gunnera

[prettygoodword]

gunnera (GUHN-er-uh, guh-NEER-uh) - n., any of several tropical, herbaceous plants (genus Gunnera) with gigantic leaves and small, red to purple drupes, sometimes grown as an ornamental.


Like, gigantic -- they look like the megaflora equivalent of rhubarb, with leaves up to 2m wide and long in some species:


Thanks, WikiMedia!

That one is Gunnera manicata or giant rhubarb -- nb: not actually a rhubarb. The plants (and genus) were named in the late 1780s after Norwegian botanist Johan Ernst Gunnerus.

---L.

Comments

[movingfinger]

Nickname is "dinosaur food!"

[prettygoodword]

Like, more than twice the size of lotus leaves. Huge!

[pauraque]

That leaf is hilariously large. I actually laughed.

[prettygoodword]

It is. I wouldn't normally use a pic with an irrelevant person, but this really needed something for scale and a banana just wasn't going to cut it.

[loup_noir]

I planted one years ago. It grew. It seeded. Now I have more gunneras than I ever wanted.

[prettygoodword]

Volunteers easily, I take it?