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| Madagascar Periwinkle |
I’ve been using up some of my hard-earned annual leave (paid
time off) last week and this one. I’d
hoped to go out for a couple of long walks last week, but the weather precluded
that. I did get to our local Museum last
Friday, though – their Artwork of Ladybird Books exhibition was drawing to a
close, and I’d been determined to visit while it was still on. I’m
really glad I did! I remember learning
to read on ‘Peter and Jane’ books as well as ‘Janet and John’ ones, but I hadn’t
realised that the ‘Peter and Jane’ ones were Ladybird books.
I was looking at the range of them – simple books about nursery
rhymes, starting school, historical figures, great artists and composers, places,
and even different careers. What really
stood out to me on Friday was how the books were of their time; the book about
being a nurse was the only one with a girl on the front. So many other covers showed men - the Postman,
the Farmer, the Lifeboatmen, the Sailor… OK, yes, the Miner (we have so few left!)
and the Builder would still no doubt be male in real life. I’ll be happy to be shown otherwise.
The other attraction that day was a big Dr Who exhibition. I’m not what you’d call a fan, but I did
enjoy it. The first Dr Who ‘baddies’ I
remember seeing were the Sea Devils; I was really pleased to see some in this
exhibition. It spans the whole of the
Whovian timeline, with a reconstructed outfit from the first Doctor, more
daleks that you could – or would dare to – shake a stick at, a pig slave from
one of the more recent dalek episodes, cybermen from different series, an Ice
Warrior, Silurians, an Ood, a Judoon and the Tardis (of course). There was even a settee to hide behind! My inner geek came away happy. I do think, though, that the storylines of
the last few series have got a lot weaker…
- - - - -
Many years ago, when I was knee-high to something or other, I remember reading a Readers' Digest feature about how two particular cancer drugs (called Vincristine and Vinblastine if I remember rightly), came from a plant called the Madagascar periwinkle. Looking them both up, they are alkaloids (more about alkaloids a couple of paragraphs down). I hadn't even seen the Periwinkle you get around here at the time, but I remember the plant's name. On Wednesday, though, I was at Kew Gardens again, and I was really pleased to see several clumps of the Madagascar one in flower there in the Princess of Wales Conservatory. There's an information panel highlighting its medicinal use, with a QR code that takes you though to more information about it. They're really pretty, by the way!
There were three particular things I’d planned to see this time, starting with the Baobab in the same conservatory; it's the tallest thing in there! It's a different species from the Giant baobabs with the hugely swollen trunks, but equally fascinating. I wish there were an information panel about it at the edge of the planting, as you certainly can't see the label on/next to it from the path.
I made my way along to the treetop walkway after that; I’d intended to visit it previously but never got around to it. A single day is never enough to do or see everything there! You get some amazing views from the walkway, and you get a completely different perspective on the Gardens and of the height of the trees! The lift was out of order, though, but I decided I’d take the steps, slowly and gently. It was worth the effort.
Then, across to the Temperate House. I’ve explored it before, but it definitely
bears repeated visits. This time, the
Jacaranda was in flower – and what a stunning shade of blue its flowers are!! The theme for yesterday was definitely ‘up’ –
it was well worth seeing the flowers at eye level from the upper walkway, and
looking down on the palms and the Dickinsonia tree ferns. I'll be dreaming of treetop views for weeks!
From ground level, though, I think my takeaway memories from yesterday will be that this was the first time I’ve actually seen Strelitzia (Bird of paradise plants) in flower, so I took far too many photos of them, and the Brugmansia. Again, this was the first time I’ve seen them properly in flower. The Brugmansia in the Barbican Conservatory have great big ‘do not touch’ warning signs - they are nastily toxic, but at Kew the toxicity is only mentioned on an information panel. And when I say that they are nastily toxic, I mean that they are full of alkaloids including scopolamine and atropine. Apparently Brugmansia gives you a bad trip every trip, with terrifying hallucinations rather than ‘trippy’ ones – I’ve no intention whatsoever of finding out from experience. That did get me thinking about the sheer variety of plants that have evolved toxicity and how. The why is mostly to avoid being eaten! Alkaloids are not unique to angiosperms; think in terms of Yew, a gymnosperm which is famously poisonous - again, that's down to alkaloids. They are not even unique to plants - fungi also generate them. The events leading up to the Salem witch trials may have been caused by ergot contamination of the rye being used to make bread. Why those particular compounds, though? Given the strength of the effects, were they evolved as protection against grazing by megafauna with a greater body mass than humans? All seven Brugmansia species are extinct in the wild, quite probably because the animal that used to disperse the seeds are extinct. I’ll have a good look through my plant science textbook over the next couple of days. I’m also looking forwards to learning more detail about colour changes in flowers – there’s some nifty biochemistry behind that, which I gather involves a change in pH. Yes, Vipers’ bugloss, I’m looking at you!!
Incidentally, Brugmansia belong to the same family as the nightshades, but not all of them are poisonous; we quite happily eat tomatoes and potatoes. I will admit to wry amusement at the fact that neither of my two favourite 'vegetables' are in fact veggies in the usual sense of the word; tomatoes are technically fruits and of course mushrooms are fungi(!) and therefore not even plants.
There's also a Wood's Cycad in the Temperate House; again, it's extinct in the wild, and only one was ever discovered so all the specimens in botanic gardens around the world are clones grown from offshhots and suckers from that one plant.
I eventually made my way back towards Victoria Gate via some
amazing trees - Olive, Cork oak (the third thing on my 'must have a good look at' list for the day), a huge Calabrican pine, Deodar… The
way that olive trees grow in the UK now does rather attest to climate change,
as does the Canary Islands date palm growing a hundred yards or so away
from where we live.
It was a day that I did literally stop and smell the roses on my way past, as well, and I’m glad I did. I wish you could have smelled the perfume! (And again, how *do* plants form perfumes?) And so, into the shop… Hypothetically, they may have had some excellent books for sale, and, again hypothetically, I may have parted with a fair bit of money there and recovered with a mid-afternoon sandwich (it was far too late to call it lunch) and a cuppa before heading back across London to Kings Cross. I ached like an achy thing with an ache yesterday, but it was worth ir.
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