Gypsy Scholar presents ... the Mimosa pudica

In stressful times like these, when Blogger is taking bite-sized chunks out of my blogroll, leaving me with 'missing links' and anxiety about its gnawing hunger, contemplation of nature can soothe the soul.

Or contemplation of someone else's contemplation of nature ... like the Mimosa pudica that you see to the right and which is somewhat shy about being observed too closely.

I have this image courtesy of Forest & Kim Starr (USGS), who have generously left it copyright free, but I first learned the Latin name while living in Tübingen, Germany in 1989. Not far from the dorm where I was rooming was Eberhard Karls University's botantical gardens, where I spent many a fruitful hour, particularly in its Tropicarium, and in that specific place, I came across this familiar plant.

Why "familiar''? Because it grows wild in the Ozarks despite being identified as a tropical plant. I had no idea that it was tropical. In the Ozarks, we called it a "Touch-Me-Not" and "Shy Plant," if I recall. It receives this name because if its leaves are touched, they will close and reveal to herbivorous eyes an unappetizing (and poisonous) thorny stem. Here's an online, animated graphic showing the leaves in motion:

Mimosa pudica closing its leaves.

Now, the Ozarks are anything but tropical in the dead of winter, and according to Tübingen's botanical gardens and also what I've seen online, these plants thrive best in temperatures kept between 60 to 85 degrees and require winter temperatures that don't dip much below 60 degrees Fahrenheit. That, however, cannot be correct since the Ozarks in late December and through the middle of January have cold snaps that bring the temperature well below zero degrees Fahrenheit.

When I saw this plant in Tübingen's botanical gardens, where I read about its fastidiousness concerning water and light and its limitation to a tropical range, I wondered if I should write up a botanical paper on the hardy variety that grows in the Ozarks.

Maybe I would now have a successful career in science...