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A street snack that has baffled botanists
- girishso 5y agoI have eaten it many times, vendors say it's a root. But the last time I ate it, it was little more fibrous and hard and I ate little more than the usual. For the next couple of days my tongue was itching and I had little difficulty speaking. Then I googled it and read somewhere that it's not edible. It's surprising experts don't know what the thing is given it's so commonly available.
- aardvarkr 5y agoTrade secrets are trade secrets.
- rsyring 5y agoTFA says it's probably Agave. They also say: > However, it may not be so healthy. “Agave has lots of alkaloids. It can be poisonous if eaten in large quantities. Maybe that’s why they sell thin slices,” Dr. Yadav, now retired, warns.
- boomboomsubban 5y agoThere are over 270 species of agave, that doesn't really answer anything.
- nathanvanfleet 5y agoIf you read the article they say the specific Agave that they linked to using DNA analysis.
- boomboomsubban 5y agoFrom the paper > The similarity search showed 89% identity with the partial sequence of the plastid locus maturase of Agave sisalana
- treis 5y ago89% isn't very similar though.
- kortex 5y agoSpecies doesn't mean as much in the plant world. Cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, Brussels sprouts, collard greens, kohlrabi, and gai lan are all Brassica oleracea. You can have specimens that are even technically the same cultivar but wildly different alimentary character.
- MattGaiser 5y agoTIL that the vegetable aisle has half the species I thought it did.
- Ericson2314 5y agoI think napa cabbage and a few others are also all the "other" brassica.
- kortex 5y agoOh yeah. Brassica rapa has your turnip, napa cabbage, bok choy and rapini/rabes. Brassica napus gives canola oil, swedish turnip, and rutabaga. Mustard comes from B. juncea, B. nigra and B. hirta. Also those species names aren't really even guaranteed to be accurate because biologists, botanists, geneticists, etc, can't even really agree on where to draw the line. There's a whole genre of Brassica memes and it's fantastic. https://mobile.twitter.com/faineg/status/1386522223901618177?lang=en https://mobile.twitter.com/faineg/status/1386522223901618177...
- danwills 5y agoHooray!! I totally love the way 'Brassica' vegetables provide such a vivid illustration of the amazing variety that some selection-pressure can yield on the development of essentially a single type of input organism. Makes you wonder what might happen when these types of selection-pressures start affecting humankind more!
- galangalalgol 5y agoBrassica and domesticated dogs diversified because of controlled breeding. Unless you get a bunch of totalitarian eugenicists with differing goals, I dont know how this could happen with people.
- garmaine 5y agoThe DNA analysis didn’t identify the exact variety.
- dandelany 5y agoYikes. Your symptoms were likely caused by calcium oxalate raphides, little mineral needles present in raw agave (and several other plants). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raphide https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raphide
- amelius 5y agoYour linked article says at the bottom that these things are also present in spinach, beets and pineapple.
- Laforet 5y agoMost cultivated edible plants have been selected against having too many raphides. Though people can still be sensitive to fresh pineapple and kiwifruit which contains proteases that amplifies the damage done by the oxalate needles. Wild plants, on the other hand , has not been subject to the same selection process and could easily contain a dangerous amount of oxalate.
- renewiltord 5y agoThis has been enlightening. I've sometimes definitely had this feeling when eating some pineapple but not other pineapple. Interesting.
- matheusmoreira 5y agoThat's extremely interesting. Nature never ceases to amaze.
- girishso 5y agoMay be, but it surely scared the hell out of me.
- sombremesa 5y agoUsually I don't bother with nits but in this case: > had little difficulty speaking Has exactly the opposite meaning of what you intend unless you turn it into: > had a little difficulty speaking Not too confusing in this particular comment, but I could see this causing problems down the line for you.
- jsight 5y agoI feel like there is a strong possibility that the sources vary. Possibly even some of them aren't so edible. How else could it have been readily available for decades without a clear source being well known?
- jackvalentine 5y agoI don't get it, rather than using the tools of botany and DNA analysis why not just pay a PI to follow the vendor -> supplier -> source trail?
- grawprog 5y ago>Probe them and they’ll cart away. “Forest officials in Maharashtra have tried to spy on them, but it was futile,” Dr. Nimbalkar recalls.
