Re: Pedaliaceae

Clarke Brunt (CLARKE@lsl.co.uk)
Thu, 29 Apr 1993 14:29:11 +0000

Sorry this has little to do with carnivorous plants but...

I have known two plants belonging to the Pedaliaceae. One is a tuberous
rooted plant called Pterodiscus speciosus, which I have amongst my
cactus/succulent/carnivorous plant/anything that grows collection.
Growers sometimes use the 'caudiciform' as a generic term for plants
with tuberous lumps at the bottom, often planted above ground so that
they look nice. Anyway, Pterodiscus gets small annual stems rising from
its tuber, and pink flowers, followed by winged seed pods as you might
guess from the 'Ptero' part of its name.

The other plant is Sesamum indicum, which a grew from a Sesame seed.
This was one of those things I'll just try once, as I didn't think much
of the plant, anyway it got a few flowers, and I was able to harvest my
own Sesame crop of about 10 seeds!