Category Archives: Africa

Thunbergia alata, the well traveled climber.

Thunbergia alata, commonly known as the Black Eyed Susan vine, is a climbing vine from the Acanthaceae family (Heywood et al, 2007)1, which produces large showy yellow flowers with a black spot in the centre. These large bright flowers and … Continue reading

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Cyatheaceae: The Scaly Tree Ferns

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Commonly known as the scaly tree ferns, Cyatheaceae are a clade of ca. 600 plant species within a group of plants known as the monilophytes or ferns (Smith et al. 2006). All ferns are spore-bearing and share a highly distinctive … Continue reading

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Eichhornia crassipes – The ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ of the freshwater world.

Eichhornia crassipes (Water Hyacinth) has a relatively ambivalent place in freshwater habitats. It has become a serious invasive species in many countries, and is one of the world’s most noxious aquatic weeds (Patel, 2012), yet it has been found to … Continue reading

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Dracaenaceae: Dragon’s Blood and the language of the birds …

Dracaenaceae Salisb., Gen. Pl: 73 (1866), nom. cons. The family Dracaenaceae has a complex, fascinating history, of great interest will be to see how it unfolds.  It is the family of Dragon Trees, of one, two or three genera and … Continue reading

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Musaceae – GIANT HERBS not trees!

When we talk about plants and people, the “Banana family” or Musaceae is one of the prominent ones. Although it has a long history and prominent role in human and wildlife diet, the puzzle of the origin and evolutionary theory … Continue reading

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Ipomoea batatas – Sweet Potato or When is a potato not a potato?

Many of you will be familiar with the knobbly, red-skinned, orange-fleshed, vegetable known as sweet potato but you might be surprised to learn that it is more closely related to the parasitic thread-like dodders than it is to our familiar … Continue reading

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 Cyperus papyrus L., post 2 of 2, taxonomy and distribution

Cyperus papyrus is a tall and graceful plant.  It looks stunning in the Tropical Greenhouse with a tropical blue sky behind it, which, even in October, Reading obligingly provided, to prove the point.  It’s up to 5m tall, with almost globular … Continue reading

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Cyperus papyrus L., post 1 of 2, value and uses

The one thing that most people know about this plant is that it was the source of paper for  ancient Egyptians.  They started to use it for writing on circa 5000 years ago, and carried on up until the 8th or … Continue reading

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Coffea arabica – Coffee

Our coffee plant is one of the few individuals we did not uproot and move during the greenhouse renovation.  The plant happened to be in just the right place.

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Chlorophytum comosum – Spider plant

Within the glasshouse we have two variegated forms of Chlorophytum comosum. C.comosum ‘Vittatum’ with mid-green leaves and a broad central white stripe and C.comosum ‘Variegatum’ with darker green leaves and a white margin.

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