By Deb Wiley
Fact 1:
Torenia, a shade-loving annual, is called the wishbone flower. Look for tiny wishbone-shape stamens inside the purple, blue or burgundy petals.
Fact 2
The world's tallest-growing tree is the coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens), which grows along the Pacific Coast of the United States, mainly in California. Interestingly enough, it's not the world's oldest-growing tree; that award goes to a bristlecone pine (Pinus aristata).
Fact 3
Bamboo is the fastest-growing woody plant in the world; it can grow 35 inches in a single day.
Fact 4
Tomato juice is the official state beverage of Ohio, honoring the part A. W. Livingston of Reynoldsburg, Ohio, played in popularizing the tomato in the late 1800s.
Fact 5
Archaeologists have uncovered evidence that grapes were grown to make wine about 8,000 years ago in Mesopotamia (today's Iraq), although the ancient Egyptians were the first to record the process of making wine about 5,000 years ago.
Fact 6
During the 1600s, tulips were so valuable in Holland that their bulbs were worth more than gold. The craze was called tulip mania, or tulipomania, and caused the crash of the Dutch economy. Tulips can continue to grow as much as an inch per day after being cut.
Fact 7
Vanilla flavoring comes from the pod of an orchid, Vanilla planifolia. Though the pods are called vanilla beans, they're more closely related to corn than green beans.
Fact 8
The word pineapple.comes from European explorers who thought the fruit combined the look of a pinecone with flesh like that of an apple. Pineapples are the only edible members of the bromeliad family.
Fact 9
From a botanical standpoint, avocados and pumpkins are fruits, not vegetables, because they bear the plants' seeds. Rhubarb, on the other hand, is a vegetable.
Fact 10
Saffron, used as a flavoring in Mediterranean cooking, is harvested from the stigmas of a type of fall-blooming crocus, Crocus sativus.
Fact 11
Poinsettias, natives of Mexico, were brought to the United States in 1825 by the first U.S. minister to Mexico, Joel Poinsett, for whom the plant is named.
Fact 12
Small pockets of air inside cranberries cause them to bounce and float in water.
Fact 13
The flower of the titan arum (Amorphophallus titanium) is the largest unbranched flower in the world and can reach up to 15 feet tall. The bloom produces a smell like that of rotting meat, giving it the common name of corpse flower. A similar smell comes from Rafflesia, another plant that hails from the rain forests of Sumatra. Both plants developed their scent so they could be pollinated by flies; they don't compete with other blooms for butterflies and hummingbirds.
Fact 14
All parts of the oleander (Nerium oleander), a beautiful Mediterranean-native flowering shrub, are poisonous. Ingesting oleander leaves can cause gastrointestinal, cardiac, and central nervous system problems and possible death.
Fact 15
Iris means "rainbow" in Greek, and Iris was goddess of the rainbow in Greek mythology. Wormwood (Artemisia) was named after the goddess Artemis, milkweed (Asclepias) after the god Asclepius, and Hebe after the Greek goddess Hebe.
Fact 16
In France, May 1 is La Fete du Muguet, the festival of the lily-of-the-valley. The celebration includes giving bouquets of lily-of-the-valley to loved ones, wishing them health and happiness.
Fact 17
Angiosperm is the scientific name for flowering plants and refers to the seeds being borne in capsules or fruits. Nonflowering plants— pines, spruces, firs, junipers, larches, cycads, and ginkgoes— are called gymnosperms.
Fact 18
Snapdragon flowers resemble a dragon, and if you squeeze the sides, the dragon's mouth will appear to open and close.
Fact 19
A sunflower looks like one large flower, but each head is composed of hundreds of tiny flowers called florets, which ripen to become the seeds. This is the case for all plants in the sunflower family, including daisies, yarrow, goldenrod, asters, coreopsis, and bachelor's buttons.
Fact 20
The first potatoes were cultivated in Peru about 7,000 years ago.
Fact 21
Peaches, Pears, apricots, quinces, strawberries, and apples are members of the rose family. So are ornamental species such as spirea, mountain ash, goatsbeard, and ninebark.
Fact 22
Cranberries, Concord grapes, and blueberries are three popular fruits native to North America.
Fact 23
The difference between nectarines and peaches is that nectarines don't have fuzzy skins. You can graft peach branches onto a nectarine tree or nectarine branches onto a peach tree so you have both types of fruits.
Fact 24
The average strawberry has 200 seeds. It's the only fruit that bears its seeds on the outside.
Fact 25
Sulfuric compounds are to blame for cut onions bringing tears to your eyes. According to the National Onion Association, chilling the onion and cutting the root end last reduces the problem.
Fact 26
Garlic mustard is a member of the mustard family, not garlic. This invasive herb outcompetes native plants in the Eastern and Midwestern United States, posing a threat to other native plants and the species that depend on them.
Fact 27
Ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba) is one of the oldest living tree species; it dates back to about 250 million years ago. Dawn redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides) is another ancient species; it dates back about 150 million years. Both were known in the fossil record before they were found alive.
Fact 28
Trees are the longest-living organisms on earth.
Fact 29
Peanuts are not nuts, but legumes related to beans and lentils. They have more protein, niacin, folate, and phytosterols than any nut, according to the National Peanut Board.
Fact 30
The title for the world's hottest chili pepper remains contested. ‘Bhut Jolokia', 401.5 times hotter than bottled hot pepper sauce, earned the Guinness World Records title in 2007, but several hotter chilis claimed the title in 2011.
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