Black Plants @ The Botanical

Story Options

Oct 11th 2005, 2:07pm By queenseyes

Their names sound as frightening as a dark and stormy night: Pseuderanthemum alatum atropurpureum; Spiderwort; eZwartkopfi; Acanthus Family. What are these strange sounding things?

They are commonly referred to as black plants and they are currently on display at the Buffalo and Erie County Botanical Gardens, until November 1.

Can living blacks really be black? Not truly, because the dark colors that our eyes see are actually a combination of red, purple, green, orange and yellow.

Leaves described as being eblacki contain a pigment called anthocyanin. Anthocyanins are plant pigments that reflect the red to blue range of the visible spectrum. The word anthocyanin is derived from two Greek words meaning plant and blue. These are naturally occurring compounds that give color to fruit, vegetables, and plants.

2655 South Park Avenue (Rt 62), Buffalo. (716) 827-1584

User Options

feed your soul buffalo

Would you like to subscribe to this conversation?

Enter your email below, and you will receive an alert each time someone leaves a comment on this post.

What Do You Think?

Login to get more

Related Articles

  • Welcome to NIMBY Court

    Story Image Don’t like what your neighbor is proposing for their property? Buy it. That is what just went down on Rumsey Lane. Sue Ann Simonin received City approvals to tear down a 1940’s ranch at 25-27 Rumsey (entry image) in anticipation of constructing her dream home last year. Her plans for the new residence ran into a buzzsaw of neighborhood opposition but finally received the necessary approvals to build in April. On Thursday she sold the site to an adjoining property owner. …

  • Great Public Spaces: Route 5 Lands In The PPS 'Hall of Shame'

    Story Image Here's something to ponder over the weekend. The Route 5 debacle has just snagged a spot in the organization Project for Public Spaces' Hall of Shame. After reading RaChaCha's post on the Ten Great Qualities of a Great Street (criteria from PPS), a couple of members of the organization (who saw the post) flew into Buffalo. RaChaCha and I toured them around and showed them all of the Cobblestone District advancements as well as the area in and around the Commercial Slip. When they …

  • Carl's Constitutional Convention

    Story Image Carl Paladino is shaking it up once again, and next to the calling for the toll barriers to come down, this may be a hit with the general public. "I'm asking our legislative candidates to vote for a Constitutional Convention," Paladino said. "This can happen every twenty years, the last time being 1996, but it hasn't been done since 1938." Paladino's objective, he says, is to get both houses to vote by majority for a referendum on the ballot. This, he explains, would put to vo …

  • Hoax Revisited

    Story Image The Nicole Kidman/Studio Arena hoax that recently hit the media is an opportunity for some discussion about the way news travels these days, and begs comment on the phrase "Any publicity is good publicity". After speaking with someone closely related to Studio Arena, who wishes to stay anonymous, it seems like the Kidman hoax was timed perfectly—in order to circumvent corroboration—and named just the right names in order to look plausible. Add to that the fact that many of t …

Text Links