large pots allowed good root growth so I'm very optimistic that the plants will do well.

I always wanted to obtain a Meadow Beauty ever since I saw a picture of one in a wildflower book. I wondered if it needed full sun or part shade so I did some online research and found that it normally grew in a boggy but sunny environment. Both of my large botanical tomes had nothing on Rhexia which was amazing to me. I wonder why the omission? I will have to find a wet spot in the yard with acid yet sandy soil in full sun. It won't be easy to meet all those conditions. Hopefully the plant won't be so intolerant of less than ideal conditions. Here's a great link to see photos of the Meadow Beauty.

New Orchids

We couldn't help but buy these orchids, they were too nice to pass up. We normally haunt the past bloom plant shelves for orchids because they're so expensive but these were unusual so we decided to pay full price for them.




This is a Zygopetalum orchid. Specifically Zygoneria 'Adelaide Meadows' an Austrailian hydrid. From the ABC.net.au website: "Some twenty species (of Zygopetalum orchids) from Central and South America were largely ignored during the last 100 years because the flowers looked too similar, but now hybridists have been able to obtain the sought after diversity."

"For many years zygopetalum had a chocolate coloured flower, but by incorporating the allied genera neogardineria with zygopetalum, a green flower has been produced. This variety is known as zygonaria, which is a more compact plant with much better colour combinations including lots of spots, splashes and stripes, and many blooms that have a much sweeter perfume. Zygoneria ‘Adelaide Meadows’ is a good example of this."

I don't detect a perfume on the plant we bought.

Apparently there are many different kinds of 'Adelaide Meadows'. Ours was un-named so I don't know what it is.






This is a Beallara (Cambria) 'Eurostar' orchid. The Beallara orchid, has many parents including Odontoglossum, Oncidium, Miltonia and Brassia, so you can see the characteristics of the parents in the flowers. Apparently this is an easy to grow hybrid and tolerates normal home temperatures.

I re-potted the orchids in the morning drizzle. We thought they just came with a top dressing of sphagnum moss but the orchids were actually planted in sphagnum which is not a good planting medium because it retains too much moisture causing the roots to rot. The Beallara turned out to be two plants so I put a plant in separate pots and now we have three orchids instead of two.



Addendum:

We bought several portable indoor greenhouses to keep the humidity high in the winter. The forced air heating is otherwise just too drying for orchids. They usually have them at Lowes but I’ve only seen the greenhouses sold in Spring. Maybe they can special order it for you if you want one. This is what it looks like.

Portable greenhouse

I think it cost less than $50. We place a large shallow pan filled with water on the bottom rung with a small cheap fan circulating the air so mold and mildew doesn’t become a problem. We run the fan only during daylight hours when the indirect light of the sun heats up the inside and creates condensation on the plastic.

We bought a blooming Dendrobium several years ago and although it grew well indoors in our portable greenhouse, it refused to bloom. Last year the nursery woman told us that she put her orchid outdoors all summer under shade when the temperatures didn’t fall below 50f. So we put the Dendrobiums outside and Oncidiums too which also didn’t bloom and voila, they both sent out sprays of flowers. The Dendrobiums can actually take quite a bit of light though I wouldn’t put it in direct overhead sunlight but we placed the orchid where it got some morning light and dappled light through most of the day.

The other thing we learned about orchid culture is don’t overwater! I just read an article that said more orchids are killed by being waterlogged than any other cause. Here's a good general orchid growing site if you are interested in trying to grow some in the future. Just be aware that orchid culture can become addicting.

The end. Whew! Seeing small things part 5.

The tiny flowers of the Nandina domestica, commonly called heavenly bamboo.




A few remaining flowers on the crape myrtle Lagerstroemia indica, 'Red Rocket'.




Immature fruit of the Nandina domestica




Dianthus




The back of a Hydrangea paniculata, 'Quick Fire'. This was a huge disappointment because the color is not anywhere close to the picture on the label which was a bright red. In fact our H. paniculata 'grandiflora' has better color. The panicles or corymbs on the 'Quick Fire' also droops giving it a "needs water" look, so that's why you see the back of the panicle rather than the face.




An austere photo of next years Rhododendron flower. I thought the delineation of the petal covering essentially the sepals caused by the orange outlining was interesting...in an understated zen-like way.