- jackvalentine 5y agoThanks somehow I missed that. Incompetent reading! Obviously we're not in possession of all the facts here but it sounds like incompetent spying to me. Much more difficult operations are carried out every single day.
- nathanvanfleet 5y agoThey might not have had the amount of budget necessary to observe them from a drone for months
- jackvalentine 5y agoA drone seems like overkill.
- kyriakos 5y agoThis and also botanists at universities can easily explain budget expenditures on DNA testing but not on hiring PIs.
- gus_massa 5y agoPerhaps they are getting bribes from the street vendors to look the other way, and that reduces they spying abilities.
- literallyaduck 5y agoTL;DR; it's agave. I was hoping it was a byproduct of recycling waste. Mystery creates buzz. The danger of a mystery food is part of why hot dogs and food cart food as a whole are popular.
- nuclearnice1 5y agoPeople eat hot dogs for the danger and mystery. Hmm.
- literallyaduck 5y agoHere is a fun filled article about the history of the hot dog. The time of "The Jungle" and mystery meat reminded me of the hidden origins of the plant in the original story: https://www.thehotdog.org/history-of-the-hot-dog/ https://www.thehotdog.org/history-of-the-hot-dog/
- kortex 5y agoWhat? Who eats hotdogs and food carts because of the mystery? I eat hot dogs cause they are fast, cheap, and delicious tubes of fatty salty meat. I eat food cart food cause it's just fucking delicious. I don't know the exact spec, but the Halal meat-on-a-spit is almost always lamb and beef doner kebab. The sauce is mostly yogurt, mayo, dill and oregano. I make my own sometimes. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doner_kebab https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doner_kebab
- skunkworker 5y agoThat was a fascinating read on a snack I haven't yet tasted but now I want to try.
- wombatmobile 5y ago“The mysterious <common thing> that has baffled <expert professionals> for <inordinate amount of time>” — Click bait sub editor
- MattGaiser 5y agoA lot of "baffled scientists for decades" is more that the scientists know about it but have never taken time to look as there are other things to do. It is a ridiculous spin.
- rsynnott 5y agoExcept, as mentioned in the article, they _did_ look into it, to the extent of DNA testing it! And still didn't come to a particularly satisfactory conclusion. "It might be an agave, but also the agave expert says agaves aren't like that" is about as far as anyone seems to have gotten.
- wombatmobile 5y agoSo, it's an unclassified botanical specimen. That's not really a "mystery". It's just an unclassified botanical specimen. This makes the product application of the root even less mysterious: "It was seasoned with salt, chili powder, and lime; my husband’s had sugar and lime. It was crunchy, juicy, and refreshing, but had no taste of its own."
- rsynnott 5y agoIt's _extremely_ weird that there is a commonly sold food, and no-one can figure out what it is. In particular, the vendors are unwilling to talk about it, and where pushed vaguely claim it's an agave, but the agave expert says it's not (of course, maybe he's wrong). The whole thing is fascinating. It's a low-stakes mystery, but a mystery all the same.
- citizenpaul 5y ago
- icy 5y agoHah, I've lived in Bangalore for about ~20 years and I've never heard of this. Very fascinating.
- deep-root 5y agoSYAC summary: Street vendors thinly slice "tree trunks" to order, and tell similar impossible stories of where they source it. In the end, one confirms from photos it is a type of Agave plant and they paint it red.
- ptr2voidStar 5y agoQuite Interesting!
- a_bonobo 5y agoIsn't it a bit... terrifying to buy and eat food, when nobody wants to tell you what that food actually is??
- hyperpallium2 5y agocoke secret recipe, KFC secret herbs and spices
- a_bonobo 5y agoone's sugar water, one is at least identifiable chicken! it would be closer to KFC secret herbs and spices on bushmeat
- dehrmann 5y agoThey at least have to be generally regarded safe. I will say that as a vegetarian, "natural flavors" can be pretty annoying.
- edoceo 5y agoKFC recipe is out there. Saw it on Reddit a few years ago. Followed it. Damn good chicken.
- aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA 5y agoI thought that process required a pressure fryer. Do you have one?
