Celosia

 

A few decades ago, one of my professors used to be fond saying, "Nothing in nature exists without a purpose!".  His point was that while humans may not have figured it out yet, but every colour, texture, movement and behaviour in nature tells you a story of evolution and adaptation.

I keep thinking about this while looking at a solitary Celosia plant that has bloomed on our terrace. It started out in one form, and now, it looks completely different. It appeared unbidden, out of a forgotten corner, needing no special attention, and soon after the tiny saplings put on their striking variegated leaves, the squirrels found them tasty and ate up most of the new leaves. 

The Squirrels were of course not the only ones who found celosia so yummy.  It seems celosia and plants of the Amaranth family have long been consumed as vegetables in Asia, Africa and South America. So much so that in Nigeria celosia is called 'soko yokoto', meaning "make husbands fat and happy"!

On our terrace, the squirrels spared one single plant, and this is the one that has been changing costumes over the past four months, like a stage artist working overtime. Soon after the plant reached a foot high, a tiny bloom appeared which seemed to take away all the purple colour from the leaves. A month later, after the monsoons it became velvety and curly, spreading out wider to get the classic cockscomb look.

As of now the stem looks gaunt, but this bloom shows no signs of fading away. In fact it now seems to be in a mood to give back some colour back to its leaves, which now look narrow and spindle-like, a far cry from the rounded, multicoloured ones of the initial days.

Why does this plant go through such a transformation? Which are the insects it attracts as pollinators? 

As usual, when you try to figure out something, you only end up with more questions.. :P

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LINKS & REFERENCES

Celosia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celosia_argentea_var._cristata

Amaranth - super feed, super weed - https://www.phillyorchards.org/2018/04/17/amaranth-super-feed-super-weed/

Cactus Combos

A yellow blob of thorny fractals?

This eye-catching cactus caught my attention at an IFFCO Kisan outlet selling indoor plants. It sat on a shelf with other succulents but combination seemed rather unusual. The lower green part looked as though it had been shorn of its thorns while the bright yellow or pink portion did not look as though it had emerged from a flower.

Sure enough it turns out that this is grafted combo of two different species of cactus - the yellow portion belongs to  Gymnocalycium mihanovichii while the lower, green one belongs Hylocerus, a family better known for producing edible pitayas, aka "Dragon-fruit".

The interesting bit is that Gymnocalycium completely lacks chlorophyll. It was originally found in Paraguay growing under bushes with little exposure to sunlight. Somewhere along along the way it got to grafted to other cactus species that does have chlorophyll creating a novel variety which is now being marketed as 'Moon Cactus'!

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LINKS:

IFFCO Kisan Urban Garden - https://www.ikug.in/indoor-plants

https://worldofsucculents.com/what-are-grafted-cacti/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hylocereus

http://www.llifle.com/Encyclopedia/CACTI/Family/Cactaceae/11929/Gymnocalycium_mihanovichii

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bvZrCDJSh4

Cuscuta in Noida

A mop of blond hair looks ugly on evergreen trees.

Parasitic infestations by the Cuscuta species, that seems to have started as an nuisance for garden hedges, seems to have grown in to full blown epidemic in various parts of NCR Delhi.

In Noida, there is an entire avenue that has been colonised by Cuscuta species..

Is there a way to rid the magnificent pilkhan trees of this infestation? So far all available information on WWW seems to suggest that the scientists have only figured a way to deal with this infestation in cash-crop plantations.

If you have an alfa-alfa farm, a solution - albeit expensive - may be at hand. But isn't there a biocontrol agent that could deal with the cuscuta problem? -- a parasite that kills another parasite perhaps?

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LINKS:

* e-Flora of India - https://sites.google.com/site/efloraofindia/species/a---l/cl/convolvulaceae/cuscuta/cuscuta-species-1/delhi
- https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/indiantreepix/u1eHxg-Gldk

* Biology and Control of parasitic weeds -- http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/boggulareddy-1406855-biology-and-control-of-parasitic-weeds/

Plantibodies

Drugs based on antibodies have been in use for a long time now. So far, almost all these antibody-based drugs have been derived from animal sources -- usually mammalian cells from hamsters -- and then grown in large stainless steel vats. US-FDA has approved around 30 such drugs, including blockbuster cancer therapies such as Avastin and Rituxan (Roche).

The ongoing Ebola epidemic has brought into focus antibodies derived from plants (aka Plantibodies!). In the absence of any credible therapies, Mapp Pharmaceuticals (San Diego, USA) has been permitted to produce experimental 'Plantibodies' to treat two infected medical workers. Despite lower costs of plant-based production (~1/10th!) not many companies are into this area. The only such FDA approved drug is Elelyso, an enzyme produced from genetically engineered carrots, manufactured by Israel's Protalix Biotherapies, and marketed by Pfizer.

Which are the ~30 animal-derived drugs currently in the market? Why is it that major pharma companies are shying away from plant-based production lines that is supposed to be cheaper?

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REFERENCES /LINKS

* Plantibodies (Reuters, 18Aug14) --  http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/17/us-health-ebola-plants-analysis-idUSKBN0GH0DU20140817

* Ebola puts focus on drugs made in Tobacco plants -- http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/latestnews/Ebola-puts-focus-on-drugs-made-in-tobacco-plants

A Cactus called Sabra

It is difficult to imagine Indian cooking without tomatoes & chilies, both of which came in from the 'New World' - thanks to the Portuguese. No less critical are some of the other plants that came from the Americas -- potatoes,  avocados, corn, cocoa, tapioca (manioc/kappa), artichokes, and squashes of all sorts.

Now it turns out that an entire country - Israel - owes its dominant social identity, ethos and national spirit to a cactus plant that originated in Mexico!

I was browsing through "Fortress Israel" - a new book by Patrick Tyler - when I came across a new word: Sabra. It is apparently a tough species of prickly-pear that clings to the Mediterranean coastline.

 Opuntia Sp. (aka Sabra) - pics from Wikipedia

This is the plant that the Zionist pioneers chose to describe and differentiate themselves from the mass of Holocaust survivors and immigrants who flooded into Israel from Europe, North Africa, Iraq, Yemen and Morocco. The Sabras saw themselves as new Jews, no longer a 'caricature of passivism, dependence, and weakness, but a people determined to take its fate into its own hands'.

In a hostile and unstable region, the sabras saw themselves as tough and self-reliant fighters, never as interested in debate as in taking action, less interested in accommodation with the Arabs than in seizing objectives and creating facts on the ground. And yet, just like the Sabra cactus, they wanted to be tough on the outside, but delicate & sweet inside.

It is amazing to recall that clumps of this very cactus species lined the roads leading to our school at Uppal, Hyderabad. During the summer holidays, we used to scratch names on their flat, thick leaves, and extract the viscous sap for fixing glass powder on to the 'maanja' strings used for competitive kite-flying.

I always imagined these cacti to be the original inhabitants of every arid landscape in the country. It is mildly shocking to know that this plant too came from the Americas!

The prickly pear (Opunta Stricta) is also a the centerpiece of one of the most successful examples of 'biological control'. In the early 1900s a despairing Australian government signed up an entomologist named Alan Todd, as a last resort to deal with Opuntia that had invaded over 260,000 sq.km of farmland. In 1925, Todd brought in the Nopal Moth from South America to feed on these cactii, and within a few years, Opuntia was no longer an 'invasive weed'.

Perhaps they came with unknown Portuguese sailors who stocked them in their ships as a handy veggie to prevent scurvy; or maybe the birds brought it into the heart of the India peninsula, and to the Mediterranean to become a mascot for the Jews in their new homeland!