- The welwitschia of the South African desert produces only two leaves, which can grow to almost twenty feet long.
- Some bamboo grow with such vigor that you can hear the sounds of growth.
- Many tropical American plants produce flowers designed to be pollinated by hummingbirds or bats.
- The boojum tree (Idria columnaris) of Baja California, is a desert plant capable of almost complete dehydration. When hit by an infrequent rain, it will swell up to thirty feet in height, but then it deflates, shrivels and leans over until the next rain.
- A cactus grows in the jungles of Mexico that appears as a vine with leaves.
- Subularia, a small plant of the African mountains, produces enough heat to prevent the formation of ice crystals during the nightly freezes.
- The bark of the California redwood is virtually fireproof.
- The tropical mangrove produces a large, fleshy pear-like seed that sometimes begins to sprout while on the tree; as it drops, the five-to-fifteen inch root becomes stuck in the mud, and thus the seed plants itself.
- In South Africa the protea shrub produces such a large amount of nectar in its enormous flower heads that natives call them “honey pots” and use them as a source of sugar.
- Teosinte is the ancestor of all modern corn. This six-to-ten feet tall native of Mexico yielded miniature ears of corn which consisted only of two rows of kernels. This granddaddy of American agriculture had the ability to disperse its seed; modern corn has since lost this survival talent.
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