Pretty gaudy Gaillardia x grandiflora 'Fanfare' but we keep it around because the bees like it so much. The inch worm seems to like it too.

Worlds Smallest Seed and Other Plant Trivia

Kim, the Blackswamp Girl in her blog, A Study in Contrasts recently (October 23) posted a picture of tiny Nicotiana seeds. Before I saw the photo of her seeds, I thought the Lobelia 'Crystal Palace' seeds were the tiniest. This piqued my interest in finding out what is truly the smallest seed in the world.

I came across this interesting website of Botanical Record Breakers from Wayne's Word which lists things like:

1. The World's Oldest Living Thing
The Oldest Germinated Seed
2. The World's Oldest Living Fossil
3. The World's Most Massive Living Thing
4. The World's Tallest Tree
5. The World's Hardest & Heaviest Wood
6. The World's Smallest Flowering Plant
7. The World's Smallest And Largest Fruit
Largest Bean Pod & Seed Cone
The World's Largest Sperm
8. The World's Largest Hitchhiking Fruit
9. The World's Largest Vegetable
10. The World's Smallest And Largest Seed
11. The World's Smallest And Largest Leaves
12. The World's Largest Flying Seed
13. Longest Distance Traveled By Drift Seed
14. World's Fastest Reproducing Plants
15. The World's Fastest Growing Plants
16. The Fastest Trapdoor On A Plant
17. The World's Deadliest Plants
18. Most Painful Botanical Encounters
19. World's Most Valuable Plant Jewels
20. Dislaimer: Authenticity Of Coconut Pearls
21. Most Complex Plant-Insect Relationship
22. The World's Largest Stinking Flowers
23. Plant & Animal Adaptation Hyperlinks
24. Go To Diversity Of Flowering Plants

Just the sort of trivia I love.

So, what's the smallest seed? From WaynesWord: "Certain epiphytic orchids of the tropical rain forest produce the world's smallest seeds, up to 35 million per ounce. One seed weighs about one 35 millionths of an ounce (1/35,000,000) or 0.81 micrograms. Some seeds are only about 1/300th of an inch long (85 micrometers). [The resolving power for an unaided human eye with 20-20 vision is just under 0.1 mm.] Orchid seeds are dispersed into the air like minute dust particles or single-celled spores, eventually coming to rest in the upper canopy of rain forest trees."

My Dad used to grow orchids as a hobby and I remember breaking open the seed pods of an Epidendrum. The seeds were very thin, fine and light but they were fairly long probably 4 times the diameter of the Lobelia seed so it never occurred to me that this could be the smallest seed I've ever seen. It also was many, many years ago that I broke open the pod so I guess I can be forgiven for not remembering. However the Epidendrum may not be the orchid that Waynesword referred to so the seed he wrote about may be exceedingly small.

There's a photo of an orchid pod with seeds spilling out on the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens website that looks very similar to the one I opened as a kid.

More, Seeing small things, part 4

New leaves on a Japanese maple. I don't know why it's still producing growth but these are new leaves and not autumn leaves changing color.





Two photos of Hydrangea paniculata bracts. If the first photo is of a bract or sepal what are the budlike structures called?





A tiny Black-eyed susan, Rudbeckia hirta (Asteraceae)




Once again a photo of a bract, this time of the Seven Sons tree, Heptacodium miconioides, with the same bud like structures as the Hydrangea.





English Daisy, Bellis perennis. These were very nice in the pot but didn't do well after we transplanted them into the garden. Perhaps they are a spring blooming flower so hopefully they'll survive the winter and bloom again next spring.




Newly opening flower on the Camellia sasanqua, 'Marti'.




Dainty flowers of the sweet basil, Ocymum basilium.




Dogwood fruit. With the added magnification, you can see the bumpy texture of skin of the fruit. Again the shallow depth of field plays havoc with keeping all of the objects in focus.

Shooting Star Nursery: Found new mailorder nursery for native plants, especially the Strawberry bush, Euonymus americanus

Photo by hickoryrose1, Webshots Outdoors.

I was so impressed by photos of the strawberry bush, Euonymus americanus on several blogs, Tangled Branches Cultivated October 6, 2007 post, Rurality October 2, 2007 post and Ledge and Gardens October 10, 2007 post, I looked for an online nursery to purchase the plant and found the Shooting Star Nursery which specializes in native plants.

