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Linnaeus, The Name Giver
Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus was an early information architect. He believed that every kind of plant and animal on...
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Larva is actually a fairly poetic word in English that meant “mask” in Latin.
It comes from Carl Linnaeus, who first applied it to caterpillars,...
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Linnaeus’ flower clock was a garden plan hypothesized by Carolus Linnaeus that would take advantage of several plants that open or close their...
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If this isn’t a treehouse?
In the garden of the place where famous botanist, physician, and zoologist, Carl Linnaeus lived.
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For many Americans and people throughout the Northern Hemisphere, June 1 marks the beginning of summer, even if the summer solstice is a few weeks away. And nothing says summer like watermelon. Most commercial (and seedless) watermelons sold today are the product of a cultivation method known as parthenocarpy, which is the natural or artifical production of fruit without fertilization. Since the ovules are not fertilized, the resulting fruit is seedless. While there are many artificial methods of parthenocarpy used to produce seedless fruit and vegetable varieties, parthenocarpy also happens spontaneously in nature. A current theory holds that the naturally produced fruit or vegetable that results from parthenocarpy acts as a decoy and prevents the predation of reproductively viable seeds. Parthenocarpy has long been known by farmers and scientists-the earliest known cultivar is a fig variety cultivated over 10,000 years ago.
Parthenocarpy comes to English in the early 20th century via the German parthenocarpie which derives from the Ancient Greek word parthenos meaning virgin and karpos meaning fruit.
Image of seedless watermelon used with permission under a Creative Commons 3.0 license courtesy of Steven de Polo.
