Tuberiffic! Tuber display wins gold medalat Chelsea flower show!

For those of you unfortunate enough to have not attended a Chelsea flower show, well, how unfortunate indeed!  Nothing really compares. It actually isn't all about flowers, but flowers are a very big part of the show.  The display gardens are indeed very impressive, but the flower displays by plant producers are something to behold. How so many flowers of so many varieties could be gotten to flower all at once in such numbers that displays could be maintained for a week was quite amazing. TPP remembers strawberry and pepper displays, as well as an all moss, all the time (walls, roof, furniture) exhibit, but mostly it was flowers.  Well, congratulations to the tubers because for the first time they won the gold medal award!  Indeed, the only place you might see a more colorful display of potatoes would be just about any farmers' market in Bolivia or Peru. Actually what impressed TPP the most is the remarkable uniformity of the size and shape of the tubers, which is not what you would see in S. America where size, shape, and color of potatoes is quite diverse. 

Rainforest Field Trip - Luscious Lips

On many occasions the Phactor has tried to illustrate the problem plants have in dispersal of their pollen and seeds. The basic rule is pretty simple: attracting dispersers requires a display, and the bigger the display the better the dispersal. Another problem is that flowers are often either too small or too ephemeral to make a large, long-lasting display, so very often bracts, modified leaves associated with flowers, are used to produce larger, long-lasting displays for many plants. Some of these displays last long enough to also serve in seed dispersal, and this pair of red bracts belonging to Psychotria poeppigiana in the coffee family, looking quite like a pair of luscious lips, lasts long enough that after attracting pollinators to the rather small white flowers, they attract seed-dispersers to the blue fruits. With only 1 fruit remaining, their job is about done, and the lips aren't looking so kissable.

Ludicrous fruit display

The Phactor noticed this ludicrously colorful fruit display this morning on the tree outside his building. What a wonderful presentation this fruit display makes! Looks like something from a Georgia O'Keefe painting. Do you recognize this common genus in fruit?

This fruit is from the bigleafed magnolia (Magnolia macrophylla). The pendent, cone-like fruit is a lurid pink and consists of fruitlets, one from each pistil, in the form of a one or two-seeded follicle (like a milkweed pod). When the fruitlet splits open the seeds dangle forth on a thread and are covered by a fleshy pink-orange aril, a reward for the bird dispersers. The actual seed is black and has a hard shiny seed coat. This time of year a flock of grosbeaks or cedar waxwings will find this tree and an hour later every single seed will be gone.