Fascination of Plants Day

I ignore most Press Releases, but the one I received yesterday is too good too miss, especially is it allows me to share the kind of plant picture I can't take myself...

As you can see May 18th next year has been designated as the first international Fascination of Plants day.

Many of our tippety top plant organisations in the UK are involved, such as the Eden Project, lots of botanical gardens like Kew, the Natural History Museum, plus various research and educational organisations. The full list of participating UK organisations will be here*.

In the run up to next year's special day, Kew Gardens have selected ten of their most fascinating plants, from the giant titan arum rising three metres high to the smallest water lily in the world, with pads as little as 1cm across. The myriad of plants that has shaped history, and continues to affect our lives, is showcased by the John Innes Centre.

Here's the amazing plant picture as promised, taken by Olivier Leroux of the National University of Ireland, Galway. It's a longitudinal section of a fern crozier, Asplenium elliottii. You might like to compare it with the photo I took of my tree fern, Dicksonia antarctica unfurling in 2009.

I'm sure there's more like this to come next year :)

You can get up to the minute information by following @PlantDay2012 0n Twitter.

* sadly this currently isn't as full a list as the one I received yesterday - email me at vegplotting at gmail dot com if you'd like it

Comments

  1. easygardener10 November 2011 at 10:11

    Last time I visited Kew I had just missed the flowering of the giant Arum - very annoying!
    BTW - Salvia elegans has survived before in a well drained raised border but I always take cuttings. The giant plant in my picture is new (planted May) and the huge size is frankly a bit unusual :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. The bike shed10 November 2011 at 22:08

    I think I like your picture better, more life to it, so there:)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Helen11 November 2011 at 02:11

    Now I keep wanting to sing The Fascination of You... Or should it be Kew?

    Apropos to the news release, my verification word is: flash

    ReplyDelete
  4. VP11 November 2011 at 08:14

    EG - thanks for answering my question. Your wonderful Salvia's so huge, it looked like it couldn't be one of this year's plantings :)

    Mark - thanks :) I love peering down microscopes, so I also like this different perspective.

    Helen - flash is most appropriate - it's not often I get PRs which are embargoed until a certain time (1 minute past midnight yesterday).

    ReplyDelete
  5. Janet/Plantaliscious14 November 2011 at 08:30

    What a great idea, so many of these special "days" leave me cold, but this one should be amazing. And hey, I bet if you bought yourself a microscope you could do some awesome photographs of plant cross sections too ;-)

    ReplyDelete

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