Cool and Weird Flower Thread hosted by Plant Monster

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Plant MONSTER.: I was watching simpsons at 0.75 without knowing until a scene where homer and bart were getting back massages at a hotel and the noises they were making were super drawn out like a youtube poop

First flower we're looking at are flowers in the genus Puya. They're a kind of mountain dwelling bromeliad that can produce crazy huge spikes of flowers in rare colors. Like I mean huge. 1-4 meters tall in most species. Some reaching like what? 7? 8 meter? There are also some smaller examples. Some are even smaller still, like teeny airplant sized. Like a lot of bromeliads, they start dying after they flower.

the first one we'll look at is Puya alpestris, which is probably the most famous of them all:

whoa it's like Marge fused with a weed nug.

next is Puya chilensis with its dazzling chartreuse marge heads

Here's Puya berteroniana, I can't stress how absolutely rare this color is to see in flowers like holy poo poo this one is new to me its like in between cyan and green

I wonder what weird flower we will see next time.

whoa it's like so mathematically precise i think this might be god?

Plant MONSTER. fucked around with this message at 21:06 on Sep 2, 2021

# ? Aug 30, 2021 19:08

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# ? May 8, 2024 16:25

Sherbert Hoover: Working hard, thank you!

getting the feeling this is more of a marge thread tbh

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# ? Aug 30, 2021 19:26

Contron: www.youtube.com/contron

Show us more flares!

# ? Aug 30, 2021 21:14

idiotsavant

you think you can just come in here calling beautiful flowers puya? no youre a puya, you puyahead

# ? Aug 30, 2021 21:20

Finger Prince

I saw these cool flowers in Peru up in the Andes. I never did figure out what they were.

Normally my go-to plant ID thing is https://identify.plantnet.org/ (there's an app too).

# ? Aug 30, 2021 21:29

Sherbert Hoover: Working hard, thank you!

wow that's amazing Finger Prince!

i saw this spiky boy earlier this year. not really exotic but p neat imo

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# ? Aug 30, 2021 21:39

Plant MONSTER.: I was watching simpsons at 0.75 without knowing until a scene where homer and bart were getting back massages at a hotel and the noises they were making were super drawn out like a youtube poop

Finger Prince posted:

I saw these cool flowers in Peru up in the Andes. I never did figure out what they were.

Abutilon 'red tiger' or similar cultivar

# ? Aug 30, 2021 22:47

Plant MONSTER.: I was watching simpsons at 0.75 without knowing until a scene where homer and bart were getting back massages at a hotel and the noises they were making were super drawn out like a youtube poop

now we will look at Aristolochia gigantea. These giant flowers trap flies and force them to pollinate them.

I'm not sure if I'm even... allowed to post this. Mods?

MODS?!

They don't smell very nice.

Various species of Aristolochia were and are unfortunately still used in herbalist practice but it's like, pretty darn toxic. Bad for your kidneys and can give ya cancer.

# ? Aug 30, 2021 23:08

Heather Papps: hello friend

Plant MONSTER. posted:

now we will look at Aristolochia gigantea. These giant flowers trap flies and force them to pollinate them.

I'm not sure if I'm even... allowed to post this. Mods?

MODS?!

They don't smell very nice.

Various species of Aristolochia were and are unfortunately still used in herbalist practice but it's like, pretty darn toxic. Bad for your kidneys and can give ya cancer.

help im trapped

thanks Dumb Sex-Parrot and deep dish peat moss for this winter bounty!

# ? Aug 30, 2021 23:18

Khanstant

Plant MONSTER. posted:

Here's Puya berteroniana, I can't stress how absolutely rare this color is to see in flowers like holy poo poo this one is new to me its like in between cyan and green

I wonder what weird flower we will see next time.

whoa it's like so mathematically precise i think this might be god?

canada weed marinjuana

# ? Aug 30, 2021 23:23

Finger Prince

Plant MONSTER. posted:

Abutilon 'red tiger' or similar cultivar

Thanks!

So not necessarily endemic to where they were growing, similar looking (Abutilon pictum) ones are from elsewhere in South America. Plenty of hummingbirds around to feed on them (so many hummingbirds!)

# ? Aug 31, 2021 03:25

Khanstant

Plant MONSTER. posted:

SubWay Eat Fresh Plant

# ? Aug 31, 2021 16:04

Pot Smoke Phoenix: Smoke 'em if you gottem!

