Curiouser and curiouser

Plants are among the oldest inhabitants of earth and in that time they have managed to evolve some amazing ways to survive, as Anne Swithinbank explains

- Anne Swithinbank

THE botanical world is full of weird and wonderful plants evolved to avoid predation, attract pollinators, spread their seeds or survive harsh conditions. Each has a strange beauty and a story to tell, so next year, why not take your love of plants one step further by growing and marvelling at some of the quirkier members of the plant kingdom?

Voodoo lily

As a keen youngster, I was often an unpopular member of our household. Most of my plant collection was kept in my room or concealed about the house, and I was always on the out for anything odd or unusual. Saved pocket money could buy a wizened tuber of a voodoo lily (Typhonium venosum) which, when perched naked on a windowsill, soon produced a sinister purple spadix surmounted by a purple-flecked spathe.

These awesome structures stunk to high heaven, their texture and aroma mimicking rotting meat the better to attract flies for pollination. Promptly potted, each tuber produces a single segmented leaf.

Urn plants (bromeliads such as aechmea, guzmania and neoregelia) were favourites, too, especially as they were often handed on to me by their original owners once the initial colourful urn began to fade and die. Of course, new urns soon grew and I would imagine them clinging to the branches of trees in tropical rain forests, catching drips from the canopy and creating homes for the tadpoles of tree frogs.

Nyctinasty and ballochory