Star fruit (Averrhoa carambola)

Belimbing or star fruit (Averrhoa carambola) is a species of plant in the Oxalidaceae, a small slow growing tree, short trunk or shrub, many branches producing a broad rounded crown, the wood is white and turns reddish.

A. carambola has compound leaves, green, arranged circularly around the branches alternately, pinnate with a single terminal, opposite, 15-20 cm long. Leaflets are 3.8-9 cm long, ovate or ovate-oval.

The upper side of the leaf is smooth and green, the lower side is downy and whitish. Leaflets are reactive to light and tend to fold together at night, are also sensitive to sudden shocks and when shaken tend to close as well.

Inflorescences are purple or purple-striped, hairy. Flowers are arranged in small bunches at the ends of branches or sometimes on larger stems and stems, each bunch attached to the tree by a red stem.

Perfect flowers are bell-shaped in loose panicles that are multi-branched and have stalks. Each flower is 6 mm wide, 5 petals which have curved ends.

Fruit oblong, 5-6 angled, up to 6.35-15 cm long and up to 9 cm wide. The skin is thin, waxy and orange-yellow in color, juicy and yellow when ripe, crunchy in texture and star-shaped when cut crosswise.

The fruit has an oxalic acid aroma and tastes vary from very sour to slightly sweet. Each fruit has up to 12 seeds, 6-12.5 mm long, flat, thin and brown. Some forms of cultivation produce seedless fruit.

Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum: Tracheophyta
Subphylum: Angiospermae
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Oxalidales
Family: Oxalidaceae
Genus: Averrhoa
Species: Averrhoa carambola

Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) manufacture bubble-nets as tools to increase prey intake

NEWS - Humpback whales ( Megaptera novaeangliae ) create bubble net tools while foraging, consisting of internal tangential rings, and actively control the number of rings, their size, depth and horizontal spacing between the surrounding bubbles. These structural elements of the net increase prey intake sevenfold. Researchers have known that humpback whales create “bubble nets” for hunting, but the new report shows that the animals also manipulate them in a variety of ways to maximize catches. The behavior places humpbacks among the rare animals that make and use their own tools. “Many animals use tools to help them find food, but very few actually make or modify these tools themselves,” said Lars Bejder, director of the Marine Mammal Research Program (MMRP), University of Hawaii at Manoa. “Humpback whales in southeast Alaska create elaborate bubble nets to catch krill. They skillfully blow bubbles in patterns that form a web with internal rings. They actively control details such ...

Jomblang Cave

Jomblang Cave or Luweng Jomblang is a 50-meter vertical collapse doline type cave in Gunung Kidul Regency, Yogyakarta Province, Indonesia. This cave was formed due to geological processes in which soil and vegetation on the surface collapsed to the bottom of the earth into a sinkhole thousands of years ago into ancient forests in the cave. Inside the cave grows endemic vegetation and a place for conservation of ancient plants. Sunlight bursts into 90 meters of Luweng Grubug to form a light pole, illuminating the beautiful flowstone and water dripping from a height in a dark room. Characteristics Jomblang Cave is one of the caves of hundreds of caves in the Gunung Sewu Geopark . This doline collapse cave is formed due to the surface process collapsing and forming a sinkhole. Ancient plants that lived on the surface also fell to the bottom of the earth, adapted and continued to grow until now as a very rare endemic plant. This cave has a mouth hole 50 meters wide and 60 meters ...

Artocarpus altilis var. altilis and Artocarpus altilis var. camansi, the differences

SPECIES HEAD TO HEAD - Genus Artocarpus J.R.Forst. & G.Forst. has more than 70 recorded species of which breadfruit ( Artocarpus altilis (Parkinson) Fosberg) and breadnut ( Artocarpus camansi Blanco) grow in tropical areas, both species are medium to large trees and have many similarities. Some researchers doubt both nomenclatures. I agree that both species should be one species. A. altilis is the domesticated version and widely cultivated in its history, while A. camansi is the original or wild version and has never undergone domestication in history. Both species have overall similarities including the shape and size of habitus, stem, leaves, flowers and fruit. The only differences are in the skin of the fruit and the size of the seeds as an impact of human cultural selection. A. altilis has fruit with a pericarp in the form of small and short thorns, while the number of seeds is small and small in size. A. camansi has fruit with a pericarp in the form of larger and long...

Dlium