A rare and endangered palm at the Eden Project is thought to have made botanical history by producing the UK’s largest mature leaf of its kind, about 13ft (4m) long. The coco de mer, native to the Seychelles, was grown from a seed in the Cornwall attraction’s rainforest biome. The seed, given by the Seychelles Ministry of Agriculture in 2003, has now developed into a plant with a massive mature leaf. Over the next decade, the leaf could grow to 8-10m long, the Eden Project said. — Rare palm’s 13ft leaf thought to be UK’s largest, BBC News, 20ix25
Category Archives: Botany
Perforative Performativity

St John’s Wort, Hypericum perforatum (image Wikipedia)
Hurtica

Urtica dioica by the German botanist Otto Wilhelm Thomé (1840-1925)
Triatom
Scarlet Varlet

Scarlet pimpernel, Anagallis arvensis L. 1753 (more at Wikipedia)
Vulgar Tongue

Viper’s bugloss, Echium vulgare (L 1753)
Also known as: blue devil, blue thistle, blueweed, snake flower; Gewöhnlicher Natternkopf, Blaue Natternkopf; vipérine commune, vipérine vulgaire, serpentine; viperina azzurra; viborera, viperina; gwiberlys; żmijowiec zwyczajny; naderles; ლურჯი ძირწითელა; 蓝蓟; синяк обыкновенный; etc.
Floral Hex
I knew what the Sempervivum plant looked like:

Sempervivum × giuseppii (from Wikipedia)
But I’d never seen the flowers until a few days ago:

Sempervivum flowers (from Gardener’s Path)
They remind me of Clark Ashton Smith’s “The Demon of the Flower”:
Not as the plants and flowers of Earth, growing peacefully beneath a simple sun, were the blossoms of the planet Lophai. Coiling and uncoiling in double dawns; tossing tumultuously under vast suns of jade green and balas-ruby orange; swaying and weltering in rich twilights, in aurora-curtained nights, they resembled fields of rooted serpents that dance eternally to an other-worldly music. — “The Demon of the Flower”, Astounding Stories, Dec 1933
Bagina Dentata

Norman Weaver’s cover for The Freedom Trap (1971) by Desmond Bagley (image from Morgan’s Rare Books)
Ip Trip

Mexican morning-glory, Ipomoea tricolor
(click for larger image)
Spied a Lily

Spider Lily, Hymenocallis sp. (source)
(click for larger)

