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Enigma to solve
This is not an April Fool's joke. It is called in France brosse à chiendent, of the type violon. It is a common tool, to be bought in any shop for household management. The fibers look like the rhizomes of a Gramineae. Who has an idea of the species, the places where it is collected and processed, and its names in other languages ?
The plant of the month: pitahayas
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pink pitahaya -
yellow pitahaya
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Pitahayas are intriguing new exotic fruits. Although they originate from America, the pink pitahaya now comes from Asia, particularly Vietnam. They have been quite unknown to international markets up to 1990, and there was a lot of confusion about their scientific names. Many species with distinct colors are good candidates for cultivation.
Enjoy them !
What is Pl@ntUse?
Pl@ntuse is a collaborative space for exchange of information on useful plants and uses of plants. It is not intended to duplicate existing encyclopedias (including Wikipedia), but to offer additional features such as:
- On-line resources that you can reuse
- Portal towards relevant resources available on Internet
- Thematic introductions to literature or any subject of interest
- Species lists (legumes grown in France, world cereals...)
- Popular names or vernacular names
- Portrait galeries of cultivars (varieties)
- Old books and articles on useful plants
- Original publications
- Iconography
- Questions and answers
The working method
It is of course scalable and open for discussion. But the basic idea is not to produce consensus summaries. It is rather to provide reliable material to allow everyone to make his/her own synthesis. A priority is to upload the data sets that underlie the work, but are rarely published, forcing everyone to start from scratch.
Any kind of page may be created. Templates have been devised to create pages with a similar structure and with similar content. Such pages are easily accessible through categories or portals. If you intend to upload new types of information, please ask the administrators, who will help you create and use a new template.
As is customary in the scientific community, we mention the author of each contribution. However, most of the contributions may be corrected or updated, as far as they reach consensus. See Help:Authors of contributions
Each page is potentially available in English and French. By default, we are beginning with French, except for books written in English. You can collaborate by translating.