Newsgroups: rec.gardens
Subject: Re: the joy of weird plants, no matter how nasty, etc......
From: lynx@surrey.amigans.gen.nz (Lynsey Gedye)
Date: 16 Nov 92 21:41:30 GMT-12
Distribution: world
Organization: Prime Line, Wanganui, New Zealand

In article <1992Nov13.191051.25889@math.ucla.edu> ramirez@julia.math.ucla.edu (Alice Ramirez) writes:
>Utterly repulsive and horrifying plants have a certain charm, 
  ...stuff pruned...

>There is another wonderfully repulsive yet delightful plant. I believe its
>Latin name is Solanum quitoense, a.k.a. "Naranjilla." 

  Whoa-mama!!!  I think I'm in love!  Naran*sigh*jilla... how the name
  frolics off the tounge - no wonder they call them the "Golden Fruit
  of the Andes".  Fruit to the size of about 4cm diameter, tasting like
  a cross between pineapple and strawberry.  Peru's best export, IMHO.
  The plant I mean, not the fruit.

>Its appearance is definitely sinister. The plant has pale gray-green
>leaves approximately the size of a baby's hands.  

  My one developed leaves about the size of my own hands - approx. 20cm
  and the young leaves were not unlike a teddy's ears except purple fur 
  and love those little hidden surprises =:)!  Lets you know you're alive.

>These leaves are covered with (a) an undercoat of fine, whitish velvety 
>fuzz, (b) apx. 2" purple and greenish-white spikes the sharpness of sewing
>needles on top, (c) apx 3/4" needles of pale greenish white on the 
>undersides and smaller spikes all along all of its stems.  When I say 
>covered, I mean covered thickly.  The plant bristles with these 
>needle-sharp spikes and has a distinctly alien appearance.

  Yes! Yes! Yes! A yes close yes encounter yes of a yes triffid yes, yes,
  yes oh, yes kind!!

>It really looks like nothing else in the world, at least not that I've 
>ever seen and I AM a weird plant enthusiast.  If you can find it a
>microclimate it likes, however, it will produce small, orange, edible
>fruits.  

  After offering all that you have to wonder about people who insist
  on growing the do-nothing-go-no-where-couch-potato-dare-I-say-it-
  african-violet-asparagus-fern type of plant.  I mean, flowers, fruit,
  foliage and fun - hell, my naranjilla became not only a cultural icon
  but a destination!

>One of the local weird-fruiters has one planted that has actually grown
>6 feet tall and regularly fruits.  I have not yet achieved comparable 
>success, although the plant is so magnificant in a sort of Darth >Vader/Ming the Merciless sort of way, that I will keep on trying.

  Without doubt, the ultimate house plant.  My one reached about 1.2m
  before being laid low by an unseasonal frost, and I've never been able
  to find a replacement.  Repotting them is more of a work of art than 
  repotting varigated pineapples - something I've done before today 
  without wearing gloves.  Naranjillas... if only they could talk... 

  Alice, thank you for reminding me about my lost love...
     - sniff -  'scuse me guys, this is an emotional moment...

--                                                . 
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 great whites need loving too!      '',,,''  , ' '  ',,,''  , ' '
 lynx@surrey.amigans.gen.nz    lynx@amigans.gen.nz
Newsgroups: rec.gardens