Their plants are very reasonably priced so I'm interested to see what the size and quality of plants that are delivered but I took a chance and ordered a bunch. They had several kinds of nursery grown (not wild gathered) Cypripedium orchids for and unheard of price of $10.00. The Strawberry bush was $8.00 and I bought some other plants like meadow rue, dutchman's breeches and more.

The shipping was very reasonable too which makes me think that the plants will be very small but I will let you know about their quality when they arrive.

Seeing small things Part 3

This is a very tiny flower no bigger than a large pea but wonderful just the same.




For some reason I love this photo of a tiny misshapen mum. This was a straggler and the last flower to bloom on the plant.




Lobelia 'Crystal Palace'. We first saw 'Crystal Palace' when we lived in Seattle many years ago and loved the plant so much we have some every year. They are an annual but very easy to start from seed. The seeds are exceedingly tiny so I just sow them in a tub of potting soil and lightly cover the seeds with extra soil.




Some kind of Salvia. This sends up very tiny flowers which grow to no more than about 1 1/2 feet tall. Like all Salvias this one is a very tough plant, growing in a hot and dry place in the garden. Like other small flowers, I had a difficult time trying to get the camera to focus on the flowers.





Campanula medium, Canterbury Bells. It was interesting to see the web like hair structures inside the flower. We planted these last year and I thought they were dead but I noticed a bit of blue under some other plants and when I brushed aside the leaves these bells were revealed.




Sanpdragon, Antirrhinum majus. We planted these snapdragons several years ago and they seem to reseed regularly. The flowers have changed colors through the years so it's interesting to see what the next year will bring.





Penstemon, 'Navigator Mix'. This is a dwarf Penstemon growing to only about a foot high. After its heavy blooming season in early summer the plant will keep producing flowers if you deadhead it. The last photo also shows the very shallow DOF (depth of field) when using the macro lens set up. Everything gets blurred not more than a 1/4 inch from the plane of focus.

Seeing small things part 2

Phacelia campanularia. I had seeds from last year stored in the frig so I thought I should use them before they died. I planted these in late August and the flowers are just starting to bloom. I hope the killing frost will hold off a little longer so these tender plants will be able to bloom more.




Some kind of Salvia I started from seed a couple of years ago. This tall plant was a good buy because it blooms all summer and readily self seeds. I haven't had to buy more seeds. For some reason this is a difficult plant to photograph. Almost all my pictures of the flowers are slightly blurred. I don't know if the camera focusing sensor has a hard time distinguishing features or if the color is somehow difficult for focusing mechanism.




Pink Begonia.




"Home Run (TM) Rose". I love the velvety look of the petals.





Two photos of millet seed that sprouted from seed spilled around the bird feeders. The first one is of a seedhead and the second, the flowering stage which is a bit strange because you can already see the seeds forming. Shouldn't it be the flower first then the seeds forming?




Unknown pink bush type rose.




I think this is a black-eyed Susan. I don't know why it is so tiny, about the size of a nickel but it looked colorful and interesting so I added it.





Here's the objective lens of the binoculars and how it is hand held in front of the normal camera lens. Notice the lens has two elements or pieces of glass glued together. It also has a color corrected coating for truer colors and less color fringing.




You can see why I would prefer to use the Panasonic since it's much, much, lighter in weight, smaller, thinner and definitely more portable than the Canon especially when the lens adapter tube is attached to Canon so it can accept macro lenses.

Seeing small things

I love the macro feature of my camera but the camera I love to use best, a Panasonic DMC FX3, can't focus very closely, only about 2" from the subject. The other camera I bought mostly because of it's close macro ability and superior optics has proven to be a cumbersome beast so I rarely use it. That camera a Canon A620 is by no means a large camera and tiny compared to a DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex camera. Without add on lenses can focus down to an incredible 1cm which is about 3/8", giving you an extreme macro view of the subject which I wish the Panasonic could do.

I had an old pair of compact 10x25 mm binoculars which I took apart because the roof prism came loose in one of the tubes but had difficulty putting it back together again. The optics weren't particularly good so I just kept the objective lenses (the big front lens which in the case of a compact binocular isn't very large) to use as a magnifying lens. I also found out why these low end Bushnell binocs were so cheap - the lenses were scratched or had pits and other imperfections that were unnoticed when using it to look at far objects. "You pays fer whatcha get".