- edoceo 5y agoI don't. You can get the flavour w/o that cooker, but the juicy-ness requires it. Those things are like boats tho. Better to have a friend with one ;)
- girishso 5y agoDon't they have to follow strict regulations and pass various tests?
- nathanvanfleet 5y agoI read this article elsewhere. I don't quite get why it says no one know's, then it's genetically and visually matched to a type of agave, and then they go back to not knowing? It seems some of the counter argument is assuming that "Agave" are all the same when specific types will have specific traits. Otherwise it's an interesting read.
- nerdponx 5y agoBut nobody knows which agave, and at least one botanist insists that neither of the 2 likely agave candidates are quite right. Maybe some special selectively-bred version? It seems like we will get more answers after Covid when field research (eating parts of various agaves) can recommence.
- bobsmooth 5y agoLook at the wikipedia article for agave. The varied species are quite different from each other.
- barkha2803 5y agoHi. I am the author of this article :) To sum up, most research as of now points to Agave but botanists who did the DNA barcoding don't want to commit to Agave. For two reasons: 1) It is 89% close to Agave, the Sisalana variety but 11% is open to doubts and research. 2)The Agave expert, who tried to make a beverage out of it and has worked on it for years, says it's can't be agave. He has eaten both the snack, as well as agave, that's why. To complicate things, I have inspected agave (its length and girth) closely and I find it impossible to believe that it can hold within it such a fat and smooth thing. But I am no scientist. I went to a village recently, which has agave growing left, right and centre. One woman suggested it could be Eetha Gadda, a palm, and my heart sank because its stump did look very fat. But then other villagers said it wasn't possible. They think it's most likely Agave and their ancestors probably ate in the past, during drought. I plan to do a behind-the-scenes vlog for the article to explain what all I have tried and what all you may take further. For starters, a reader from the US says something similar from Agave is eaten in Mexico. A reader from Iraq says this may belong to a palm tree but the stump isn't as fat. I hope you and botanists will tell me more. Good luck.
- esjeon 5y agoThe whole business sounds very shady. It's likely that the plant is sourced from the side of roads, untended fields, forests, construction companies (selling anything they find for coffee money), etc. It's a completely black area, outside of food regulations, so they can't expose the actual source, no matter what. This can also explain the confusing reports from multiple researchers, because academic "species" don't matter in places like this. The vendors simply sell what looks similar to what they used to sell.
- acchow 5y agoWith multiple layers of middlemen, it's possible the vendors don't even know what the source is.
- achow 5y agoThis would be thin margin, low volume business and usually these cart owners source all the raw materials directly.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- trompetenaccoun 5y agoIt's Indian street food so I'd say what you describe is the optimistic scenario. Worst case it's an industrial product of sorts, produced backyard factories. South Asia has a huge variety of culinary plants and snacks, some of which are unknown even to locals, especially if it's a regional thing. But that no one would know and no one wants to talk about what it is, that's highly suspicious. It's really sad, China and India have among the best food in the world but they also have among the worst food safety record. Almost anything can be faked or adulterated for profit, from cooking oil that makes people go blind to instant baby formula that kills the infants.
- achow 5y agoThere is no food 'regulation' for the snacks sold in open cart. There are innumerable varieties of such snack which are not 'mysterious'. This seems to be 'mysterious' because of the writing skill of the author. She successfully managed to create a buzz. If finding the answer was the goal it could have been easily found out by offering 10X-50X (approx $150-$700 = Annual income perhaps) the money they offered mentioned in the article as a proposition to take over their business and as part of that asking them to show the source of the 'supply'.
- pragnesh 5y agoseems like palm tree https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkSeFP5Jjt8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkSeFP5Jjt8
- pragnesh 5y agoBhoochakara Gadda https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wTzOU-tt4U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wTzOU-tt4U
- Renaud 5y agoSeems more likely. Texture and size seem to match the article. Good find.
