As it is still remaining dry and winter is here and not a real lot is happening in our gardens I thought it was maybe time for a little light heartedness and some random fun things about plants.
• Onions, apples and potatoes all taste the same – try eating them with your nose closed so you can’t smell but only taste!
• Most of the nutrients in a potato are in the skin
• The first potatoes were cultivated in Peru about 7000 years ago
• Eating too many onions will cause drowsiness
• Apples are 25% air and this is why they float and can be used in the game “bobbing for apples”
• Dendrochronology is the science of calculating the age of a tree by counting its growth rings
• The tallest tree ever was an Australian eucalypt measured in 1872 at 435 feet
• Cabbage is 91% water
• Elephant grass from Africa grows to 4.5 metres tall and so gets its name because even elephants can hide in it.
• Bananas contain a chemical that can cause you to feel happy
• 85% of all plant life is in the ocean
• An average-size tree contains enough wood to make 170,100 pencils
• Cricket bats are made from Willow and baseball bats from Hickory
• Brazil is named after a tree
• Oak trees are struck by lightning more than any other tree, and do not produce acorns until they are 50 years old
• The African Baobab tree can store 1000 to 120,000 litres of water in the swollen trunk
• There are over 300,000 identified plant species world-wide and the list is growing
• Humans use about 2000 different plant species as food
• Some varieties of Bamboo can grow as much as 35 inches in a single day and is the fastest-growing woody plant in the world
• Willow bark produced the first painkiller, fever reducer and type of aspirin
• The Amazon jungle produces over half the world’s oxygen
• Pineapples are the only edible member of the bromeliad family
• Bristlecone Pines are the oldest living tree
• In France the Festival of Lily of the Valley is celebrated on May 1st each year
• 70,000 plant species are used in medicine
• A plant capable of devouring rats was discovered by scientists in 2009 in the Philippines
• The tallest basil plant was recorded at 3.34 metres
• Finally…. scientists believe plants dislike human noise! So much for talking to your indoor, or any, plant to encourage it to grow!!
Now all these “facts” came from the internet so I cannot be held responsible for their accuracy!
Brian Sams is and entertaining, informative and interesting speaker so for more fun and an enjoyable night out come to the CWA rooms in Grafton Street at 7.00pm on Wednesday 26th June for a “Free Night out with Brian Sams”. See you there!