Sherbert Hoover posted:

getting the feeling this is more of a marge thread tbh

# ? Aug 31, 2021 16:18

Khanstant

never thought a plant could grow so tall as hair

# ? Aug 31, 2021 18:17

Lock: hardcore sound gets you hypah

Plant MONSTER. posted:

more please n thank you

https://giant.gfycat.com/ThoseAcrobaticCapybara.webm
so much love to vanisher for the winter '21 sig!

huge love to Tiny Myers for the fall '21 sig!

# ? Aug 31, 2021 18:58

Plant MONSTER.: I was watching simpsons at 0.75 without knowing until a scene where homer and bart were getting back massages at a hotel and the noises they were making were super drawn out like a youtube poop

ok.

Everyone knows Rafflesia, right? It's the vileplume flower that infects Tetrastigma vines.

But here's a close relative to the Rafflesia that doesn't get nearly as much attention but is more striking.

Its name is Sapria

# ? Aug 31, 2021 20:13

Ass-penny

Plant MONSTER. posted:

someone shop the goat man's hands on this please and thank you.

sorry Plant MONSTER these plants are all super dope I just had a knee jerk reaction when I saw that. :five:

thank you so much to nesamdoom for the scurry fall sig!

(┛◉Д◉)┛彡┻━┻ #YesNutNovember - add this to your sig if you love and support BYOB's own nut

# ? Aug 31, 2021 20:30

biosterous

i like this thread and i look forward to learning more

^{^{thank you saoshyant for this sig!!!}}
^{^{gallery of sigs}}

he/him

# ? Aug 31, 2021 20:57

Manifisto

Plant MONSTER. posted:

ok.

Everyone knows Rafflesia, right? It's the vileplume flower that infects Tetrastigma vines.

But here's a close relative to the Rafflesia that doesn't get nearly as much attention but is more striking.

Its name is Sapria

the hole in the middle of that flower looks quite ominous tbqh

even more so when the flower is sprouting directly out of the ground

it looks like a portal to a disturbing netherworld, like that opening in the tree in tim burton's headless horseman

ty nesamdoom!

# ? Aug 31, 2021 21:25

Plant MONSTER.: I was watching simpsons at 0.75 without knowing until a scene where homer and bart were getting back massages at a hotel and the noises they were making were super drawn out like a youtube poop

We always think of fungus as bumming nutrients off of decaying matter and if anything we can easily find examples of many parasitic fungus that live off of plants many of them named after the visual damage they produce: powdery and downy mildews, rusts, blights, wilts and scabs.

But what about when the reverse happens? When a plant parasitizes a fungus? There's actually a lot of examples out there but the degree to which the plant truly parasitizes the fungus is debatable. But in a lot of cases it doesn't seem the fungus gains much at all from the symbiotic pairing.

Thismia is one such type of flowering plant. Thismia live underground and there are species found all over the world but are only rarely encountered.

When they do bloom, the flowers are incredibly alien looking.

This is a drawing from the 1860s of Thismia neptunis, the plant wasn't observed again by science until 2017.

Photographs of the actual T. neptunis.

Thismia rodwayi from Australia is less alien looking but apparently known well enough to have a common name in "red fairy lanterns"

An unidentified Thismia.

# ? Sep 1, 2021 16:30

Khanstant

Plant MONSTER. posted:

just a shrimp in the ground

# ? Sep 1, 2021 17:09

Sherbert Hoover: Working hard, thank you!

just saw these guys

https://twitter.com/HJ_arts02/status/1433363696307343361

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# ? Sep 2, 2021 17:10

Sarah Cenia: Laying in the forest, by the water
Underneath these ferns
You'll never find me

A+ thread please continue

# ? Sep 2, 2021 18:11

Plant MONSTER.: I was watching simpsons at 0.75 without knowing until a scene where homer and bart were getting back massages at a hotel and the noises they were making were super drawn out like a youtube poop

Flowers are cool but they don't really move around all that much.

Or so you thought. >: O

Stylidium is a flower that has evolved a fun way of ensuring its pollen transfers onto its insect visitors.

Just looking at it, it doesn't look like much but once it detects a change in pressure...

WHAP! a tube slaps pollen onto an insect with enough force to temporarily stun the poor creature... When an insect then visits a slightly older flower on another plant the same thing happens. WHAP! Slapped on the head again, this time by the plant's stigma, which removes some of the pollen off of the insect and says thank you for the pollen load.

The tube then locks back into place.

Lol, imagine getting knocked out by a flower

# ? Sep 2, 2021 20:28

teen witch

this thread loving rules

# ? Sep 2, 2021 20:45

Kaiser Schnitzel: Schnitzel mit uns

can you talk about the parasitic plant that's kind of orange and viney and grows in big mats over the plants it parasitizes? I can't remember the name but maybe it starts with a b? I was terrified when i read about it the first time, and then i saw some in the wild like the next day (but growing on some kudzu so maybe that's cool?)

https://i.imgur.com/R8ctked.mp4
ty Manifisto for this wonderful sig!

