Dumb Facts » Plants

• The hurricane plant has holes in its leaves, which keep it from being destroyed by wind.
• The canopy of a rainforest is so thick, only one percent of sunlight reaches the ground.
• A living tree never stops growing.
• 40% of prescripition drugs dispensed in the U.S. have active ingredients derived from plants, animals or microorganisms, many of them from forests.
• A banana is about 75 percent water.
• The world’s fastest-growing plant is the giant water lily, which grows almost a foot a day.
• Researchers recently sprouted a lotus seed known to be 1,288 years old, making it the oldest seed ever germinated.
• The Venus flytrap takes less than half a second to slam shut on an insect.
• A single large tree can release up to 400 gallons of water into the atmosphere each day.
• Rafflesia flowers attract pollinating flies by looking and smelling like rotten meat.
• One acre of trees absorbs enough carbon dioxide per year to match that emitted by driving a car 26,000 miles.
• The world’s largest flower is the Rafflesia arnoldi. It can grow to the size of an umbrella.
• The saguaro cactus of the Arizona Desert grows less than one inch in it’s first 10 years.
• In the 1800′s an Eggplant was known as a “mad apple” and believed to be poisonous.
• One cord of wood can make 7 and a half million toothpicks.