I was looking at some macro sites and noticed that a person used a magnifying glass, actually an eye loupe, handheld in front of his camera and was able to take astounding photos using this method. He eventually made a mount so he could easily attach and remove the magnifying lens.

So, I tried hand holding one of the objective lens, touching the front housing of the Panasonic camera and took these photos. I also bought an extra battery for the camera on Ebay from a vendor in HongKong and the battery didn't seem like it was holding much of a charge so this was the perfect time to test the battery and handheld lens.

I'm happy to say the battery worked better than expected and I am extremely happy with the results of the lens experiment. The photos are not a close as I can get with the Canon and it isn't as sharply focused but I like the results better. This is a subject (subjectively liking photos produced by one camera more than another) I'll write more about later.


A Lobelia 'Crystal Palace' with tiny red-eyed fly. The fly was only about the size of a rice grain or smaller.




I think this is an Angelonia.




Looking like sea anemones waving their arms, the close up of the Ageratum looks quite interesting with its honey comb pattern of unopened petals.




Another Angelonia? I did notice that the camera had a bit of difficulty taking pictures of very small flowers. Or it could have been the wind or me moving about but some of the photos turned out slightly blurred.




I love the green jewel-like stigma of the Petunia. Flowers have such exotic colors and structures. I would not have seen this amazing sight with my naked eyes. Please click on the photo to see an enlargement.




A plain wax begonia I wouldn't normally give a second glance to becomes something quite entrancing.




A multi-colored Salvia.




A white 'Bronze Whiskey' begonia. If you compare this photo with the 'Whiskey' begonia in the previous post, you can see that I was able to approximately double the size of the image using the add on lens.




I would never have noticed the clear water droplet like structures along the stigma of the toad lily had I not used the add on ersatz macro lens.

More pictures to come. I had a productive photo session, shooting more than 250 shots to run the battery down.

October Garden Blogger's Bloom Day

Gee, the 15th snuck up on me again so quickly. I only realized it was time for Garden Blogger's Bloom Day because I saw other people's posts so I quickly went out into the yard and took some photos in the early morning light. The light was great. Quite magical when it illuminated the flowers.



Two photos above: Anemone x hybrida 'Honorine Jobert'




Common fall Chrysanthemum. We bought this one about three years ago but it's quite hardy. At one time we even tried to get rid of it but it came back although in a much reduced state.




A cheap white rose. The only remaining one spared by browsing deer.




Begonia, Bronze Whiskey/White. The backlighting emphasized the graininess in the petals.




Camellia sasanqua 'Marti' is really starting to bloom with about 10 or more flowers. I thought the two flowers that bloomed last week was an aberration but it was actually the start of the flowering. This is quite early. I checked my post last year and it didn't start blooming until late October or early November.

Some like it Hot! An obsession with Chili Peppers.

A cupboard full of sauces.




I bought 10 seeds of the Naga Jolokia (Bhut Jolokia, Ghost Chili, Naga Morich) which cost me a small fortune of 70 cents per seed including shipping from the Chili Pepper Institute of NMSU which is the only source for the seeds.

The Bhut Jolokia is known as the hottest pepper in the world. These are rated at over 1,000,000 Scoville units by the New Mexico State University Pepper Institute, which is twice as hot as the next hottest pepper the red Savina scotch bonnet or habanero. A quote from Wikipedia: "Samples of Red Savina have been measured as high as 580,000 Scoville units. For comparison, this is twice as hot as a regular habanero pepper (100,000–350,000 Scoville units), and 65 times as hot as a jalapeño pepper. A cayenne pepper rates only 30,000–50,000 Scoville units."

Interestingly, we went to an Indian restaurant in Baltimore a long time ago and ordered some food telling the waiter that we wanted the food "Indian hot". Actually it was my wife who opened her big mouth and insisted that she wanted food the way the Indians ate it. Well the food was incendiary! It was so hot I literally almost passed out. I was sweating profusely, my face was flushed and I had difficulty breathing. Maybe they had the Bhut Jolokia. I saw the ghost and the apparition was ME!

Here's an NMSU article about the Bhut Jolokia

Here's more information about the Bhut Jolokia.

Here's a fun story on why they call it the "ghost chili".

And finally here's a woman who consumed 60 Bhut Jolokias in one sitting! I wonder how that turned out in the end? ;)

I'll let you know just how hot these peppers are after we grow them next year. Stay tuned.

