Botanical name: Amaranthus cruentus

Hot Biscuits Amaranth is a tall annual herb topped with clusters of ginger or cinnamon colored flowers. The plant can grow up to 2 m (6 ft) in height, and blooms in summer to fall. It is believed to have originated from Amaranthus hybridus, with which it shares many morphological features. This species was in use as a food source in Central America as early as 4000 BC. The plant is usually green in color, but a purple variant was once grown for use in Inca rituals. The plant is grown as a garden flower, and is good as a cut-flower. The seeds are eaten as a cereal grain. They are black in the wild plant, and white in the domesticated form. They are ground into flour, popped like popcorn, cooked into a porridge, and made into a confectionery called alegría. The leaves can be cooked like spinach, and the seeds can be germinated into nutritious sprouts. While A. cruentus is no longer a staple food, it is still grown and sold as a health food. This photograph was taken on 17th April, 2012 in the institute campus, where i work.

Sporadic blooms ...

Botanical name: Chlorophytum suffruticosum

Chlorophytum suffruticosum is a perennial caudiciform plant native to East and Central Africa. The linear leaves reach up to 37.5 cm long by 2.5 cm wide. The grass-like leaves sprout from the top of a succulent stem up to 30 cm in height and 4 cm thick. It is a strange looking plant with the stems rising from a flat, knobby looking tuber that grows at soil level. It is an easy plant to grow. The plant blooms sporadically throughout the year. The small, 3.2 cm white flowers are borne on up to 30 cm panicles. There are up to 25 flowers per panicle with blooms opening every few days. I took this photograph on 2nd January, 2012 in my native place while visiting a plant nursery.

Floating in thin air ...

Botanical name: Chloris barbata

Giant finger grass is an annual or short-lived perennial. Culms loosely tufted, ascending or decumbent at base and rooting at lower nodes, 0.2–1 m tall. Leaf sheaths keeled, glabrous; leaf blades flat or folded, 10–40 cm, 4–8 mm wide, glabrous, apex acute; ligule short, ciliate. Racemes digitate, 5–15, erect or ascending, 3–8 cm, often somewhat flexuous and purplish; rachis scabrous. Spikelets with 3 or 4 florets, ciliate on upper margins with 1–1.5 mm hairs; upper florets sterile, lemmas empty, inflated, overlapping to form a knob at side of fertile floret; second lemma turbinate, truncate, 1–1.5 mm, glabrous or sparsely appressed-pilose on back, awn subequaling awn of fertile floret; third (and fourth) lemmas orbicular, awn somewhat shorter. This plant belonging to poaceae is found all along south India and i took this photograph on 22nd April, 2012 from just behind my lab.

A salute to the earth ...

Botanical name: Capparis sepiaria

Spreading or climbing, much branched shrub, 3-4 m long, more or less pubescent with ashy grey simple hairs. Leaves elliptic oblong to ovate or suborbicular, 1.5-4 cm long, 1-2 cm broad, often retuse, softly pubescent to glabrous; petiole 2-5 mm long, pubescent; stipular spines 2-5 mm, hooked, often brown-black. Flowers usually in corymbose terminal clusters of 10-30, small, 5-10 mm across, white; pedicels 1-2 cm long, not thickened in fruit, pubescent. Sepals 3-6 mm long, 2.5-3.5 mm broad, subequal. Petals oblong-spathulate, 3.5-8 mm long, 2-3 mm broad, more or less hairy at the base. I took this photograph today from inside my institute, as i was roaming with my camera. I dedicate to all who love the mother earth ....

A web of attention ...

Botanical name: Chlorophytum comosum

Chlorophytum comosum, often called the spider plant, is a herbaceous plant. It is native to tropical and southern Africa, but has become naturalized in other parts of the world. It grows to about 60 cm in height. It has fleshy, tuberous roots, about 5–10 cm long. The long narrow leaves reach a length of 20–45 cm and are around 6–25 mm wide. Flowers are produced in a long branched inflorescence, which can reach a length of up to 75 cm and eventually bends downwards. Flowers initially occur in clusters of 1–6 at intervals along the stem of the inflorescence. Individual flowers are greenish-white, borne on stalks (pedicels) some 4–8 mm long. Each flower has six three-veined tepals which are 6–9 mm long, slightly hooded or boat-shaped at their tips. The stamens consist of a pollen-producing anther about 3.5 mm long with a filament about the same length or slightly longer. The central style is 3–8 mm long. This flower was taken from a park in Yadavagiri in Mysore in the evening of 29th February, 2012.

Aquarium companion ...

Botanical name: Rotala macrandra

Giant red rotala is a creeping or diffuse herb, rooting at lower nodes, branches ascending, and reddish stem. It is abundant in damp and marshy places. Oppositely arranged leaves are stalkless, ovate, tip blunt, base nearly heart-shaped. Small pinkish flowers occur in spike-like racemes, either at the end of branches or from leaf axil. Bracts large, leafy, in opposite pairs, closely arranged; bracteoles minute. Sepals 4, 2 mm long. Petals 4, free, attached to sepal tube, alternating with the sepals, less than 1 mm long; stigma thickened. In the West, Giant Red Rotala is popular as an aquarium plant. This photograph was taken on 29th January, 2012 during my trip to Ranganathittu bird sanctuary, near Mysore with my friend, Dr. A.M. Babu.