Unusual Plants You Seldom Hear Anything About

There are many weird and wonderful species of plants and animals in nature. It reminds me of the fact that our life is sometimes complex and even symbiotic, but more importantly how little we really know about life and how we connect to it. What is the purpose and why are these weird plants here? I doubt anyone can answer the question but they must serve some purpose even though we don't know why. Nature seems to know what she is doing although we may question her purpose, that is why there are so many diversified plants and animal species.

Here are a few unusual plants you may never have heard about or seen. You should look each of these up. It will make you appreciate the variations of nature on our own planet Earth and what a fascinating place it can be.

With chocolate bubbles on its bark Wollemia Noblis, this odd pine tree from Australia also has several trunks and leaves that grow in spirals of fern. The most amazing part of it is that this plant and every one of the ones they have found share the same identical DNA. Each plant has both male and female reproductive cones. This plant was thought to be extinct until 1994, because it only appeared in fossilized remains that went back as far as 91 million years ago until it was rediscovered in New South Wales. It is now a living fossil and on the endangered species list. To see more of this plant and read about it you can go to this web site.

http://www.anbg.gov.au/gnp/interns-2004/wollemia-nobilis.html

What is the world's smallest fruit with the world's smallest flower? Wolffia angusta (the common name is watermeal) for it fits the bill. A dozen of these tiny plants would fit on the head of a pin. The fruit itself is about the same size as a grain of salt. This plant lives in Australia too, but a relative of it exists in Asia as well where they are collected and eaten as a vegetable. This plant is an aquatic member of the duckweed family that floats on top of the water and is 40% protein, which is about the same amount that soybeans are. To see and read more about this interesting plant go to this web site:

http://thelongestlistofthelongeststuffatthelongestdomainnameatlonglast.com/smallest17.html

A plant that looks like it came from outer space is the Welwitschis mirabilis. It only has two leaves that keep getting thicker as they grow rather than taller and they spread on the ground sometime to as far as twenty-four feet wide. The plan grows only in the Namibia Dessert of Southwestern Africa:. Some species of this plant are thought to have lived for 2000 years but the average life span of this plant is 400 to 2500 years. To read more about it and see a picture of this out of this world looking plant go to:

http://waynesword.palomar.edu/welwit.htm