Tropical Fern & Exotic Plant Society Meeting

Moose

Esteemed Member
7,058
10/09/09
442
223
Tropical Fern & Exotic Plant Society Meeting

Monday, January 28th 7:30 pm Corbin Bldg



The Tropical Fern & Exotic Plant Society proudly presents:

Dr. Scott Zona, who will speak on Sex in the Garden


. Flowers are all about sex! This presentation explores the world of

pollination, which is the transfer of pollen to the stigma and a necessary step in sexual

reproduction. The marvelous ways in which this transfer is accomplished – birds,

bats, wind, water, etc. are explored in depth.


Dr. Zona, a tropical botanist, is curatorof the Wertheim Conservatory at Florida

International University and faculty in the Dept. of Biological Sciences. Co-Editor of Palms and an IPS Director.

Co-Author of An Encyclopedia of Cultivated Palms.


.

The Raffle Table will be provided by

Fantastic Ferns LLC (Frank & Sally Tastinger)

and Redland Nursery. John DeMott & Ellis Brown (PT Forum Members)


Fairchild Tropical Botanical Garden

Corbin Building

10901 Old Cutler Rd Coral Gables, FL 33156
Phone: (305) 667-1651
 
Anticipating a very large crowd - the ladies were busy arranging the food tables. This was early on - the amount of food was huge. The desert table was overflowing by meeting time. Homemade Cranberry Bread, Lemon Cake from scratch and a mess of homemade cookies were most notable. There were other scruptious homemade deserts that I sampled - just don't know what they were called ... :eek:
 

Attachments

  • Sex - get ready 1.JPG
    Sex - get ready 1.JPG
    287.6 KB · Views: 304
  • Sex - get ready 2.JPG
    Sex - get ready 2.JPG
    171.7 KB · Views: 301
Oh - and there were many nice plants ... :)

This was very early - plants were still coming in through the door.
 

Attachments

  • Sex - plants 1.JPG
    Sex - plants 1.JPG
    287 KB · Views: 288
  • Sex - plants 2.JPG
    Sex - plants 2.JPG
    235.2 KB · Views: 289
This is still 45 minutes before the start of the meeting. A pretty good size early crowd. Dr. Scott Zona is a very well known speaker. He attracts many plant-a-holics. ;)

The lady in pink (2nd photo, center) is our newest member (I forgot her name :eek:) and this was her very first meeting. She did very well with our plant raffle. :cool:

I've have attended many a different plant society meetings over the years. The Tropical Fern & Exotic Plant Society has the nicest and friendliest group of members I have ever been around. Having only been a member a short period, I found these people to be sincerely welcoming. They make me feel like I've known them for years. :cool:
 

Attachments

  • Sex - early crowd 1.JPG
    Sex - early crowd 1.JPG
    224.2 KB · Views: 293
  • Sex - early crowd 2.JPG
    Sex - early crowd 2.JPG
    176.3 KB · Views: 270
  • Sex - early crowd 3.JPG
    Sex - early crowd 3.JPG
    190.4 KB · Views: 277
Here is our Keynote Speaker: Dr. Scott Zona (Background, red shirt) leaning over checking out a plant that has caught his eye.

Scott's presentation included tons of unusual flowers I had never seen before. Most were photos he has collected over the years during his travels. I also learned that Dr. Zona is a hummingbird aficionado. He had quite the array of feeding hummingbird photos that he shared with us. :D
 

Attachments

  • Sex - Scott.JPG
    Sex - Scott.JPG
    261.6 KB · Views: 272
Here are some recently stuck cuttings of Variegated Tropical Oregano that I brought. The price was right, free - they were grabbed up rather quickly. :)

