h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It doesn't look like that!

Presumably the tips get shredded when very young and become toughened enough to keep getting bigger?

Another interesting plant, Willem


Rod

Hi Rod! Yes if you look at the pencil sketch showing a view from above, there's one leaf on the left and one on the right, but yes they start splitting from a young age and can split right to the base, but they are also tough and keep on growing.

Oh - and I did not mention it in the article, but the leaves grow from the *base* ... like toothpaste being squeezed out of a tube. Imagine two slits running around the rim of the top of the 'trunk' and the leaf matter being squeezed out of them slowly but continuously and as they emerge they start splitting and later shredding lengthwise.

Yes Willem, I see that now.
I suppose they have to split fairly soon, in order to spread out to the extent they do - and presumably following more or less where the first, original splits started.

Much like we do, I suppose - tending to follow patterns set up when we were very young

Why is this a tree rather than a plant? I am sorry but this classification system confuses me to no end. But it does look alien.

Hi Elektra! You know what, scientifically speaking there is no such a thing as a 'tree'. Plants are so diverse that it is not possible to give clear-cut criteria of what should be a tree and what not. The book 'Trees of Southern Africa' tries this definition: if you can sit in its shade, then it's a tree. In the case of this one you could do that - if you find one of the biggest ones, six feet in height, you could get a bit of shade and if you throw one of the leaves (or a part of it) over your head you can get a lot of shade! It's the largest thing growing in those deserts.

But anyways: this plant can also be considered a tree because it has a very stout and substantial woody trunk. Despite the fact that it doesn't grow tall it amasses a lot of wood: above the soil the trunk can reach a height of 1.5 m/5' or more, and there's another two or three metres/7-10' of trunk below the soil surface, and also it can reach a diameter of 1.5 m/5' - so it can have enough wood that you can make quite a bit of furniture from a big specimen though I'm sure this has never actually been done!

Sorry I guess any plant that bears a cone is a connifer--hence tree. My bad. My brain is just too quick today.

sorry NOT quick. See.

Hi Elektra! I wish this could be simpler ... but that's the thing with plants and all living things, they are weird and make messes of our categories. For instance ... there are many species of conifers that are low shrubs and never, ever grow to tree proportions. And also there are cone-bearing plants that are not conifers ... see the installment of Colours of Wildlife I just sent to Dmitri. The leucadendrons are plants that bear what look just like the cones of conifers - but they aren't - they aren't cones, and Leucadendrons are proper flowering plants, not conifers. I hope if Phyto-Philes one day becomes a book I can put in a big section on plant relationships and convergent evolution - the phenomenon where unrelated species show similar adaptations.

Yeah, well as a librarian I realize the problem with conflicting categorization schemes. I guess maybe it should indicate an acceptance and love for whatever lives iregardless of weird it looks or not being able to label it. As God said to Job, 'where were you when I made the world.'

I wish I were humble enough to not have to KNOW everything. Just accept it and treat all his critters with the respect they deserve and DO what his will dictates.