15 Weird and Bizarre Plants

do Oh fish salutations everyone our planet is host to an immense variety of life much of which is a large variety of plants that cover the globe considering how large the planet is and the multiple types of climates that exist it wouldn't be hard to imagine that there are a few bizarre and uncommon plants out there that many have never even heard of number 15 Romanesco frequently called Romanesco broccoli Romanesco is actually more closely related to cauliflower though all broccoli cauliflower and kale are part of the same species the most visually striking part of Romanesco is the fact that it follows an approximately fractal design if MC Escher and Fibonacci were given the chance to create an edible plant together Romanesco would probably be close to the final design the genetic reasons for Romanesco x' appearance are currently unknown though I don't doubt that if we had more vegetables that look like this children wouldn't sit at the dinner table turning up their nose as quite as often number 14 the dragonblood tree Dracena cinnabar ii and dracaena Draco are two species of dragon blood tree alive today that we know of which live on islands on opposite sides of Africa both are endangered considering their habitats or small islands with either a subtropical climate or desert like climate with barely any rain dragonblood trees get their really cool common names thanks to the bright red resin that they secrete which has been used for dyes and herbal remedies since ancient times as a matter of fact its uses range from curing diarrhoea to being used as varnish on wood for violins that's not to say that dragon blood resin actually works as a cure-all though it's just what natives have taken for hundreds of years unfortunately due to the desert off' occasion of africa along with the traditional uses for the trees the dragon blood tree grows more endangered each decade number 13 the lithops part of the ice plant family lithops are a succulent plant native to southern Africa that's right a nice plant in Africa aside from the infuriating fact that lithops has the name ending with an S even when referring to individuals lithops is an incredibly interesting species of plant elipse grows as a small plant standing just a few inches tall and each individual lithops only has two leaves or four when they grow to new ones to replace the old ones the two leaves are actually what look like the stem of the plant split into two and contain the water that keeps liftoffs alive in an arid climate where they usually receive just a few inches of rain in a year because of their small stature and dark green brown color lookups often pull people in Adil's into thinking that they are simply rocks or pebbles when growing next to rocks considering the fact that most animals don't ingest rocks it seems to be a sound strategy the poor little guys are so we'll evolved to absorb water that they can easily be over watered by a compassionate plant caretaker and will continue taking up water until they rupture their leaves and die number 12 hookers lips hookers lips otherwise known as psychotria elata is a plant best known for its flowers resemblance to lips coated in an egregious amount of lipstick actually this resemblance to lips only lasts for a short amount of time as the true flower emerges from inside the lips after a few days another fun fact about hookers lips is that psychotria the genius of the plant gets its name due to the fact that many of the plants in the genus produced DMT a psychedelic chemical so yeah I suppose if you ingest some of this plant you may indeed believe that the plant has kissable lips though I doubt it will be the center of your attention while rainbow Godzilla rides a strawberry in your hallucinations number 11 the Cobra Lily it's rather odd to think of Northern California or Oregon as places rife with exotic plant life considering that they are rather close to large human settlements lurking in bogs near the coast are Darling tonyia californica otherwise known as the Cobra Lily just looking at the way the pictures of the Cobra Lily grow is enough to understand where it gets the name Cobra though it is in no way related to lilies so the second part of the name was just poorly named by someone who is obviously not a botanist just underneath the head of the Cobra shape pitchers as an entrance that attracts hungry insects that would enjoy eating the nutritious SAP that the Cobra Lily excretes getting out after entering the cobra lily is rather difficult however as the walls of the plant are nearly translucent confusing prey with false exits until they are finally guided down to the water with digestive enzymes near the bottom of the Cobra shaped leaves it's basically the nightmare version of an insect funhouse that ends with digestion number 10 the titan arum a plant with a flower which can be considered the largest in the world the titan arum flower stands nine feet tall and three feet wide on average it takes the titan arum around seven to ten years to bloom for the first time in two to ten years to bloom after that that may sound unfortunate considering how incredible such an enormous flower is to behold however the benefits of the titan arum is rare flower spotting are easy to see well smell unfortunately after the flower blooms it releases a range of sulfur compounds and other smelly chemicals which produce attractive scents such as body odor rotting fish sweaty socks and moth balls though particularly revolting to humans pollinating bees native to Sumatra apparently adorn the plant and quickly pollinated in the three days at the flower lasts number nine the well which 'ya upon seeing pictures the web which you may believe you are viewing a pile of discarded plant waste or banana leaves however closer inspection of the plan allows you to learn some fascinating things found growing only in the Namib Desert of southwestern Africa the well which Chia gets its name from the austrian botanist Friedrich well which gia who first cataloged it growing into a large plant and one of the hottest and driest climates in the world brings with it a host of challenges the most obvious being gathering water in a place where it only rains a few milliliters a year luckily for the well which Chia its two leaves are specialized for collecting water in the form of fog that forms in the morning hours where it lives yes I did say two leaves as the one which he only possesses two leaves that continue to grow over time not only that but many with Chi are believed to be centuries old and are considered living fossils through the fact that they are not flowering plants but instead produce cones like carnivorous trees I must say that it's nick name in the language Afrikaans twee blar canny dude wins the most creative and hilarious nickname award in this video number 8 the bug plant roar rajala when thinking of a carnivorous plant everyone imagines a Venus flytrap or perhaps a large pitcher plant that trap prey and die just them absorbing their nutrients in the process of course there are other variations of carnivorous plants as well but none quite like the raw Ridge Allah the real Ridge Allah has a sticky resin