Wow!! such a beautiful ,delicate inflorescence. Liked the colors and architecture. No wonder it was once fashioned into cylindrical necklace by American Indiands. This is "The Flora picture of 2011" for me Liked it a lot. Thanks for sharing Sir.
On Sun, Jan 15, 2012 at 10:32 AM, Prashant Awale <pkaw...@gmail.com> wrote: > Nice one and thanks Gurcharan Singh ji for the information. > Regards > Prashant > > > On Sun, Jan 15, 2012 at 10:21 AM, Gurcharan Singh <singh...@gmail.com>wrote: > >> I am taking this liberty of uploading my second Flora Picture of 2011, a >> photograph I badly wanted to include in my book but could not because I had >> misplaced this folder of our our first outing in California to Shoreline >> Park. Today I found this while scanning though my external storage drives. >> >> The plant, *Anemopsis* *californica* (Nutt.) Hook. & Arn. of family >> Saururaceae, commonly known as Yerba mansa or apache-beads, the only >> species in the genus and endemic to California growing in coastal marshy >> areas, belonging to paleoherb complex, the early basal branch of >> angiosperms. Hickey & Taylor (1996) who proposed herbaceous origin >> hypothesis believe that flowers of Piperaceae (another paleoherb family) >> and Anemopsis arose through suppression of system of inflorescence axis of >> gnetopsids. In the above photograph the flower-like structure is in fact a >> fragrant spike inflorescence subtended at base by involucral bracts looking >> like petals. The small flowers number 75-150 on spike and each has white >> orbicular 4-6 mm long bract adnate to ovary, usually six stamens and 3 >> united carpels with parietal placentation and brown capsule fruit. >> >> The aromatic stoloniferous stock was once fashioned into cylindrical >> necklace by American Indiands and hence the name apache beads. more >> commonly known as Yerba (supposed to stand for herb in Spanish) mansa in >> medicine it was a reputed medicine for malaria and dysentry, as also >> treatment for swollen gums and soar throat. It also prevents build up of >> kidney stones. Dried roots can be used as dusting powder for for diaper >> rashes and other infected parts. Leaves are often used to make poultice to >> relieve muscle swelling and inflammation. >> >> >> -- >> Dr. Gurcharan Singh >> Retired Associate Professor >> SGTB Khalsa College, University of Delhi, Delhi-110007 >> Res: 932 Anand Kunj, Vikas Puri, New Delhi-110018. >> Phone: 011-25518297 Mob: 9810359089 >> http://people.du.ac.in/~singhg45/ >> >> > -- Regards Dr.Bhagyashri Ranade
