Re: Paliurus spina-christi

Christiana Zok wrote:
> 
> Dear Karen,
> your description of the shrub leads not to Paliurus spina-christi. (The
> tiny picture in Botanica and the short text there, Moira found, is not enough
> for a profound distinction.) The fruit of the shrub, you mentioned, seems to
> be a pod of the plant familiy member of the Leguminosae, probably
> Gleditsia, or perhaps, even Robinia.
> As attachment the image of the fruit of a real Crown of Thorns shrub (If
> necessary, images of leaves and thorns are also available).
> 
> Christiana, 
The picture you sent was quite fascinating. The pods are indeed
distinctive as the account I read suggested.. If Botanica ever produce a
second edition I feel they could most profitably substitute your picture
for their remarkably useless one.

I have one other complaint against Botanica. Though they have a great
deal of very useful information they never mention what family the plant
belongs to. As a trained botanist I find that knowing the family of a
plant in very many cases immediately gives me a vast amount of
information about its likely appearence and habiits.

In this case Karen's mention of pods on her plant simply led me to
presume (erroneously as it turns out) that that Paliurus must be a
legume, while you with extra knowledge immediately picked that pods were
inappropriate to the true "crown of Thorns". (what family _does_ it
belong to please? I don't think I recognise these fruits  as resembling
anything familar)

Moira
-- 
Tony & Moira Ryan <theryans@xtra.co.nz>
Wainuiomata (near Wellington, capital city of New Zealand)
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