- vore 5y agoDoesn't the article debunk this in the first paragraphs? That night, I googled Bhoochakara Gadda. There wasn’t much. Wikipedia identified the scientific name of the plant as Maerua oblongifolia, but had no photos of it. Maerua oblongifolia is a low, woody, undershrub found in India, Pakistan, parts of Africa, and Saudi Arabia, whose tubers are sold as snacks and used as a stimulant in the ancient medicine system of Siddha, I read. Research papers showed its leaves and flowers but not the root. So I decided to dig in. I had a breakthrough a few months later when I came across a thesis paper by Dr. MS Rathore, who had propagated Maerua oblongifolia in the lab in 2011. He had seen the tree many times in the desert state of Rajasthan. “But I haven’t heard or seen anybody eating the root,” the scientist said over a call, sounding puzzled. “Its roots are sparse and inedible,” added Dr. NS Shekhawat, his thesis adviser and a retired professor of botany. “Growing in dry regions, where will it have so much water to develop big roots and be fat and juicy? [The snack] can’t be Maerua oblongifolia.” Additionally, the plant in the video looks nothing like Maerua oblongifolia: http://inaturalist.org/taxa/505837-Maerua-oblongifolia http://inaturalist.org/taxa/505837-Maerua-oblongifolia
- Renaud 5y agoPalm tree heart is layered and fairly brittle, Even if you could slice it as thin as they sell the snack, it would just come apart. The pictures in the article don't show that arrangement, it's more of a single fibrous block. I've eaten plenty of fresh palm-tree heart, you either slice it thin it to eat raw or cook it in larger blocks, in say some curry.
- drubio 5y agoThis looks like a giant variety of 'Pachyrhizus erosus' or Jicama, which is also a street snack widely sold in Mexico. I'v never seen ones as large as the one in the article, but the watery texture and how it's condimented (lemon, sugar, salt, chili powder) is exactly like Jicama. Seems wikipedia has a reference to ones as large as 2 meters and 20 kg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachyrhizus_erosus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachyrhizus_erosus so it may be like those tree trunk sizes in the article. It's not Agave. Agave roots are very fibery and dry, there's almost no moisture in them and you wouldn't be able to cut such thin slices like the article points out, agave roots are mashed up to start the Tequila process, here are some pics http://www.todomezcal.com/Elaboracion/molienda.html http://www.todomezcal.com/Elaboracion/molienda.html Source: I've cut open both Agave and Jicama plants, I grew up in Mexico. You can find Jicama/(fruit) street vendors in most Mexican cities main streets or outside Mexico a mexican market is also a safe bet. They have rough peel, like a potato but rougher, and they're about 90% water.
- bobsmooth 5y agoIf this is an agave, it would be different from the plants that you're familiar with since it grows in a different country, no? Edit: Growing conditions can drastically impact the development of a plant, am I wrong?
- simonh 5y agoAccording to the article it’s not actually the root, that’s just a story the vendors tell, it’s the stem.
- Galaxity 5y agoI think it could be the trunk of the agave. I just looked at pictures of agaves and some have short palm like trunks that the leaves come off of at the top instead of being right on the ground like you usually see with the aloe and agave type succulents. The trunk looks about the same size as the photos of the food object. The agave sisalana wiki article shows it: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisal
- abhi_kr 5y agoOh, I've eaten this thing once while visiting Dongargarh, a Temple town located in central India. It was the only time I had seen this thing. There were dozens of vendors selling this lined up on the stairs to the temple. It seems the snack has gone popular now. It's quite tasteless, felt like eating soft wood. Never expected to find this on Hackernews!
- blntechie 5y agoThis snack has started appearing in Chennai as well. Pretty sure I have never seen it before 2-3 years here. I always was interested about the curiosity around it as a YouTube food reviewer asked some very specific questions and the vendor refused to answer. Also pretty much everyone say it has no taste and only the lemon, salt and chili powder adds any taste but makes me wonder why it’s a profitable business if so.
- Pxtl 5y agoYouTube Video of the mystery street vendors: https://youtu.be/v7sn42heQ2w https://youtu.be/v7sn42heQ2w Why do they keep saying "anybody can eat this"?
- trompetenaccoun 5y agoTechnically the truth, anybody can eat this. They didn't say it's a good idea to do so ;)
- amznbyebyebye 5y agoIt almost sounds similar to thennai kuruthu.. heart of coconut palm..