Tropical Oregano
Plectranthus amboinicus is a large succulent herb, fleshy and highly aromatic, much branched, possessing short soft erect hairs, with distinctive smelling leaves.[2] The stem is fleshy, about 30–90 cm, either with long rigid hairs (hispidly villous) or tomentose (densely covered with soft, short and erect hairs, pubescent). Leaves are undivided (simple), broad, egg/oval-shaped with a tapering tip (ovate) and very thick, they are pubescent (thickly studded with hairs), with the lower surface possessing the most numerous glandular hairs, giving a frosted appearance. The taste of the leaf is pleasantly aromatic with the agreeable and refreshing odour. Flowers are on a short stem (shortly pedicelled), pale purplish in dense whorls at distant intervals in a long slender raceme.
Tropical Oregano formerly recognized as - Coleus amboinicus is an attractive, perennial, subshrub, trailing or erect and reaching nearly a meter in height. Believed to be native to the Moluccas, this plant was long ago introduced into many areas of the Old World tropics and some of the Pacific islands and, because of its aromatic leaves, often used as a substitute for borage or thyme. It has also been cultivated in the Far East for its essential oil. Before the end of the 19th century the plant was scattered about the Caribbean and, sparsely, from northern Venezuela to Yucatan, adopted in these areas more as a folk-remedy than as a flavoring herb. Only in recent years has country borage been given moderate attention as a culinary species in the Bahamas and Florida. Commercial culture and distribution to specialty markets will quite likely result in much broader utilization of this exotic herb.
 

Attachments

  • Sex - Tropical Oregano.JPG
    Sex - Tropical Oregano.JPG
    224.1 KB · Views: 360
Tropical Oregano continued ... :)


Uses
The leaves are strongly flavoured and make an excellent addition to stuffings for meat and poultry. Finely chopped, they can also be used to flavour meat dishes, especially beef, lamb and game. Such use as a flavouring and its geographic spread is indicated by some of the common names, and documented for Cambodia and South Africa. It is also used as a vegetable, for example in South East Asia. The herb is used as a substitute for oregano in the food trade and food labelled "oregano-flavoured" may well contain this herb.
The leaves have also had many traditional medicinal uses, especially for the treatment of coughs, sore throats and nasal congestion, but also for a range of other problems such as infections, rheumatism and flatulence. The plant is cultivated in home-gardens throughout India for use in traditional medicine, being used to treat malarial fever, hepatopathy, renal and vesical calculi, cough, chronic asthma, hiccough, bronchitis, helminthiasis, colic, convulsions, and epilepsy, Shenoy and others refer to further Indian traditional medicinal uses such as for skin ulcerations, scorpion bite, skin allergy, wounds, diarrhoea, with emphasis on the leaves being used as a hepatoprotective, to promote liver health. In Indonesia Plectranthus amboinicus is a traditional food used in soup to stimulate lactation for the month or so following childbirth. In Cambodia , 2 uses are recorded: juice from the leaves is sweetened and then given to children as protection from colds; and leaves are applied to the lips. In Bahia, Brazil, people use the plant to treat skin lesions caused by Leishmania braziliensis. Just to the north, in Paraiba of the same country, the plant was extremely commonly known for use in home medication. As noted above, medicinal use also occurs in Southern India, it also documented in other parts of South East Asia and South Africa.
Other uses include as an ornamental and for its essential oils.
 

Attachments

  • Sex - Tropical Oregano.JPG
    Sex - Tropical Oregano.JPG
    224.1 KB · Views: 283
Tropical Oregano continued ... :p

Cultivation

Tropical Oregano aka Indian Borage is very commonly grown as a potted plant. The Indian Borage is a fast growing plant. Propagation is via stem cuttings. To encourage a bushy plant, cut the tip of the top, insert into the soil and instantly, you have another plant as the cutting will grow within days.The Indian Borage ideally should be grown in a semi-shaded and moist location as the leaves will remain a beautiful jade-green colour. If it is getting too much sun, the leaves turn yellow, start curling and look unsightly; if not enough sun, the leaves turn a dark shade of green and spaced out.
The herb grows easily in a well-drained, semi-shaded position. It is frost tender (Hardiness USDA Zones 10-11) and grows well in sub-tropical and tropical locations, but will do well in cooler climates if grown in a pot and brought indoors, or moved to a warm sheltered position in winter. Water only sparingly.

Order: Lamiales
Synonyms

Family: Lamiaceae
Coleus amboinicus Lour.
Coleus aromaticus Benth.
Genus: Plectranthus

Species: P. amboinicus

Common names
country borage (India, South Africa, US)
French Thyme (South Africa, US)
Indian borage (India)
Indian mint (South Africa, US)
Mexican mint (US)
soup mint (South Africa, US)
Spanish thyme (US)
big thyme (Grenada)
also broadleaf thyme; Cuban oregano; Mexican thyme; Queen of herbs; three-in-one herb; allherb; mother of herbs
 

Attachments

  • Sex - Tropical Oregano.JPG
    Sex - Tropical Oregano.JPG
    224.1 KB · Views: 287
Top