Episode 71: Weird Plants by botanist Chris Thorogood
On The Ledge
Jane Perrone
4.8 • 773 Ratings
🗓️ 9 November 2018
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Houseplants are all weird and wonderful, but there are some that outdo the rest for their ability to surprise us.
Dr Chris Thorogood is a botanist at Oxford Botanic Garden with a clever sideline in painting brilliant pictures of the plants he loves and studies: his new book, Weird Plants, is a brilliant book for anyone who wants to delve a bit deeper into some of the strangest corners of the botanical world.
In today’s episode I find out from Chris why engineers are studying the slippery qualities of Nepenthes pitchers, which creature uses Low’s pitcher plant as a toilet, and why Stapelia flowers look mouldy.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, this is on the ledge podcast and I'm your host Jane Perrone. |
| 0:21.6 | And this week we're getting a little bit weird. |
| 0:31.4 | Yes, yes, I know. |
| 0:33.2 | We're always a little bit weird on this show, but that's okay because you know what? |
| 0:37.0 | You and I both know that weird is what makes us special. |
| 0:42.1 | In this episode, we're talking about a new book by University of Oxford botanist Chris Thuragood, |
| 0:48.6 | weird plants. |
| 0:49.5 | We'll be finding out why stapelias like to make themselves look like mouldy carcasses, why Lowe's |
| 0:56.8 | pitcher plant designed to evolve toilet-shaped pictures, and why when it comes to the Titan |
| 1:03.2 | Aram bigger really is better. |
| 1:08.3 | I'm just back from an incredible two-day trip to the Netherlands, |
| 1:12.4 | visiting house plant growers there, |
| 1:14.8 | and boy, do I have some exciting stuff to bring you in upcoming episodes. |
| 1:19.2 | For my Patreon subscribers, I will bring you my first thoughts in the next few days about what I've seen, |
| 1:25.4 | and then in upcoming shows, I'll cover more of my |
| 1:29.0 | discoveries for all of my listeners. Thanks to Jen, who became a Patreon subscriber this week, |
| 1:34.8 | she signed up to donate $5 or more a month. And that gets her two, yes, two extra episodes of |
| 1:43.8 | an extra leaf, my Patreon-only podcast every month. |
| 1:49.0 | Plus lots of other sneak previews and a chance to comment on my new logo draft. |
| 1:55.0 | And in the run up to Christmas, I'll also be sending all my Patreon subscribers a special Christmas greeting. |
| 2:00.8 | If you're a Patreon subscriber |
| 2:02.1 | and you haven't yet put your postal address onto your Patreon details, please go and do that. |
... |
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