- imvetri 5y agoNever step in other men's food
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- SrslyJosh 5y agoCut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler would be proud.
- rachmizard 5y agoHeloooo bro!
- 867-5309 5y agoI know the name, but what's the reference? edit: ah wait, is it the thin slices?
- wombatmobile 5y ago> Wikipedia identified the scientific name of the plant as Maerua oblongifolia, but had no photos of it. How about this photo? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maerua_oblongifolia#/media/File:Maerua_oblongifolia.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maerua_oblongifolia#/media/Fil... In this Wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maerua_oblongifolia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maerua_oblongifolia Maerua oblongifolia (syn. Maerua arenaria, Niebhuria arenaria) is a low woody bushy under-shrub sometimes scandent to 2–3 meters high, with a thick root stock and thick leaves, and strongly scented flowers, occurring in India, Pakistan, Africa and Saudi Arabia. In Telugu this plant is called by name Bhoochakra gadda (In Telangana) and Bhoochakra dumpa (In Andhra). In Tamil this plant is called by name Poomicchakkarai Kizhangu (பூமிச் சர்க்கரைக் கிழங்கு). This is a tuber that naturally grows in areas closer to fountains, especially in hills. Tribes and others collect the tubers, which are sold as a quick street food, in many Indian cities and towns.
- grenoire 5y agoThere is literally a Doubt section there, the page isn't well-cited on the food bit.
- wombatmobile 5y agoWhat do you make of this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlwOrdciEX8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlwOrdciEX8 and this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7sn42heQ2w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7sn42heQ2w Have you ever been to the Champavat region of Uttarakhand?
- stinos 5y agoInteresting; don't speak the language but the first video showa a plant, and then a root/stem, without a link bewteen the two (i.e. harvesting). And the second shows just the stem. So still could go both ways?
- atombender 5y agoThe first video shows the leaves of some kind of shrub, with no evidence to link it to the thick, fleshy stem to that plant. The second video shows a food market selling the snack and displaying a web page printout about Maerua oblongifolia. Also not evidence. Clearly you did not read the article. The food vendors claim it is Maerua oblongifolia. The whole point is that it cannot possibly be, as Maerua does not have fleshy, edible roots or trunks, and DNA testing points to a different botanical family. Wikipedia is not a credible source here.
- p4bl0 5y agoI can't access this website on mobile. All I can see is a cookie banner that tries to force me to accept all cookies at once with a big unique "accept" button. There is an almost hidden link to a cookie policy page which itself has a small link to revoke consent which… does not work. Seriously why would a website do that? Is there a copy of the content I could read somewhere else that respect their readers?
- 4wsn 5y agoJust install uBlock Origin and disable JavaScript by default. There's no other practical way to actually use the web on a mobile device these days. For what it's worth it was a great and very entertaining article.
- Markoff 5y agoublock on mobile? good luck installing extensions, since your only options are buggy slow Firefox or just days ago released updated Kiwi Browser
- daxfohl 5y ago> "We are professors, busy between teaching and administrative work, so we rely on existing literature to come to conclusions" Is this really what academia is like?
- jsilence 5y agoUsually the professors have a bunch of PhD students working on topics the prof specializes in. So yes and no.
- mPReDiToR 5y agoIn the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov this exact meme is lampooned. A character describes how they went to the library, read all the old books, wrote a paper and called it new research. Dr Asimov may have seen the bleak future of academia, what with it being his other trade. Mayhap we need more Dr Indiana Jones types with tenure?
- andi999 5y agoIndiana Jones wouldn't get tenure, yes he found the ark of the covenant, but what did he find afterwards (which was delivered to the gov/museum?)
- stinos 5y ago
- omega3 5y agoCould it be agave and other smaller plants shredded and pressed into this log shape?
- jcun4128 5y agoReminds me of the cameron apple that is a guava injected with red dye and flavored artificially. Saw on Weird Explorer YT
- bboreham 5y agoThe answers from street vendors reminded me of the stories software salespeople will tell you about how the product was created.
- rachmizard 5y agoasaaaaa
- rachmizard 5y agokeripikk!!
- singularity2001 5y agometa: how can atlasobscura.com operate legally in Europe when the only cookie option is 'confirm'?