# ? Sep 3, 2021 01:46

nut

teen witch posted:

this thread loving rules

Plant MONSTER. posted:

Flowers are cool but they don't really move around all that much.

Or so you thought. >: O

Stylidium is a flower that has evolved a fun way of ensuring its pollen transfers onto its insect visitors.

Just looking at it, it doesn't look like much but once it detects a change in pressure...

WHAP! a tube slaps pollen onto an insect with enough force to temporarily stun the poor creature... When an insect then visits a slightly older flower on another plant the same thing happens. WHAP! Slapped on the head again, this time by the plant's stigma, which removes some of the pollen off of the insect and says thank you for the pollen load.

The tube then locks back into place.

Lol, imagine getting knocked out by a flower

lmao

# ? Sep 3, 2021 01:55

Plant MONSTER.: I was watching simpsons at 0.75 without knowing until a scene where homer and bart were getting back massages at a hotel and the noises they were making were super drawn out like a youtube poop

Kaiser Schnitzel posted:

can you talk about the parasitic plant that's kind of orange and viney and grows in big mats over the plants it parasitizes? I can't remember the name but maybe it starts with a b? I was terrified when i read about it the first time, and then i saw some in the wild like the next day (but growing on some kudzu so maybe that's cool?)

Oh yeah, that's dodder! I should cover it eventually because it's really neat when they flower

# ? Sep 3, 2021 12:09

Khanstant

Plant MONSTER. posted:

thats a spicy one!!!

# ? Sep 3, 2021 17:54

Plant MONSTER.: I was watching simpsons at 0.75 without knowing until a scene where homer and bart were getting back massages at a hotel and the noises they were making were super drawn out like a youtube poop

Mini lesson time

Flowers are morphologically modified stems that express a continuum of modified leaves. These modified plant organs come together to form a flower which generally speaking, follows a typical pattern of whorls from outside to inside: leafy sepals on the outside protect the buds, colorful petals are the next whorl inwards followed by the androecium, or male parts and finally the gynoecium, or the lady bits.

This is known as the ABC flower model. The outermost layer is A, the petals are B and the anthers are C.

Mutations can impact the standard flower model and can cause an inner layer to grow as an outer one. This is super common when we look at flowers which humans have gotten their hands on, such as florist roses, peony hybrids, camellias and so so so many more.

This is a wild rugose rose.

This is a cultivated variety of rugose rose.

Notice how one has only five petals and the other has so many? Well, that's because the male whorl, the androecium, has instead grown as if it were part of the whorl of petals. As we get close to the center of all the petals, we'll start noticing that some of the petals are shrunken, warped and can actually produce pollen at their tips.

But what happens if we go a step further? What if the whorl of petals instead grew as a whorl of leaves? This isn't as common as petallody (where petals grow instead of reproductive structures) and is usually caused by a virus or environmental damage.... Anyway, I want you to meet Rosa chinensis 'viridiflora', or "the green rose"

Unlike most other flowers that exhibit what is known as "phyllody" (the growth of leafy parts instead of floral parts) the green rose is a mutation and quite an ancient on at that! It still produces a sweet aroma like other roses but has a distinctive "green" smell to it, I'm told.

# ? Sep 3, 2021 20:02

nut

I am a big fan of the green rose

# ? Sep 3, 2021 20:30

Plant MONSTER.: I was watching simpsons at 0.75 without knowing until a scene where homer and bart were getting back massages at a hotel and the noises they were making were super drawn out like a youtube poop

If it looks like a flower and smells like a flower, is it a flower? Not always. Sometimes it's a fungus.

First let's meet the host plant to the fungus, Xyris.

These fellas are native to The Guianas. Pretty standard plant. Cute. Yellow. But sometimes they host a fungus known as Fusarium xyrophilum. When this happens, the fungus puts a halt to the plant's abilities to set its in own flowers and instead the fungus itself produces structures that mimic flowers in so many ways.

The one on the left is our friend, the Xyris flower, but the other two are fungal mimics. The golden orange petals aren't modified plant tissues - they're all fungus. And like most yellow flowers, this fungus is able to reflect UV light in the same way, which makes the fungal clumps more enticing to a pollinator. More curious still is its ability to produce the same principal chemical constituent of the Xyris flower's fragrance: 2-Ethylhexanol. This makes the fungus even harder still for a passing beetle to ignore.

