Natural Science Forum / Biology / Botany / July 2007

Does anyone know how long the terms "caulescent" and "acaulescent"
have been in use, and if their is a reference I can point to where
they were first used? They refer to whether or not a plant has a
visible stem. For example, trees are considered caulescent because of

http://www.fw.vt.edu/dendro/dendrology/syllabus/factsheet.cfm?ID=135
I suspect that the seeds of this Virginia Tech website are not that of
"Rock Elm" Ulmus Thomasii (Racemosa)
but rather instead the seeds of Siberian Elm. And I have doubts on the

http://www.flickr.com/photos/10327356@N04/865388206/in/datetaken/
Anyonemay help me?
Thank you
Fabrizio

Does anyone know of a term used in botany to define the "trunkness" of
a plant? By trunkness I mean the tendency of a tree's (or other
plant's) branches to consist of one main branch which shoots off many
smaller branches (e.g. like a tree trunk). Low "trunkness" would be

Could someone identify the plant in my cartoon? If someone asks, I
want to be able to tell them. All I know is that it's easy to draw.
http://www.polisource.com/cartoons/plant.jpg

I am well aware of how hazardous giant hogweed is, before anybody
posts trivial responses to this.
A friend of mine made himself a very nice musical instrument
(a harmonic whistle resembling a Hungarian tilinko) from part

PLEASE LET ME KNOW THE BOTANICAL NAMES OF THE
FOLLOWING PLANTS WHICH ARE IN HINDI
1. AAGI
2. TELIYA KUNDAR

How much plant biomass is needed per human?
In the first place, someone will (correctly) respond that the question
is poorly conceived, hopelessly vague, dependent on too many unknowns,
etc.

Learned a lesson this year about a simple thing such as eating fruit.
I love fruit and all my life
have never slackened my desire for fruit. Last year I canned 360
quarts of fruit. But some of them

I was ordering some sushi the other day, and I ordered some yamagobo.
Since I had no idea what it was, I googled it, and it turns out that
it is burdock.  Luckily, I hit the images tag, and I saw something
that amazed me, the fruits of a plant that I have been at a loss to

I never realized that supporting a tree trunk when a sapling would be
injurious. The first acquintance to this
phenomenon was when I cleaned out a woodlot where I wanted to save all
the spruce but remove the elm

Can someone help me identify the plants found in an Ohio field with
pointed white bulbs on the ends of long stalks pictured at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cpal/ ?  They were growing near many
wild pea flowers.

Flowering now in Denver, Colorado:
http://home.earthlink.net/~w6zno/IDthisFlower.jpg
-- Gnarlie
http://Gnarlodious.com/

Found these plants in a public garden on Cleveland's Public Square (in
Ohio) and wondered what they are. Links to photos of them:
http://media1.pikeo.com/images/server3/upload/93JFIFY32SWM5BEUOBR1K3XICLLO8
QOJ.JPG

The world's largest flower is also one of the worst smelling flowers.
Rafflesia Arnoldii is often over 3 feet wide and its petals are almost
an inch thick. You wouldn't want it in your garden, however, because
it smells like a rotting animal. The flower is attempting to attract