Category Science

In zoos the popular names of the animals on display are written on a label in front of their cages. The label also carries the animal’s scientific name in Latin. For example, on a lion’s cage, the Latin name is Panthera leo; on a tiger’s cage of a leopard the name is Panthera pardus.

Latin is the language accepted by scientists and zoologists throughout the world to avoid confusion. The Latin name for any animal consists of two words because the scientific classification of animals still follows the basic principle laid down by the botanist Carolus Linnaeus. In the examples we have already quoted the first part of the names is the word Panthera: this refers to the genus of the animal. The second part of the name refers to the species. Members of an animal species that have many features in common come together in a genus. The Panthera genus, for example, includes the large cats which are unable to purr. Smaller cats, which can purr but do not roar, belong to the genus Feils. Both genera are in the family Felidae. A number of genera from a family and several families form an order. The orders come together under classes and the classes fall into types. The total of all these forms the animal kingdom.

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Dates are used in many ways. Those with a soft, pulpy flesh provide a syrup known as date honey which can be made into a jam. Hard-fleshed dates can be preserved in sugar or made into flour. The juice of dates can be fermented and turned into an alcoholic drink called arrack. The leaves of the date palm can be used for making mats or cord. The seeds or stones of the dates can also be made into buttons.

Dates are full of nutrition, especially dry dates. Dry dates are high in calories particularly carbohydrates (74 grams). It also contains several essential vitamins and minerals with fibres. Dates are famous for their rich concentration of antioxidants which can be beneficial for your cardiac and pulmonary health.

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Oil of cedar is a precious substance which the ancient peoples used to, embalm dead bodies. It was also once used to coat books to preserve them from insects and damp. The oil is obtained by distilling it from the African cedar and is essential oil, that one that gives a plant, flower or fruit its distinctive odour or flavor. These oils are used for the scenting or flavoring of numerous products, such as perfumes, cosmetics and soaps.

The African cedar grows in the north of that continent, especially on the Atlas Mountains. It is a very imposing conifer that bears many leaves and grows to a height of more than 40 metres. It closely resembles the more famous cedar of Lebanon which was also highly prized by the ancient peoples.

Cedar wood is soft and rich in resin. It can be worked easily and is used extensively in building and furniture-making.

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The holly bush can often look like a tree and grow to a height of more than 7 metres. Usually it is a shrub which in winter stands out in contrast with its glossy, green leaves against the dead, brown foliage all around it. The leaves of holly are intended to keep animals away. The leaves on the lower ‘branches of the plant are very prickly as this is the part most likely to be attacked by hungry animals. The leaves nearer the top of the plant are not so prickly because they are out of the reach of leaf-eating animals.

Holly usually grows in oak and chestnut woods. In winter the plant has bright red berries and is widely used in Christmas decorations.

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If we examine the trunk of a tree that has been chopped down, we will see first of all the outer ring of the bark which acts as a sort of waterproof coat for the tree. Inside the outer covering come a number of concentric rings. Each one of these rings represents a year in the life of the tree. The space between the rings is the wood which the tree produced during one year.

By counting the number of rings we can tell when the tree was born. These rings also indicate the dry periods the tree lived through as well as wet periods. In dry times the rings are very thin. In heavy rainfall years the rings are thicker.

Slender cores of wood can be taken from a tree, from the bark to the centre of the trunk; these samples reveal the same information and are taken with a borer that does no, significant damage to the tree.

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The prickly pear grows wild in warm Mediterranean regions. It anchors itself to rocky, barren slopes and forms large areas of scrub that grow to about 3 meters high. On cultivated land the prickly pear is often cultivated as a hedge. It is enough to plant just one leaf for a whole bushy shrub to start growing.

‘Leaf is not really the correct word to describe the green, fleshy vegetation of this plant. The leaves are really parts of the plant’s trunk which measure from 15 to 40 centimeters long and 15 centimeters wide.

The actual leaves of the prickly pear are very small and are shed almost as soon as they have appeared on the plant. They leave behind them thick tufts of thin needles. One of these needles grows outwards and becomes very sharp.

Since the prickly pear has no leaves the task of producing chlorophyll, without which no plant can live, is carried out by the trunk.

The prickly pear was introduced into Australia at the end of the eighteenth century as a food plant for cochineal insects. It spread and by 1870 had become a pest in Queensland and New South Wales. Its growth was controlled by the introduction of a little moth, the cactoblastis

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