WANTED!
The World’s Most Weird and Wonderful Plant!
Can you find out about a really weird and wonderful plant?
It could be a strange shape, colour, be poisonous, dangerous, have an interesting ability or appearance…anything goes!
Tell us what it’s called, what it looks like and why it is weird and wonderful!
My weird and wonderful plant can be found in the rainforests in Central and South America.
It looks like a pair of big red lips and is known as the hot lips plant. It’s real name is Psychotria Elata.
It’s leafs are this shape to attract pollinators like butterflies and they only make the lip shape for a small time before opening up.
This homework is so much fun that I decided to talk about two!
1) Dracunculus vulgaris.
This plant has a smell like rotting flesh to attract pollinators (a pollinator is an animal that causes the plant to make seeds)
It has a burgundy leaf-like flower out of which flows a slender, black type of leaf.
2) Vegetable sheep also known as Raoulia eximia (which reminds me of Harry Potter)
Named because of the way it looks from a distance, this is found in New Zealand’s Southern Alps. This shrub forms grey-white mounds and can spread 5ft. Tiny leaves are covered in hairs, with flowers beneath.
I like the Australian pitcher plant. I like it because it can make it nearly impossible to escape if an insect climbs in. This is for three reasons:
* The teeth (hairs) are pointing down
* Digestive liquid at the bottom
* insects are confused by the sun light coming through the top
Bee Orchid(Ophrys apifera)
The meaning ophrys is eyebrows, referring to the fuzzy bits around the edge of the flower and its is a Greek word.The orchid itself pollinates by its flowers.They are sized like a bee,the colouring and shape of the flower mimic the look and smell of a female bee which means it will bring male bees too pollinate from it. They have a symbiotic relationship to a particular type of fungi to grow well.This plant comes from the middle east of Europe even north Africa.
A weird and WONDERFUL plant that is in our garden is the Buddleia, also called the Butterfly Tree. Because it has bright flowers and lots of nectar, it attracts lots of insects such as bees and butterflies. Even some mysterious WEIRD bugs that you didn’t know existed can be found on the leaves. The Buddleia came from China to England in 1890 and has spread around most of the world. In some countries it is called a weed because it grows in places you don’t want it to grow and it can cause damage to the ecosystem as takes over from other plants.
Fork Leaved Sundew
This is a great carnivorous (meat eating!) plant that is native to Australia. Its name comes from its leaves, which divide in two like a fork in a road. They eat insects by catching them in there sticky leaves, which they wrap around the bugs and eat all the flesh from its body. The large forked leaves can each have up to thirty points!
Welwitschia!
It is a living fossil found in the deserts of Namibia and Angola which are in Africa.Its close relatives are all extinct. The plant has one very very short trunk and only two leaves. No matter how old it gets it will only have two leaves . It can live for 400 to 1500 or even 2000 years!!!
Parrot Flower
My odd plant is the Parrot Flower. It looks like a parrot as it has got a green curly small stork and leaves as the wings, they have little petals as feet they have pink and purple on.
Dragon`s blood tree
Dracaena cinnabari
These trees grow in Africa. Their name comes from the red colour of their resin. They have a canopy shaped like a parasol and collect morning mist to survive.
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=dragon%27s+blood+tree&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiv3-C_gtzUAhWEVhQKHR5uAzsQ_AUICigB&biw=1996&bih=916#imgrc=ejvgDpzmd3pwqM:
My weird and wonderful plant looks like a pair of lips, but its actually a plant. its scientific name is psychotria elata. its known as the most kissable plant. It grows in the tropical rainforest in America. They are weird because of their shape.
Foxglove
I found the Foxglove flower in Wales when I was camping with my family. We went to go pick it and a woman told us it was poisonous to humans.
Foxglove blooms from June to September. Its stem reaches 20 to 59 inches. It produces a purple and pink flower with a white inside. It grows commercially for medical reasons but eating even the smallest piece of foxglove can be deadly to a human.
Dove Orchid ( Peristeria Elata )
Peristeria is the Greek word for dove. The orchid looks like it has a little white dove sitting inside the flower and is very beautiful. This orchid is found in hardwood forests across much of South America, as well as Panama, Trinidad and Costa Rica. It can also be called the holy ghost orchid. It is a species which is now quite rare due to over collection. It is the national flower of Panama.
I chose the Doll’s Eye Plant! It looks spooky and really ugly and the berries are like goggly eyeballs. Its proper name is Actaea Pachypoda and it grows to about 1.5 feet tall and about 3 feet wide. It is a perennial plant and has toothed leaves and white flowers and big white round berries with a black stigma scar on them, which makes them look like eyeballs. When the berries ripen, they turn into a fruit that I would NOT want to eat! They are extremely poisonous to humans as the berries contain cardiogenic toxins which would trigger an immediate heart attack in humans and definitely kill them but they are completely harmless to birds.
The corpse flower
I would not want to go near that plant because it is extremely stinky(it smells like rotten meat, eew).The corpse flower very very very rarely blooms! It is as high as your ceiling (colossal!). Corpse flowers are also able to warm up to 98 degrees fahrenheit (36.7 celsius). The corpse plant is also known as the titan arum. Now for the best fact! Corpse flowers take up to 7 years to bloom!!!
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ca2SO18WAAESD2L.jpg
Ballerina Orchid!
This beautiful species is critically endangered. Only a limited amount of this rare species can be found in Western Australia.The ballerina Orchid forms part of the spider orchid family that grow either singly or in groups .