BS: Identify sensitive plant: dark red leaf

Subject: BS: Identify sensitive plant: dark red leaf
From: Helen
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 02:00 AM

Hi all you knowledgeable Mudcatters (and that means all of you).

Years - i.e. decades - ago I had a little indoor plant in a pot (here in Australia) which was named a "sensitive plant". It had dark burgundy leaves which were kind of heart shaped and about the size of a thumbnail. The leaves would be upright until you touched them and then they would suddenly fold down . It was a nice little plant, with soft-textured leaves a little like a maidenhair fern (adiantum aethiopicum) and I would really like to track down another one but I don't know what it was called. I have Googled for "sensitive plant" but didn't find any with dark red/burgundy coloured leaves. I've never seen it before or since. It may or may not be an oxalis variety.

So, you plant lovers and knowledgeable people, how can I find out what it was called i.e. specific name or Latin name so that I can find another one. Any ideas, oh wise and wonderful 'Catters?

Helen

Subject: RE: BS: Identify sensitive plant: dark red leaf
From: Helen
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 02:27 AM

Also, it is not the mimosa variety.

Subject: RE: BS: Identify sensitive plant: dark red leaf
From: open mike
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 02:32 AM

only sensitive plant i know is called mimosa..
and has many leaves along a central stem
and they all fold in if the hair triggers
on the end of the leaves are touched.
leaves are green though movie here:
http://sunflower.bio.indiana.edu/~rhangart/plantmotion/movements/nastic/mimosa/mimosa.html
the phenomenon is called thigmonasty (touch-induced movement)

Subject: RE: BS: Identify sensitive plant: dark red leaf
From: Helen
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 06:59 AM

Thanks, open moke. That's the one I can find by Googling but I am certain it is not related to the mimosa, which is a weed here in Oz.

Helen

Subject: RE: BS: Identify sensitive plant: dark red leaf
From: Janie
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 07:56 AM

Is it possibly a red variety of this?
From your description, probably not, but thought I'd ask.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Identify sensitive plant: dark red leaf
From: Janie
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 07:57 AM

Rats. I bumbled the link maker. Google prayer plant.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Identify sensitive plant: dark red leaf
From: Amos
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 09:25 AM

Mimosa link.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Identify sensitive plant: dark red leaf
From: Sorcha
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 02:28 PM

Helen, red/purple oxalis.

Subject: RE: BS: Identify sensitive plant: dark red leaf
From: Once Famous
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 02:37 PM

Panama Red.

Subject: RE: BS: Identify sensitive plant: dark red leaf
From: Bill D
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 03:15 PM

might start here Australian flora

Subject: RE: BS: Identify sensitive plant: dark red leaf
From: Bill D
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 03:22 PM

different search pattern got this heart shaped leaves on an Australian house plant

Subject: RE: BS: Identify sensitive plant: dark red leaf
From: Helen
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 04:49 PM

Open mike, my apologies - I've converted you into a car instead of a person. (In Oz there is a car called a Moke, which is like a flashier version of an open top jeep, so my brain must have been having a little nerve spasm when I mistyped your name as "open moke").

The mimosa has lots of little leaves attached to each long little stem. The plant I had had the more usual arrangement of leaves - I don't think they were alternate but probably opposite i.e. where there are two leaves at each juncture along the stem.

Neat video Amos, but it puts me in mind of cruelty to animals, waving a candle near the leaves. Did you read about a plant which was in an experiment to "witness" a "crime" (another plant being hacked around) and then put on a type of polygraph to see if it reacted when the perpetrator entered the room? I don't know if it was in the New Scientist mag recently. Apparently it would have made a good witness because it did react.

Sorcha,
It's definitely not like the red/purple oxalis in your link. I don't know if it was an oxalis. It didn't have those shaped leaves like the ones in your image.

I just found a neat
World Wide Flowering Plant Family Identification page where you tick the relevant boxes and submit the form and it narrows down your search, but, like the eyewitness to a crime committed decades before, I can't be sure I remember the look of the plant in any great detail. Only that it had delicate little leaves which were a uniform deep maroon colour and the plant was only about 1 foot high at the most.

Bill D, I don't even know if it was an Australian plant or if it originated somewhere else.

I'm trying to think of another plant which looks similar so that you know what I am talking about.

Thanks for the help.

Helen

Subject: RE: BS: Identify sensitive plant: dark red leaf
From: Once Famous
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 04:50 PM

Has any of you tried to smoke this?

Subject: RE: BS: Identify sensitive plant: dark red leaf
From: Helen
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 05:09 PM

No, Martin, I haven't but in our house we smoke chickens, trout and ham.    ;-)

Helen