20 interesting facts about plants

  1. Avocados have the highest calories of any fruit at 167 calories per hundred graavocadoms.
  2. 84% of a raw apple and 96% of a raw cucumber is water.
  3. A notch in a tree will remain the same distance from the ground as the tree grows.
  4. Peanuts are beans.
  5. Rice paper isn’t made from rice but from a small tree which grows in Taiwan.
  6. Arrowroot, an antidote for poisoned arrows, is used as a thickener in cooking (so if you ever get shot with a poison arrow, do not go to a doctor, look in your kitchen cabinet.
  7. A pineapple is a berry.
  8. In the Netherlands, in 1634, a collector paid 1,000 pounds of cheese, four oxen, eight pigs, 12 sheep, a bed, and a suit of clothes for a single bulb of the Viceroy tulip.
  9. One bushel of corn will sweeten more than 400 cans of pop.
  10. Both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew cannabis sativa (marijuana) on their plantations.
  11. Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously.
  12. No species of wild plant produces a flower or blossom that is absolutely black, and so far, none has been developed artificially.
  13. The California redwood - coast redwood and giant sequoia - are the tallest and largest living organism in the world.
  14. Quinine, one of the most important drugs known to man, is obtained from the dried bark of an evergreen tree native to South America.
  15. One ragweed plant can release as many as one billion grains of pollen.
  16. 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.
  17. The largest single flower is the Rafflesia or "corpse flower". They are generally 3 feet in diameter with the record being 42 inches.
  18. The rose family of plants, in addition to flowers, gives us apples, pears, plums, cherries, almonds, peaches and apricots.
  19. Onions contain a mild antibiotic that fights infections, soothes burns, tames bee stings and relieves the itch of athletes foot.
  20. The bright orange color of carrots tell you they are an excellent source of Vitamin A which is important for good eyesight, especially at night.
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