weird plants

Euphorbia Obesa, also known as the Baseball Plant, is endemic to the Great Karoo region of South Africa. Unsustainable harvesting by plant collectors who value Euphorbia obesa for its interesting and curious appearance has severely impacted wild populations. Consequently, national and international legislation have been enacted to protect remaining populations. While Euphorbia obesa remains endangered in its native habitat, it has become very common in cultivation. By growing large numbers of Euphorbia obesa, nurseries and botanical gardens have been working to ensure that specimens being traded and sold among plant collectors are not obtained from the wild.

A flower taller than a man, stinking strongly of putrefying roadkill and colored deep burgundy to mimic rotting flesh, sounds like something from a low-budget science fiction movie. But Indonesias titan arum

Baobab is the common name of a genus (Adansonia) containing eight species of trees, native to Madagascar, mainland Africa and Australia. Also known as the Bottle Tree, not only do they look like bottles, but the trees typically store around 300 liters of water! No wonder why they often live over 500 years!

Dracaena Cinnabari is a Dragon Tree native to the Socotra archipelago. It is also referred to as the Dragon Blood Tree and Socotra Dragon Tree. It is one of the most striking of Socotras plants, a strange-looking, umbrella-shaped tree. It was first formally described by Isaac Bayley Balfour in 1882. A miniature Icon of this tree is in Windows as Network-Icon. Its red sap was the dragons blood of the ancients, sought after as a medicine and a dye.

Mimosa Pudica (pudica = shy), or the Sensitive Plant, has a curiosity value: the compound leaves fold inward and droop when touched or shaken, re-opening within minutes. The species is native to South America and Central America, but is now a pantropical weed. Who would know that plants have feelings too?

Also known as Rose of Jericho, the Selaginella Lepidophylla is a species of desert plant noted for its ability to survive almost complete desiccation; during dry weather in its native habitat, its stems curl into a tight ball and uncurl when exposed to moisture. It is native to the Chihuahuan Desert.

Theres a good reason that Batman uses bat imagery to strike terror into the hearts of Gothams criminals, rather than, say, some kind of shrew. Bats are freakin scary. For the same reason, nature has decided to use that same mold to make plants that can induce spontaneous bowel movements, with the addition of some tentacles just to be sure, like we have on the Chinese black batflowers.

While fungi are not actually plants, this was so peculiar we decided to include it. According to the University of Guelph in Ontario, the bleeding tooth fungus, or Hydnellum peckii, is an inedible mushroom commonly found under conifers. This mushroom gets its name from the fact that when young, it secretes droplets of a of red substance that looks eerily like blood.

Most of us have eaten figs, in large part due to the popularity of a certain cookie, so what is so strange about them? How about the fact that they digest wasps? According to the U.S. Forest Service, a number of figs are pollinated by wasps that are born and die within fig fruit. The males live out the entirety of their short lives in one fig, the female wasps fly to another tree deposit eggs, and die inside that fig. Fortunately, howstuffworks.com reports that the wasps are actually digested by the plant, broken down by an enzyme the fig secretes.

While it looks like just another wildflower, what makes the Mimosa pudica, or Touch-Me-Not, so unusual is that the plant will actually close in on itself when something comes in contact with it, says Dr. Ombrello of the Union City College Biology Department, literally seeming to shrivel up when touched.