Offbeat Tuesday

Plant Trivia is our topic today.

84% of a raw apple is water.

A cucumber is 96% water.

A notch in a tree will remain the same distance from the ground as the tree grows.

A pineapple is a berry.

Advertisements for coffee in London in 1657 claimed that the beverage was a cure for scurvy, gout and other ills.

Almonds are the oldest, most widely cultivated and extensively used nuts in the world.

Americans eat more bananas than any other fruit: a total of 11 billion a year.

An average ear of corn has 800 kernels, arranged in 16 rows.

Avocados have the highest calories of any fruit at 167 calories per hundred grams.

Banana oil never saw a banana; it's made from petroleum.

Bananas are actually herbs. Bananas die after fruiting, like all herbs do.

Both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew cannabis sativa (marijuana) on their plantations.

Cranberries are one of just 3 major fruits native to North America. Blueberries and Concord grapes are the other two.

Dr. Joel Poinsett, the 1st US ambassador to Mexico, brought the poinsettia to US in 1828. The plant, called "flower of the blessed night" in Mexico was renamed in Poinsett's honor.

Eggplant is a member of the thistle family.

Ginger has been clinically demonstrated to work twice as well as Dramamine for fighting motion sickness, with no side effects.

Hydroponics is the technique by which plants are grown in water without soil.

In Siberia, in 1994, a container full of marijuana was discovered in the 2,000-year-old grave of a Scythian princess and priestess, among the many other articles buried with her.

Morphine was given its name in 1803 by the discoverer, a 20 year old German pharmacist named Friedrich Saturner. He named it after Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams.

No species of wild plant produces a flower or blossom that is absolutely black, and so far, none has been developed artificially.

Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously.

Oak trees do not have acorns until they are fifty years old or older.

One pound of tea can make 300 cups of the beverage.

One ragweed plant can release as many as one billion grains of pollen.

Oranges, lemons, watermelons, and tomatoes are berries.

Peanuts are beans.

Plants that need to attract moths for pollination are generally white or pale yellow, to be better seen when the light is dim. Plants that depend on butterflies, such as the poppy or the hibiscus, have more colorful flowers.

The California redwood - coast redwood and giant sequoia - are the tallest and largest living organism in the world.

The fragrance of flowers is due to the essences of oil which they produce.

The largest single flower is the Rafflesia or "corpse flower". They are generally 3 feet in diameter with the record being 42 inches.

The oldest living thing in existence is not a giant redwood, but a bristlecone pine in the White Mountains of California, dated to be aged 4,600 years old.

The plant life in the oceans make up about 85 percent of all the greenery on the Earth.

The rose family of plants, in addition to flowers, gives us apples, pears, plums, cherries, almonds, peaches and apricots.

The world's tallest grass, which has sometimes grown 130 feet or more, is bamboo.

Wheat is the world's most widely cultivated plant; grown on every continent except Antarctica.

When a coffee seed is planted, it takes five years to yield consumable fruit.

When you give someone roses, the color can have a meaning. The meaning of rose colors:
Red = Love and respect
Deep pink = Gratitude, appreciation
Light pink = Admiration, sympathy
White = Reverence, humility
Yellow = Joy, gladness
Orange = Enthusiasm, desire
Red & yellow blend = Gaiety, joviality
Pale blended tones = Sociability, friendship

Willow bark, which provides the salicylic acid from which aspirin was originally synthesized, has been used as a pain remedy ever since the Greeks discovered its therapeutic power nearly 2,500 years ago.

Wine grapes, oranges, figs and olives were first planted in North America by Father Junipero Sera in 1769.