that can trap insects all over its leaves and stem but it lacks the enzymes that allow all other carnivorous plants did I just insects instead it forms one of the coolest symbiotic relationships between a plant and an insect rural Ridge Allah amply named the bug plant traps insects and the Pama Rydia insects which live on the plant then eat the trapped insects and excrete waste which the raw edge Allah uses for nutritional benefit the capsid bugs that live on the plant spend their entire lives in the plant and even have feet specialized to keep them from getting caught in the resin that religion Allah captures other insects with number 7 the snow plant unlike most plants this red parasitic plant is actually unable to photosynthesize for food it must rely on a special relationship it fares with mycorrhiza fungi the fungus grows with the plant's roots and allows it to attach the roots of trees where it can propagate water and nutrients to the snow plant but at the same time protecting it from pathogens in return thus no plant provides carbon to the fungi making the relationship mutualistic thus no plant is found in forests near Oregon and Northern California and only flower in order to reproduce huh that's two plants located in Oregon and California that are both rather weird number six Jen Lycia founded semi-aquatic soils all over Southern America and Africa Jen Lycia is also known as the corkscrew plant due to its specialized leaves and roots which allow it to capture prey again virtually everyone knows about the Venus flytrap and how it utilizes a mechanism to trap flies and other insects to digest in order to give itself nutrients but Jen Lycia do things a little differently if you haven't noticed already Jen lisa is a genius a very small semi-aquatic plants with no noticeable way of capturing prey when simply looking at them on the surface however underneath the moist ground or specialized leaves that from a trap for microbes like protozoa that the plant digests for nutrients the spiral pattern formed by the specialized leaves is lot to keep microbes trapped long enough to digest them not that microbes are really known for solving mazes in the first place Jen Lycia are just another illustration of the fact that even the smallest of banks can be efficient predators in nature number five the jabuticaba or more specifically the plenty of kala flora apologies to any Portuguese speaking viewers out there for butchering the pronunciation of plenty of kala Flora's nickname I'll be sure to stick with a scientific name plenty of kala flora is a fruit bearing tree belonging to the myrtle family but for anyone who isn't from Brazil this tree has a major difference from the usual fruit bearing trees that you know instead of forming flowers on its branches and then producing fruit like most other trees plenty of kala flora produces flowers and fruit on its trunk the fruit have a black skin with a sweet white pulp on the inside with four oddly shaped seeds it is purported that they are as common in brazilian markets as grapes are in other places in the world which is probably why it's also nicknamed the Brazilian grape tree these trees are also kept as bonsai trees in a few places around the world not something I really expected number four the Cape Sun do part of the genus truss era Cape Sunday was a carnivorous plant that traps insects both large and small and digests them to provide itself with extra nutrients a unique attribute to Cape Sunday was the fact that not only does it have leaf tentacles tipped with sweet sticky mucilage that attract and trap prey but said tentacles actually curl up once prey come into contact with them in order to trap prey as tightly as possible Cape sundew is actually one of the easiest carnivorous plants to grow and keep alive indoors and is surely a good resource for cleaning up unwanted fruit flies it is so good at growing that it is actually spreading as an invasive species in many parts of the world including New Zealand which hosts several endangered species of insects number three the waterwheel plant by this time in the video I've mentioned venus flytraps and how well known they are a few times in spite of this did you know that there is a plant that acts as an underwater version of the Venus flytrap that's right the waterwheel plant is found all over the world in random areas of water except for the Americas and in places of extreme cold they terrorize small underwater invertebrates by closing their traps in just 10 to 20 milliseconds making it one of the fastest moving plants in the world not that it had very tough competition on the inside of each little mouth shaped trap or a few small hairs that must be moved to trigger the trap before digestive enzymes break down whatever small invertebrate has been trapped inside the waterwheel plant also floats near the surface of the water and does not grow roots but instead continues to grow a stem while the other side dies unfortunately the waterwheel plant is growing more endangered as water sources become contaminated by human waste products and temperature changes number two the sensitive plant sporting a ridiculous amount of nicknames as mimosa pudica most commonly known as the sensitive plant these fern-like plants are also called touch peanuts due to the fact that they close their leaves and droop if brushed against or if coming into contact with fire this is supposedly a defense mechanism to protect it against predators though for some reason we humans seem to think that this adaptation is both interesting and cute as it seems the plant is shy though native to South and Central America because people seem to enjoy growing these plants they are now a widespread invasive weed that is perforated throughout Plant Society and the exact same way shy anime lovers have done in human society both shrinking away when prodded with touch number one hi Norah Africana obviously found in Africa as per the name this parasitic plant actually combines the features of many unusual plants that exist today not only is it unable to photosynthesize and as a plant that must act as parasite on the roots of other plants but it also has a flower that smells absolutely terrible after gathering enough nutrients for reproduction it grows a large fleshy orange flower that resembles a split cantaloupe from underneath the ground which produces a smell so wonderful and it attracts carrion and dung beetles yes indeed it's flower has the scent of fresh fecal matter and is pollinated by beetles which feast on dung and animal corpses obviously an attractive flower that any decent gardener would want you

Channel: Duo Fish

Views: 666,485

Rating: 4.7297201 out of 5

Keywords: Plant (Organism Classification), Weird plants, Bizarre plant, Deadly plants, Cool plants, Top 10, Top 15, Gardening (Interest), Romanesco Broccoli (Organism Classification), Dragonblood tree, Lithops, Cobra Lily, Hydnora africana, Cape Sundew, Plinia cauliflora, Water-wheel plant, Roridula (Organism Classification), Welwitschia (Organism Classification), Titan Arum, Duo Fish 15s, Durr plant

Id: ymjtBlx-6Zc

Length: 12min 19sec (739 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 01 2015