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

And then there's the Parsley tree ....

There is?

There is. I checked. . Because I dreamed about it, although my dream Parsley Tree was nothing like the real thing.

And Willem's descriptions will be better than anything.

Hi folks! OK I'll take a few snaps of my parsley trees tomorrow ... perhaps my carrot trees as well. These are both actually tree-sized members of the carrot family! Most members of this family are small herbs (though we have here in South Africa also some quite huge herbaceous members of the family). The parsley tree grows to 25 m (about 83 ft) but is usually much smaller, and the carrot tree grows to 7 m/23 ft. Both occur in the hills around Polokwane ... there's a craggy carrot tree in our local nature reserve, and some nice parsley trees in the Northern Sotho museum (actually the hills above the settlement) just outside town. I think I must soon head back there and take some 'in the wild' photographs of those, both are quite nice trees suitable for gardens ... interesting flakey bark, interesting aromatic leaves, drought resistant, the parsley tree is quite cold resistant as well, and neither grows too big for a small garden.

The carrot tree easily grows from stem and root cuttings. In fact what I do is to allow a bag with a tree in it to root in the soi; then I cut it off at root level and the cut roots sprout entire new trees. It grows from twig cuttings too. I've not yet achieved similar success with the parsley tree though.

Oh anyways ... here are the fruit beetles and their grubs that inhabit my compost heap:

http://www.biolib.cz/en/taxonimage/id160075/?taxonid=285801

http://www.biodiversityexplorer.org/beetles/scarabaeidae/cetoniinae/pachnoda_sinuata.htm

These thick fat grubs are in turn eaten by hadeda ibises, the most frighteningly loud birds around:

http://www.treknature.com/gallery/photo194806.htm

And wouldn't you know it ... read that piece and note the mention of the Parktown Prawn!

heheh. Lovely Willem! He's a fine black and yellow fella, the fruit beetle. And as for that handsome hadeda ibis, splendid!

I'm so happy to know about the carrot tree and the parsley tree. And the Parktown Prawn visits me often in daydreams. .

Hi Cactuscafé! Glad you liked the beetle and the ibis. Here's what the hadeda ibis sounds like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jxc-v43TYLM

But imagine that INCREDIBLY loud.

I dream of parktown-prawn-like things every now and then. In my dreams they are up to a metre long and emerge unexpectedly from underground ...

Now there's a soundtrack! . I turned up my computer volume, to try to get the effect of the hadeda ibis sound in the atmosphere! Sounds good through headphones. . I love it, thanks Willem!

Of course, it sounds great with a sung harmony track. I just tried. .

(heads to fourtrack to lay down the ibis tapes)