The familiar houseplant Poinsettia is related to the rubber tree Hevea brasiliensis. Both are members of the Euphorbia family, the spurges. Not many people know that. Also the teak tree is one of the Lamiaceae, the sages and mints. While the carrot family, the Umbelliferae or Apiaceae includes SHUT UP SMUTRight: Set-pointia
Left: Poinsettia
Tragic effects of giant catmint
Sadly, our attempts at Riddled Research Laboratory to graft a teak seedling onto catmint rootstock and produce the world's largest feline narcotic have not yet met with success.Don't eat the Poinsettia, Jenny!
But Poinsettia latex contains no end of toxins and allergenic proteins, and its rise to 
However, one dingbat blames rubber latex allergies instead for the Autism Epidemic, in combination with childhood vaccination. The author has clearly watched too many films noir and read too many Tintin stories in which sinister kidnappers fill their hypodermic syringes from multi-use ampoules (so the victim receives a dose of latex molecules picked up from the rubber seal on the ampoule, to add to the insult of abduction). He is oblivious to Reality, in which the medical world has largely phased out multi-use latex-capped bottles, while would-be abducters these days merely stun their victims with an iPhone installed with a Kidnapplet.But he has a Book! And an article published in Medical Hypotheses!***
"Careful what you say about the Latex lobby," Another Kiwi vouchsafed. "Their minions are everywhere, and they are well-funded, and they will not scruple to crush Riddled underfoot like a Coprinellus micaceus mushroom if we call attention to their nefarious machinations."
Plastic Mac Man: Minion of Big Latex
"But what of our integrity, and our journalistic duty to serve the Truth?" I protested.
"Also the name 'Big Latex' is liable to leave our readers all excited and flustered and in need of a cold shower.""Good point," I conceded.
* Statement not intended to be factual.** Also any jokes about "A Spurge's Syndrome" will lead to banning WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE.
*** This is a version of 'Annals of Improbable Research' but with a better-concealed sense of humour. Any random issue contains papers targetted at winning an IgNobel Prize. What a boon to lazy bloggers!
13 comments:
I don't know about you guys, but I'm starting to worry about Smut. His associations are less free and more tortured than before, and of late his attention span is even shorter than...I'm sorry, where was I? Oh yeah, the whole Skull fulla mushrooms thing.
I mean c'mon, who's going to eat mushrooms with brain dirt on them?
Um. Yeah. I'm pretty sure that was my point..
"Worrying mikey" is part of the Riddled mission statement.
A "worrying Mikey" tag would probably be worn out by Christmas.
Also: GIANT KITTY! Huge in Tokyo, I hear.
Does it warrant the "helping tigris" tag?
For one of my field trips with my horticulture class we went to a greenhouse that grew poinsettias. It was breathtakingly red and green. I won't buy one because they're too much bother to keep red. I was given one last Christmas by some generous DAV ladies but I left it at the rehab center for others to enjoy instead of bringing it home to watch it die. As fun as that might have been, I just wasn't in the mood for it. Plants are just too bothersome-ly sentient sometimes--- the way they accuse when you neglect them and retaliate by looking unseemly. That's why I like cut flowers in the house. They're supposed to die.
From the trusty wikipedia:
The first use of rubber was by the Olmecs, who centuries later passed on the knowledge of natural latex from the Hevea tree in 1600 BC to the ancient Mayans. They boiled the harvested latex to make a ball for a sport.
To make a "ball" for "sport". Uh huh. Like that's credible.
Its invasion of the window-sills of North America began in earnest in the 1920s and 1930s under a second-generation Ecke with his innovating grafting techniques
THe Ecke Poinsettia invasion (with its innovating grafting techniques) is preferable to the Icke Reptiloid invasion, which features grafting techniques of a far more sinister type.
Speaking of reptiloids, NZ's leader was returned in the Election...
I feel enormously helped: the catmint gave me the munchies, then came the timely and useful warning against eating the poisonous houseplants.
However, one dingbat blames rubber latex allergies instead for the Autism Epidemic, in combination with childhood vaccination.
Pfft. Everyone knows that homeopathic doses of latex lead to happy bouncing babies.
Also, LET'S GO.
Euphorbia
That's an extreme mix of emotions.
The pleasure experienced from examining one of ITTDGY's photographs.
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