Monday, July 21, 2008

Common name: Ruffled Yellow Begonia
Botanical name: Begonia tuberosa 'Ruffled Yellow' Family: Begoniaceae (Begonia family)

Ruffled Yellow Begonia is a cultivaer of Begonia with vivid, large, fully-double flowers. The flowers provide a strong contrast with deep green leaves for an eye-catching display. Flowers are big, sunny 5-9 inch yellow blooms. Blooms from mid summer through entire season. It is a long, heavy bloomer.
Common name: Hanging Basket Red Begonia
Botanical name: Begonia 'Red Cascade' Family: Begoniaceae (Begonia family)

Hanging Basket Red Begonia is a stunningly attractive cultivar of Begonia with fully double, pendulous flowers. This begonia displays graceful angel-wing shaped leaves and blooms profusely. The mature plant is about a foot tall with a cascading form. Blooms in mid summer through entire season long. It needs a well drained soil type.
Common name: Common Rock Jasmine
Botanical name: Androsace sarmentosa Family: Primulaceae (primrose family)

Common Rock Jasmine is a perennial herb. Leaf rosettes solitary or several forming lax mats, 3-5 cm in diameter - slightly hairy leaves. Umbels of pink flowers with yellow eyes in late spring. It is in flower from July to August. The flowers are hermaphrodite (has both male and female organs) The plant prefers light (sandy) and medium (loamy) soils, requires well-drained soil and can grow in nutritionally poor soil. This flower is native to the Himalayas, from Sikkim to Kashmir.
Medicinal uses: The entire plant is used in Tibetan medicine, it is said to have a bitter taste and a cooling and coarsening potency. A resolutive, it dries up serous fluids. It is used in the treatment of disorders from tumours, inflammations of fluids and other serous fluid disorders.
Identification credit: Navendu Pagé
Common name: Sage Leaved Alangium • Hindi: Ankol अंकोल • Urdu: Ankula • Malayalam: Arinjl • Telugu: Urgu • Kannada: Ankolamara • Sanskrit: Ankolah • Tamil: Alandi
Botanical name: Alangium salviifolium Family: Alangiaceae (Alangium family)

Sage Leaved Alangium is a tall thorny tree native to India. It grows to a height of about 3 to 10 meters.The bark is ash colored, rough and faintly fissured. The leaves are elliptic oblong, elliptic lanceolate or oblong lanceolate. The flowers are greenish white, fascilcled, axillary or on old wood. The berries are ovoid, ellipsoid or nearly globose.glabrous, smooth and violet to purple. The flowering season is February to June.
Medicinal uses: In Ayurveda the roots and the fruits are used for treatment of rheumatism, and hemorrhoid.Externally it is used for the treatment of bites of rabbits, rats, and dogs.
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Common name: Sunset Bells, Black Flamingo, Chrysothemis, Copper Leaf
Botanical name: Chrysothemis pulchella Family: Gesneriaceae (Gloxinia family)

Sunset Bells is an interesting plant from the Caribbean. Yellow flowers with bright orange sepal cups form a colorful ground cover. The yellow flowers are short-lived, but the orange sepal cups last for many days and give the plant an everblooming effect. The dark, glossy, toothed leaves make this plant attractive even when it is not in bloom. It is a perennial herb that can be grown as a house-plant. From spring to summer it is covered with very showy orange-red flowers. The bright yellow corolla, with some red striping or spotting, is about twice the length of the sepal cup, with a narrow tube and flaring lobes. Leaves are large, dark-green with brown touch, very ornamental. The stems are thick and succulent, usually upright. The plant forms a dense mountain of flowers and foliage. The plant forms tubers at the base of the stem, and sometimes also in the leaf axils. The name is taken from mythology - Chryso Themis was a daughter of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon, of Greek mythology. Pulchella means beautiful.
Common name: Bushweed, cool pot, Indian snow berry, thermacole plant, white honey shrub • Hindi: Shinar, Ainta • Marathi: पांढरफळी pandharphali • Tamil: முல்லுபுலட்டீ Mulluppulatti • Malayalam: ചെരിംക്ലാവ് cerimklaav • Telugu: పులుగుడు pulugudu • Kannada: Kandekuvana, Hooli, Bilchuli • Konkani: Parpo • Gujarati: હુમ્રી Humri • Sanskrit: भूरिफली bhuriphali, पान्डुफली panduphali, श्वेतकम्बुज shwetakambuja
Botanical name: Flueggea leucopyrus Family: Phyllanthaceae (Phyllanthus family)
Synonyms: Securinega leucopyrus, Phyllanthus leucopyrus

Bushweed is an erect shrub 1.5-4 m tall with branches cylindrical or obtusely angular when young, gray. Final branchlets are spine-tipped, cylindrical and rigid. Leaf stalks are 2-8 mm, grooved. Leaf blade is elliptic, obovate, or round, 1.3-2.5 × 1-1.5 cm, papery to thinly leathery. Leaf margin is not toothed and the tip is rounded. Flower cymes arise in leaf axils or at leafless nodes. Flowers are tiny, yellowish. Male flowers have 5 petals, 5 stamens. Female flowers have 5 sepals, elliptic or ovate, 0.6-0.8 mm; disk annular. Fruit is a nearly spherical berry, about 4 mm in diameter, whitish when ripe. Flowering: April-July.
Identification credit: Hemanth Tripathi

Friday, July 18, 2008

An introduction to Thunderbird

Thunderbird is one of those programs which can compete with MS Outlook Express, not only because it has similar

functionality, but it's also user friendly, and it's freeware.
Thunderbird, and other Open Source programs, are products

developed by a community of developers. As everything else, this community ain't flawless. IMHO it seems they use too

much energy and time developing programs, and fighting the everlasting battle against monopoly. I'm sure I'm not the first

one to think about this, but what if the community had spent more time enlightening the masses? I don't see myself as a

guru when it comes to handling programs, yet Thunderbird is quite easy to use.People's fear of the new and unknown might

be a missed issue, which needs to be put on the agenda. Throughout this article, I will try to help you understand Thunderbird, as the excellent, free program it is.