If you are interested in buying some seeds, you don't have to download and print and mail the form on the NMSU Chili Pepper Institute site. You can just order it over the phone with a credit card.

Thanks (I think) to Entangled for finding the source for the Bhut Jolokia seeds.




Some of our Jalapeno peppers which are still going strong. We also planted some cayenne peppers this year but though they taste pretty good, they were not hot enough. We dried a bunch to make pepper flakes but was disappointed that it didn't have more heat. Someone mentioned it was because the plants weren't stressed enough but there were times when the shrub was wilted so it may just have been the variety. I notice there are some heatless varieties sold in the markets now. What good is a hot pepper without heat?




These are bird peppers which we unfortunately forgot to plant this year. This one has a wonderfully unique taste and is quite hot. The peppers are the size of baby peas but biting into one of these can bring tears to your eyes and snort fire from your nose.




Here are some Asian hot sauces. The large strange looking bottle on the left was a disappointing Chinese garlic and pepper sauce. I usually buy the Lan Chi brand which is great but tried this one instead with less than sterling results. It's just hot with no pepper taste or character. The hot bean sauce is great. And the green curry sauce can't be beaten in my opinion. I haven't tried the red curry sauce in the small can.




Some sauces and chipotle peppers commonly available in grocery stores except for the Sonia. The Goya sauces are run of the mill which I only use when I want a different taste. It's no better than the generic red hot sauces you see in stores. But the Goya chipotle peppers in sauce are great. Hot, smoky and wonderful tasting. Chipotle isn't a variety of pepper. It's the Jalapeno pepper which is smoke dried before made into a sauce. We haven't tried the La Morena chipotle sauce yet so I can't comment on its quality.

Of the commonly available sauces, we like the Tapatio which is very cheap but a step above the usual offerings at the grocers.




This Sonia sauce deserves special attention. This was a common sauce used in Mauritania where our daughter was a Peace Corps volunteer. It was cheap, about 60 cents, but very tasty and has about the right amount of heat for me. It has an interesting pepper taste, one that I had not encountered before. But we are on our last bottle and I can't find a source for it online. ;(




The Death sauces are my wife's favorite. It even comes with a skull keychain ornament.


I don't remember buying these sauces. It may have been a gift from our daughter when she visited Tegucigalpa, Honduras. She's an enabler. We have yet to try these sauces.




We have yet to try the Ass Blaster or the sauce on the right but the XXX sauce is delicious - just the right amount of heat and piquancy.


The sauce in the middle is a killer. Dave's insanity sauce is the hottest sauce we've come across. Just the fumes from the open bottle will set your eyes tearing. My wife who has a very high tolerance for peppers - she will literally cover a pizza with a layer of the red peppers in a restaurant - dabbed the tip of her pinkie in some sauce and put a bit on the tip of her tongue. Her face immediately turned beet red, she reached for some water and was consumed with pain for a few minutes. One whiff of the open bottle was enough. I was a chicken and didn't even try it. Now we use it only to make deer and rabbit repellent by adding a few drops to a gallon of water and some detergent.




We like peppers so much, even our jellys have pepper in them. We made a lovely colored pepper jelly with some of the Cayenne peppers we grew this year, which turned out quite well. Next time we'll use apple cider vinegar though to cut some of the harsh acetic acid taste of regular distilled white vinegar. Maybe a mild rice vinegar would be an even better substitute.

Giant Pumpkins!!!

Think this 1524 pounds pumpkin is big?

Try this one...an astounding 1689 pounds! What a monster.

Just a few years ago the growers were trying to break 1000 pounds. Now they are probably aiming for a ton.

Fuzzy growth on underside of oak leaves

Every year about this time in autumn, I find a lot of mysterious little fuzzy peach colored balls on the ground under our oak tree. A few days ago I pruned an oak branch which was shading too many understory plants and I finally found out where those balls come from. There were a number of those fuzzy things attached to the undersides of the leaves.

I detached a fuzz ball which resembles the fuzz on tennis balls and could feel a hard kernel inside so I pulled off the fuzzy material and saw a green seed like object. Initially I thought it was a seed of some kind of parasitic plant but how a plant could attach itself to the host plant leaf was a mystery especially when the branches were several feet off the ground and I didn't see any vine like plants climbing the tree trunk. I thought it could be an airborne seed but how it would fi