Unique Plant (Parnassia fimbriata)

A bit of BPotD news before today"s entry: we finally have a date and time set to transition the web site over to the new server. It"s been a real headache for months, but hopefully the pain will be over by mid-week next week. On Monday @ 10am local time, we"ll start to move the site over. Unfortunately, since we"re also moving to a new server, the web site domain name needs to be pointed to the new server, and that means it appears to be a couple days before you are able to access content on the new site while the name propagates to the various Internet Service Providers. The old site will still be running for a few days, but comments will be turned off. Fingers crossed that all goes well!

The last time I featured a Parnassia on BPotD (over 5 years ago: Parnassia glauca), I wrote that the genus had been moved out of the Saxifragaceae (you"ll see that in a number of classification systems) and even out of the Saxifragales (the order containing the Saxifragaceae and related families) and into the Parnassiaceae (within the Celastrales). Many research groups have since studied the relationships between Parnassiaceae and Celastraceae; current thought provisionally places Parnassia within the Celastraceae, but it seems (after reading the Phylogeny section on the linked page) that this may yet revert to being split again.

This August photograph of Parnassia fimbriata (fringed grass-of-Parnassus or Rocky Mountain grass-of-Parnassus) was taken only meters away from a second of British Columbia"s four Parnassia species, Parnassia kotzebuei. Parnassia is another genus I am always thrilled to encounter, as it was one of the first dozen or so I learned to recognize in Manitoba.

Parnassia fimbriata is native to much of western North America, where it grows in moist sites (fens, bogs, streamside, seeps, wet meadows) at elevations ranging from lowland to alpine. It is the tallest of these herbaceous species in British Columbia, occasionally reaching 50cm in height (though more typically 15 to 30cm). Parnassia kotzebuei, by comparison, is the shortest, ranging from 6-20cm.

Parnassia is a reference to Mount Parnassus; Linnaeus applied the name to the genus based on an account in Materia Medica, a written work by the Greek doctor Dioscorides (Dioscorides called it Agrostis En Parnasso). The Plants for a Future database contains a listing of historical medicinal uses for Parnassia palustris, the species thought to have been described by Dioscorides (who also said of it: "That which grows in Cilicia (which the inhabitants call cinna) inflames rude beasts if often fed on when it is moist".

For additional photographs, see Calphotos: Parnassia fimbriata or Southwest Colorado

Unique Plant with vivid Lights in the night

Perhaps in future roadway lighting will be replaced with this burning tree. Scientists succeeded in developing LED lamps made from biological.

Scientists from Academia Sinica and National Cheng Kung University in Taipei and Tainan embed-shaped gold nanoparticles glow or sea urchin known as bio LED, into plant leaves.

The new nanoparticles could replace the electric street lamps with light source of CO2 in the atmosphere. "In the future, bio LEDs can be used to make roadside trees illuminated at night," said Yen-Hsun Su. "This way we will save energy, and CO2 will be absorbed as bio-energy LED through photosynthesis."

As quoted by MSNBC, sea urchin-shaped gold nanoparticles is the key to the absorption of light, and spread abroad. Chlorophyll, photosynthesis pigments that give the characteristic green color of leaves, known for their ability to absorb certain wavelengths of light. When exposed to light with wavelengths around 400 nanometers, chlorophyll usually emit a red color.

Light purple hard to come by, especially at night when pengendera and penajan feet need it. Scientists need a source of light purple, and light sources that can be found in gold nanoparticles. When the shorter wavelengths of light on gold nanoparticles, then the leaves will emit violet light.

Scientists hope the trees are given the gold nanoparticles will produce enough light so that it can replace the electric street lamps. For now, the effect is still limited to the subject tests, water plants known as Bacopa caroliniana.

Scientists from the University of Maryland Krishanu Ray said that is something that is impossible to reproduce this tree along the road. "These trees can be used as street lights," he said. "However, it is still far to get there."

Unique plant as Rats eaters

In this world there are some plants that can prey on small insects such as flies, crickets, ants, and others. One of these predator is Nepenthes sp.

Nepenthes, known as the à ¢ â, ¬ Å "Ketakongà ¢ â, ¬  we usually find in the forests of Indonesia. These plants are small enough to be able to eat animals for rats. But in the Philippines, have found plants semar bag big enough to devour such a rodents rats. Ketakong is called by the name of Nepenthes attenboroughii.

The discovery of this plant originated from two missionaries who in 2000 tried to climb Mount Victoria. Mountain which is located in Palawan, Philippines including the rarely visited it human. They climb with a bit of preparation to finally lost for thirteen days before it can be saved. When he returned, both claimed to see the plant giant semar bag.

It is then attracted the attention of nature lovers like Stewart McPherson and independent botanists such as Alastair Robinson from England and Volker Heinrich from the Philippines. All three are experts ketakong plants and has traveled to many remote areas of the search for new species.

In 2007, they melakukakn espedisi for two months in the Philippines, including climbing Mount Victoria. When hiking through lowland forests, they found large ketakong plants known as Nepenthes Philippinensis, along with ferns pink and blue mushroom that can not be diindentifikasikan.

The new findings are indeed found at an altitude of about 1,600 above sea level. They found a great many plants ketakong and immediately knew that it was not a known species. The new crop is called Nepenthes attenboroughii, taken from the name of the broadcaster David Attenborough nature show. Ketakong is one of the largest carnivorous plant traps and produce spectacular is not only capable of catching insects, but rodents such as rats.

Typical ketakong plants usually grow in large numbers. McPherson hopes remote locations inaccessible mountains that it would prevent poachers destroying it. In the same expedition, the team also found other ketakong namely Nepenthes deaniana have not seen the last 100 years, the last specimen of the species lost in fire herbarium in 1945.





When it comes down the mountain, the team is still finding new species of plants sundrew, a type of plant with sticky traps that are members of the genus Drosera.

The Most Weird Trees

Very Strange and odd trees. You can see some of them that looks like people, trees moving and dancing like a people.