- convery 5y agoIn the same way popups saying "by continuing to view this site you consent to cookies" do? The user is informed and the cookie is(/should be) only set once they click a link / button / scroll past the initial view, which means they have taken an 'informed' action regarding cookies.
- MereInterest 5y agoThat conforms to the earlier EU cookie directive, but not to the GDPR. Under the GDPR, consent much be freely and explicitly given, and must be as easy to revoke as it is to give. Clicking a link or scrolling down is not explicit. Since use of the site is conditional on accepting the tracking, the consent isn't freely given. Since there is no button to reject the cookies, it is harder to reject the tracking than it is to accept. Failing all three conditions for acquiring consent, my conclusion is that the site is blatantly violating the GDPR.
- snowwrestler 5y agoWho says it is operating in Europe? Just because you can reach it with a browser from Europe does not mean it has a business nexus in the EU. Yes I know the EU claims that GDPR covers the entire world, but the practical reality is that they do not have overseas strike forces going after small web publishers for cookie banners.
- Twixes 5y agoTBH there isn't even a domestic enforcement of cookie preferences, no one actually gives a damn it seems. Violations of handling personal data – fines do happen for that. Cookies – nope, you won't even get a notice.
- Rexxar 5y ago
- mandeville 5y agoI have a hypothesis. What if this were agave root, but bathed/stored in something that broke down the cellulose. This would give a second reason they cut only an outside layer, in addition to being against the grain. Also it would explain the secrecy as the chemicals might be harmful.
- DonHopkins 5y agoSome Unflappable Agave Wisdom from Joey Santore , aka "Crime Pays but Botany Doesn't": #41: Massive Flowers of Agave Shawii Ssp Goldmania https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueWGGnYlRCU&ab_channel=CrimePaysButBotanyDoesn%27t https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueWGGnYlRCU&ab_channel=Crime... >So anyway, here's that same habitat where I was filming scorpions last night, and here it is during the day time. [...] >Let's take a look over here. This massive Agave. Which is basically just, uh, I don't know, 20 or 30 years worth of a plant manufacturing sugars. So that's about 30 years worth of sunlight put into a sugar form, which stays in the heart of that plant. They're, remember, most Agaves are monocarpic, so they flower once and then die, and it's because they take that massive amount of sugar, and put everything they got into these flowers up there, which produce tremendous amount of nectar, which are then pollinated by bees and bats. You can see the stamens up there. >See the stamens have those anthers on 'em, those little banana shaped rads, with all the pollen. And then of course there's, for every flower, there's one central stigma, which is like the female part, it receives the pollen, so you have like six stamens and one stigma. And then when they're done, each one of those flowers turns into a tree lobed pod, which then has little tiny black flakey seeds in it. Each plant producing hundreds upon hundreds of seeds, only a few of which of course will form new plants. >You can see there's quite a few others doin' their thing and bloomin' right now. You can also imagine fallin' on that will quite possibly kill you. This one, like I said, Agaves are monocarpic, but uh, they do send out, I don't know what the word of them would be, I just call 'em pups. But basically, just, ya know, little Mini-Me's that they send out on the sides, so that when the main plant flowers, the show is still not that completely over. >See now this whole inflorescence is just alive with pollinators. It's buzzing. Imagine the amount of energy and carbohydrates needed to create a huge massive flowering stock like that. It's got to weight 150 pounds, easily. It's a 150 pound flower. Same with this one. And you can see it's already starting to shrivel 'cause its energy reserves start to diminish. If you just saw off all these leaves, you'd just have a massive, probably three or four hundred pound heart, composed almost entirely of carbohydrates. #51: Annotated, Profanity-Laced Checklist of Desert Ultramafics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhWLtKy8kYY&ab_channel=CrimePaysButBotanyDoesn%27t https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhWLtKy8kYY&ab_channel=Crime... >Now a quick introduction to what's called analtramafic, ultramafic soils, are almost always associated with subduction zones. They're also known as serpentine soils. And, uh, they're often very barren of plant life, being to the fact that they're toxic to most plants. That is, they have minerals like