Archive for the ‘POLLEN’ Tag
Are there any wanna-be botanists out there? If so, todays post should really interest you. Finding interesting trivia about plants was a serious challenge but I’ve had some success. Here are twenty items you never knew about plants and botany. Here we go . . .
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- At 167 calories per 3.5 ounces, avocados have the highest number of calories of any fruit.
- The foxglove plant can help prevent congestive heart failure.
- The cellulose in celery (mostly in its stringy fibers) is impossible for humans to digest. Most of the celery passes right through your digestive tract.
- Juniper berries smell so strongly of evergreen trees that they have been chewed as a breath freshener.
- Orchids have the smallest seeds. It takes more than 1.25 million seeds to weigh one gram.
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- Oak trees do not have acorns until they are 50 years old or older.
- Pollen is considered the “male” part of a plants reproductive system.
- The greens, you see covering ponds might actually be a carpet of duckweed – the smallest plant with a complete root, stem, and leaf structure.
- Cayenne pepper stimulates the appetite, as do the herbs dill, celery, dandelion, caraway, anise, garlic, leek, mint, tarragon, saffron, and parsley.
- The word “herb” is from the old Sanskrit word bharb, meaning “to eat”.
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- A lemon will lose 20% of its vitamin C content after being left at room temperature for eight hours, or in the refrigerator for 24 hours.
- The eggplant is a member of the nightshade family, along with the potato and tomato.
- An uncooked apple is 84% water.
- If you wash an area of skin that has been exposed to poison ivy within 3 min. after exposure, the chemical urushhiol does not have time to penetrate the skin.
- The herb peony, when dried and chewed, can help heal a cold sore.
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- A banana is technically an herb because it grows on dense, waterfilled leaf stalks that die after the first fruit is produced. Botanists call the banana plant a herbaceous perennial.
- Bananas are one of the easiest fruits to digest and trigger very few allergies. This is why they are an ideal food for babies.
- It takes a coffee bean plant five years to yield consumable fruit.
- The most widely cultivated and extensively used nut in the world is the almond.
- Plant life in the oceans makes up 85% of all the greenery on earth.
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FOR ALL OF YOU GARDENERS OUT THERE
Now that Thanksgiving has come and gone it’s time to get back to the basics of what this blog is all about, “Every Useless Thing”. To quote an authority, Bertrand Russell, “There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.” Since I totally agree with that statement, I really don’t need to say much more except enjoy this collection of useless knowledge.
- There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.
- The herb nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously.
- Volleyball is the most popular sport at nudist camps.
- The buttons on a man’s jacket cuff were originally intended to stop manservants from wiping their noses on the sleeves of their uniforms.
- Watching TV uses up to 50% more calories than sleeping.
- On average, a drop of Heinz tomato ketchup leaves the bottle at a speed of 25 miles per year.
- At any given moment, there are some 1800 thunderstorms somewhere on planet Earth.
- No piece of paper can be folded in half more than seven times.
- 20% of the people in the whole history of mankind who have lived beyond the age of 65 are alive today .
- Six out of every seven gynecologists are men.
- Strawberries have more vitamin C than oranges.
- If a pack-a-day smoker inhaled a weeks’ worth of nicotine, they would die instantly.
- Cats can’t taste sweet food.
25 SHOPPING DAYS LEFT
Do you like hot, humid, and sticky weather? Do you really and truly love having everything you own covered in green pollen? I’ve spent most of my life dreading the arrival of Spring and Summer and hay fever season. I have no known allergies to food or medicines but the one allergy I do have is the worst, Pollen. I spent many summers playing baseball in all kinds of weather and suffered through pollen attacks every year. Over the years doctors have tried every medicine known to man to help me with this allergy with absolutely no positive results.
Just as an example, I cut the grass yesterday, and I was partially incapacitated for a couple hours after I was done because I couldn’t catch my breath, and I couldn’t stop sneezing. I’m sure there are hundreds of thousands of people out there with the same allergy and they have my sympathies because no matter what you’re told nobody has a clue on how to properly deal with it. I guess that’s why the company that makes Benadryl has done so well through the years. I have a large jar of Benadryl in my nightstand and for about two weeks every Spring I eat them like jellybeans (and sleep a lot).
The only good thing that comes out of this allergy is my ability to sneeze 20-25 times a day. This might sound a little weird, but I love sneezing. I had a dear friend explain to me many years ago that one sneeze equals approximately 1/8 of an orgasm. So, if I sneeze 24 times a day I get three free orgasms, no charge. You know what they say, when life gives you free orgasms, smile and enjoy them. Here are a few things you might also want to know about sneezing . . .
- The Greeks believed if you sneeze to the left, bad luck was in your future. If you turn to the right during the sneeze, you will prosper.
- Ancient people believed a sneeze could give you an advantage in an argument. If your opposer believed evil spirits escaped the body during a sneeze, you could easily ‘spook‘ him by sneezing near him. This would throw him off guard and help you win the argument.
- Good luck is in your future if you sneeze when going to bed. But don’t sneeze on your partner. Otherwise, good luck or not, you will not have a partner for long.
- If you feel a sneeze coming on, but you don’t sneeze, watch out! That means you are going to lose someone or something dear to you.
- There are some ‘cures’ for sneezing. Press your upper lip hard and recite the alphabet backwards. No particular alphabet is recommended.
- You can stop a sneeze just by pressing on your lip, just below your nostrils. That apparently deactivates the sneeze mechanism.
- Every culture has the custom of invoking some god or spirit after a sneeze. The “God Bless You” originated with the Christians. But it’s a carryover from the Romans who took to invoking Jupiter to preserve them every time they sneezed.
- A Zulu child is taught to say “Grow.” To the Zulus, sneezing is a sign of good health. In Persian culture, everyone in the presence of someone who sneezes prays. The Arabs avoid sneezing entirely by washing out their noses with water each evening.
- Sneezes have even inspired a rhyme. It even matters what day of the week you sneeze. Here’s the rules . . .
Sneeze on Monday, sneeze for danger.
Sneeze on Tuesday, kiss a stranger.
Sneeze on Wednesday, receive a letter.
Sneeze on Thursday, receive something better.
Sneeze on Friday, sneeze for sorrow.
Sneeze on Saturday, see your lover tomorrow.
Sneeze on Sunday, your safety seat,
Or the Devil will have you, the rest of the week.
MAY BUDDHA BLESS YOU
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