'PONGO' Tree

[Viz]

Do you mind Bobbi - now i feel quite nauseated - can i have a little mineral water please - truthfully - i am constantly amazed by the American appetite - when i took my niece to Hawaii for her birthday one year (what a good auntie i am) we were both nearly ill when we went to one of those "all you can eat places" - platters piled high with all sorts of incongruous food stuffs kind of  mixed up together - good argument for going on a diet pronto i thought.

[bobbi]

Ha, ha, at the Salt Lick - they insist on bringing one last obscenely large platter of beef after you've told them to stop. And they also hate waste and pack up your leftovers to take home. Last time we went there (I think there were nine of us,) we had enough meat to feed us for a week!

There's a Brazilian Restaurant down the road here called Wildfire where they give each table a wooden block. One side is painted red and the other green. They bring round platters and skewers of meat (and the most divine calamari) and offer it around to everyone as long as the green side is uppermost. Turn it over to red, and they leave you alone. You can toggle the thing as much as you like. Great idea. It's a lot more expensive than the good ol' Salt Lick in Texas, and the patrons aren't nearly as entertaining, showing a lot more Kiwi restraint. And they're fully licensed, so no BYO booze option.

[technomc]

Getting back to the subject...
A PONGA tree...
Thank you Bobbi, what a star you are...
A tree fern i have..although that isn't huge either..it's about 3 feet high, leafing beautifully in my sunny back garden[when it is sunny that is]. This is only the 2nd year i have had it..and was really pleased it survived the winter. I did bubblewrap it and leave it in my conservatory and squirt it regularly...but it is notoriously hard to keep them in our climate, so as i say, i am well chuffed.
My hearing wasn't that bad threeb...and i was on the verge of lunacy sleep...
Thanks again bobbi...

By the by, here in the YUK...PONGO is a derogatory name for squaddies, which is a derogatory name for new army recruits...

[biggerbirdbrain]

Hey, T, I wasn't the one who told you you were going deaf insane ! 

[technomc]

Sorry threeb...it was that KinkyBinky person...
I have de-waxed my lug holes...painful, the hairs were really long...
 

[biggerbirdbrain]

[a non-amos]

This ponga tree has me wondering . . . Is it similar to a lepidodendron?

As I recall, the lepidodendron was either a moss or a fern that grew to tree-like proportions in the carboniferous period.

Oh, gee.  Am I showing my age?

[bobbi]

Not really like a lepidodendron or moss tree. Apart from anything else, they're extinct, and we only know a bit about them from fossils.

The Ponga is a [Silver Fern] tree fern. See my post at the top for some links to some great pictures. The other really lovely tree fern that grows rampant here in New Zealand is the Mamaku of Black tree fern. The Mamaku is a bigger plant; it can grow up to 20 metres tall, which is a pretty big tree! It has a matt black trunk. It doesn't have that lovely irridescent silver sheen on the back of the fern fronds. But I think they're beautiful as well.

[a non-amos]

I did not mean to imply that lepidodendra were still alive, only that they might be similar.

Lepidodendra are somewhat extinct, but they did help to form many or our coal deposits.

We have no more of them, but we have their carbon copies. 

[technomc]

I am so glad i asked the original question...
Look how wonderfully intelligent and clever i am making you lot look, me, i couldn't even spell it right?!?
 

[bobbi]

No, no, I didn't think you meant the moss trees were still around, just commenting really on how incredibly alive the ponga are by comparison - they grow like weeds all over the place. Not complaining though, I love them.

[bobbi]

On the subject of moss, another big Kiwi export is sphagnum moss. Orchid cultivators in particular use masses of the stuff instead of soil because it's so sterile, it has antibacterial properties, and something about the cell configuration means that it can hold up to something like 20 times its volume in water. It grows wild on the South Island, but there are heaps of commercial growers cultivating the stuff in hot houses now.

T, you've hit a passion. Just wait until I start waxing lyrical about Pohutakawa trees  However, they flower at Christmas time, so I may restrain myself until then, when I may pepper my posts with suitable pictures.

[technomc]

We spend hundreds of pounds killing the moss that creeps through our lawns.....
But it is widely used here to line hanging baskets, and it's not cheap to buy. What i ought to do is scarify it out of the lawn, bag it, and sell it...i could afford to come and see the ponga trees then...
On the tree subject;
Everytime i go the the Balearics for a holiday i see this fantastic tree, which is a relative to the monkey puzzle tree...a Norfolk Pine apparently. But it looks nothing like the pictures that i have found on the web...
I did manage to bring a cone home with me this year..but i don't think i am going to be able to grow one...i am gutted...

[Binkie]

Did the tree look anything like this, T ?

[technomc]

It is a possibility Binks...it's hard to tell...
I will try and post of a picture of it tomorrow .....