nickel, magnesium, and and excess amounts of iron, while also lacking essential plant nutrients such as calcium and nitrogen. So many plants have a hard time growin' in them, but many other plants have adapted to them. That's not to say that they necessarily thrive in them, but they're able to tolerate the soil chemistry. [...] >But look at this nice Agave Vizcainoensis. Another endemic to the region. Look at that thick cuticle it's got in it. You can almost see it. Look at those pores. Look at that nice thick cuticle. Oh, what a beautiful plant. I love this guy. #74: Sassy Bastards of the Last Chance Range b/w Agave Utahensis Var Eborispina https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5yViQeLpPM&ab_channel=CrimePaysButBotanyDoesn%27t https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5yViQeLpPM&ab_channel=Crime... >Now here is somethin' that's real nice. I think you probably will like it a lot. This is a species of Agave known only from the limestone soils in Southwestern Nevada, and a little bit into Eastern California, right here on the Nevada border. This is Agave Utahensis variety Eborispinus. And here's one about two weeks shy of flowering. You can see that flower spike just came up. Now that flower, of course, will open, it will get pollenated by a variety of different bees, and perhaps some bats as well, and then it will die. But you can see it's already got another offset comin' up that will survive, and then will probably flower a couple years later down the line. >Now the reason this is called variety Eborispina is pretty obvious when you get up close and you look at these rosetta leaf blades, which, uh, I mean, is kinda just sayin' "Leave Me Alone!" You can see the tips of these leaf blades are about six inches long, probably, seven inches in some case. A very sharp, very hard, very easy to dissuade any potential herbivores or jack asses like myself from puttin' my hand right there at the base of this large flowering shoot, the peduncle. Now look at those spines. And again, this only grows on calcium carbonate soils, on the limestone. There's three different species in this genus: Nevadensis, Utahensis, and Eborispina. There might be one more. Utahensis is the name of the species. Might not be the name of the subspecies. It's either subspecies or variety. I don't know. Don't matter. Either way: What a fuck'n remarkable plant! [...] >These things are nice too. These peduncles, these big peduncles, 'cause you can, uh, when it's done, they're woody, you can cut them off, and, uh, beat your friends with them, etcetera. #154: Cat-calling Milkweds, Tracking Hippies, & Consoling Grandpas https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KefiIdZR7Ck&ab_channel=CrimePaysButBotanyDoesn%27t https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KefiIdZR7Ck&ab_channel=Crime... >Obsolete Racist Grandpa Trigger Warning >Kinda glandular, too. A little bit, uh, little bit frilly, ehe? Look at those big-ass brachs. On the back of the flowers, too, huh? Like on this guy, you know? It's so nice. Doesn't that make you feel good? Doesn't that make you feel better? Maybe all those crazy white boys that are going shootin' up malls and shit, you know? Too bad they didn't know about botany, you know? Could have just calmed them right down, you know. Maybe they just should have just studied plant science a little better, some shit. You know? 'Cause it really, it's like the tissue paper that wipes the ass. You know, it gets rid of all the shit stain of modern society and civilization, huh? 'Cause you know, it's not a pretty world out there, folks, at least if you're looking at the human world. Kinda makes me wanna die. But then you just got look at that, uh, something like that monotropa, you feel a little bit better, huh? So you got much more music forest over here, and then here you got a royal like halis slope, then you got a, what seems to be an Agave Parryi. Certainly one of the Agaves. It is producing pups. So that when a, you know, the mother plant dies, you know, it's monocarpic so they die after flowering, it just sends out other pups. https://www.chicagomag.com/city-life/august-2019/joey-santore-chicago-botany/ https://www.chicagomag.com/city-life/august-2019/joey-santor... >Meet the “Misanthropic Chicago Italian” Who Charmed Twitter. The self-taught botanist sounds off on going viral, preserving the natural world, and the story behind that accent.
- newdude116 5y agoI googled a little bit. There are many videos with comments about this snack. As mentioned it could be Maerua oblongifolia Here is a scientific paper: https://www.ijcrt.org/papers/IJCRT1892916.pdf https://www.ijcrt.org/papers/IJCRT1892916.pdf
- kushan2020 5y agoDoes anyone know how Agave is growing wild in India. I was under the assumption that agave is native to Americas.