All of this results in the insects propagating the fungus as they visit similar, uninfected plants of the same genus. Although other fungi can and do regularly modify plants to serve their needs, Fusarium xyrophilum is the only fungus known to create pseudo-flowers in such a manner.

Plant MONSTER. fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Sep 4, 2021

# ? Sep 4, 2021 22:45

Manifisto

Plant MONSTER. posted:

If it looks like a flower and smells like a flower, is it a flower? Not always. Sometimes it's a fungus.

First let's meet the host plant to the fungus, Xyris.

These fellas are native to The Guianas. Pretty standard plant. Cute. Yellow. But sometimes they host a fungus known as Fusarium xyrophilum. When this happens, the fungus puts a halt to the plant's abilities to set its in own flowers and instead the fungus itself produces structures that mimic flowers in so many ways.

The one on the left is our friend, the Xyris flower, but the other two are fungal mimics. The golden orange petals aren't modified plant tissues - they're all fungus. And like most yellow flowers, this fungus is able to reflect UV light in the same way, which makes the fungal clumps more enticing to a pollinator. More curious still is its ability to produce the same principal chemical constituent of the Xyris flower's fragrance: 2-Ethylhexanol. This makes the fungus even harder still for a passing beetle to ignore.

All of this results in the insects propagating the fungus as they visit similar, uninfected plants of the same genus. Although other fungi can and do regularly modify plants to serve their needs, Fusarium xyrophilum is the only fungus known to create pseudo-flowers in such a manner.

while slightly disturbing that is also p cool

fungi are super resourceful

ty nesamdoom!

# ? Sep 5, 2021 01:34

Sarah Cenia: Laying in the forest, by the water
Underneath these ferns
You'll never find me

Manifisto posted:

while slightly disturbing that is also p cool

fungi are super resourceful

That is insane

HOW DOES IT KNOW TO REPLICATE EVERYTHING EVEN DOWN TO SHAPES AND COLORS
HOW

# ? Sep 5, 2021 13:00

Finger Prince

Achtane posted:

That is insane

HOW DOES IT KNOW TO REPLICATE EVERYTHING EVEN DOWN TO SHAPES AND COLORS
HOW

Well, it's got all the same chemicals available to it that the plant does. But yeah, camouflage/mimicry is such a weird adaptation. Like, bugs that look like sticks and leaves. Was it just that every mutation that made it look less like a leaf got eaten by a predator, so the only thing that survived looks like a leaf now? It just blows my mind. Evolution is cool. Over hundreds of millions of years, anything is possible I guess!

# ? Sep 5, 2021 13:52

Plant MONSTER.: I was watching simpsons at 0.75 without knowing until a scene where homer and bart were getting back massages at a hotel and the noises they were making were super drawn out like a youtube poop

Finger Prince posted:

Well, it's got all the same chemicals available to it that the plant does. But yeah, camouflage/mimicry is such a weird adaptation. Like, bugs that look like sticks and leaves. Was it just that every mutation that made it look less like a leaf got eaten by a predator, so the only thing that survived looks like a leaf now? It just blows my mind. Evolution is cool. Over hundreds of millions of years, anything is possible I guess!

What was interesting is that when they cultured the fungus in labs using carnation leaf agar, they found the fungus is capable of producing all the secondary metabolites needed to mimic the Xyris flowers independent of that actual plant itself.

# ? Sep 5, 2021 15:29

FluffieDuckie

For some reason smart fungus is a little terrifying

Thank you for the beautiful sig Machai!

# ? Sep 5, 2021 17:41

FluffieDuckie

Like what if it decided to mimic me? :tinfoil:

Thank you for the beautiful sig Machai!

# ? Sep 5, 2021 17:42

Finger Prince

FluffieDuckie posted:

Like what if it decided to mimic me?

What if it already did?

# ? Sep 5, 2021 18:13

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# ? May 8, 2024 16:25

Plant MONSTER.: I was watching simpsons at 0.75 without knowing until a scene where homer and bart were getting back massages at a hotel and the noises they were making were super drawn out like a youtube poop

Today let's look at something cuter.

Teeny tiny orchid blooms in the genus Platystele. Jury's still out if they're the smallest orchid flowers there are.... But no one can deny just how tiny they are.

Platystele jungermannioides blossom next to a fingat.

Platystele umbellata has its little flowers grown in umbels that resemble little balls made of orchid flowers.

Platystele stenostachya. So tiny but so colorful.

# ? Sep 5, 2021 20:20

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > BYOB Goldmine: Gold Mango > Cool and Weird Flower Thread hosted by Plant Monster

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