Five fab plants to celebrate on International Plant Appreciation Day
Mary Howell
The 13 April each year is International Plant Appreciation Day and this always gets me thinking about which are the most fabulous plants. This year I’ve picked out five favourites, but you of course may have your own ideas of which plants should make the list:
- The Madagascar periwinkle (Catharanthus roseus), a plant that can help us cure cancer. According to The Living Rainforest website, it has changed the survival chances of children with leukaemia from 10% to 90%. The alkaloids it makes to protect itself from being eaten by animals can be modified by chemists to make drugs with cancer-curing properties. More about plant-based medicines can be found in Science and Plants for Schools Medicines and drugs from plants: Trumps card game
- Bamboo Phyllostachys bambusoides, because it flowers only once every 120 years and then all members of that species flower regardless of where they are geographically. Having set seed they then die. The next flowering is due in 2090! This National Geographic magazine article tells more, explaining how an understanding of maths and natural selection help us understand the evolution of this phenomenon.
- Pitcher plants are usually carnivorous. One species attracts a bat - Hardwicke's woolly bat to be exact, but instead of digesting the bat in the way typical of pitcher plants and the animals they attract; this pitcher plant provides a roosting site for the bat to sleep in. The bat can leave again but leaves behind it nitrogen-rich poo, which the pitcher plant absorbs – a fantastic example of mutualism
- Trees of any sort surely deserve a place on the list, but English oak is a species that supports more biodiversity than any other native tree in the UK as well as being able to transport litres of water per day against the force of gravity.
- Kew Royal Botanic Garden’s site provides plenty more candidates in its plant profiles including many plants used to provide us with food, such as the Cavendish banana – not a tree, but a herb, which produces the 5 billion bananas we eat in the UK every year. A plant that produces a nutritious food complete with its own biodegradable packaging is surely worthy of appreciation.
Author: Mary Howell. Professional Development Leader on the Education Team at STEM Learning - a secondary science and biology specialist. Mary also does freelance advisory work, including microbiology training for CLEAPSS and supporting schools.
Image: Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic Geoff J Mckay Pitcher Plant