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Collecting leaves or seeds from tall trees is a difficult task that many plant physiologists, ecologists, geneticists and forest managers encounter repeatedly. Tree branches are often much higher than a cutting pole or saw can reach. When this happens, the most common solutions involve the use of sharp-shooters, cherry pickers (a.k.a. bucket trucks) or tree climbers. All of these methods can be expense, logistically complicated, and often involve additional permits and licences., We present a cost-effective and simple alternative for collecting leaves and seeds from tall trees using an arborist throw-line launcher. An arborist throw-line launcher is traditionally used to throw a rope over high branches for tree climbing. However, the same instrument can be used to collect leaves and seeds from trees without the need for climbing., In the course of sampling over 4000 trees from a variety of species across multiple continents, we have developed several techniques to optimize leaf and seed sampling with a throw-line launcher at heights up to 40 m. We present these techniques along with several time-saving tips and tricks to increase sampling efficiency and reduce the occurrence of lost weight bags, broken ropes, and hung branches that will not fall., These techniques remove many of the limitations commonly associated with sampling leaves and seeds from tall trees with more traditional methods. Without these limitations, the costs, risks and time associated with this type of data collection are reduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, the antioxidant capacity of extracts of Portuguese myrtle ( Myrtus communis L.) is being studied over a period of three years. The samples were leaves of myrtle collected at the flowering stage and berries sampled at an early ripened stage. Supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) extracts were obtained at 23 MPa, 45 °C and a CO 2 flow of 0.3 kg h −1 using ethanol as co-solvent with a flow rate of 0.09 kg h −1 . Hydrodistillation was carried out in a Clevenger type apparatus and the aqueous phase was extracted with diisopropylether having obtained what is hereby designated as liquid phase extract (LPE). The antioxidant capacity of all the extracts was determined by using three different methods: the Folin–Ciocalteu, the Trolox Equivalent Antioxidant Capacity (TEAC) and the Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity (ORAC). The results show that the SFE extracts present a significantly higher antioxidant capacity. The extracts were characterized and quantified by HPLC-DAD-MS/MS methods. The bioactive compounds identified in all the extracts were phenolic acids (only in the LPE extracts), flavonoids and anthocyanins (only in the SFE extracts). The results indicate that the higher antioxidant capacity of the SFE myrtle extracts is mainly correlated with the concentration of flavonol glycosides, the myricetin- O -glycosides. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Betel leaf is the green gold of India for its food and medicinal values. In India, betel leaf is cultivated around 55,000 hectors of land encompassing about 20 lakhs Boroj and employing same number of agricultural families. But due to its perishability and short shelf life, 35-70% wastage takes place every year due to storage and transport, logistics. So, drying can be an effective tool to preserve the betel leaf for a long time period. Therefore, the aim of the study was to optimize the drying time as a function of leaf surface area and drying temperature as well as determine the changes in drying characteristics for changes in drying temperature and leaf surface areas. Piper betel leaf cultivated in Midnapore district, West Bengal, India, was considered as raw material for the study. The experiments were conducted at three range of temperature and leaf surface area. Temperature and leaf surface area both have a significant effect on drying rate and in decrement of total drying time (p<0.05). With increase in surface area of exposure and drying temperature the moisture diffusivity initially increases but later on decreases. Three drying mathematical models were applied and one response surface model was developed in this study. Wang & Singh model and response surface model both were found to be best (p<0.05) for describing the drying kinetics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers suggestions for gardening cats liked plants Catnip or Nepeta and making use of cats in garden activities in the U.S. Topics discussed include creating station to protect plants from weight of cats, formation of Feline Agriculture Research Station for finding the cats most liked species of catnip and ways of preserving the catnips such as storing its dried leaves in containers. Instructions for making fun toys kitty bon bons with dried catnip are also presented.

Abstract: The use of infrared spectroscopy has spread from single compound research to the investigation of complex biological samples. In infrared spectroscopy, spectral pre-treatment techniques have been assumed to be equally applicable and effective in the analysis of biological samples with complex chemical composition and structure. In this research, the most commonly used pre-treatment techniques were investigated based on the identification of species from whole leaf samples of pharmaceutically important Epilobium and Hypericum genera. Two spectral collection modes were used; whole leaf transmission and KBr-tablet transmission mode. The results of this study do not support the current standard in pre-treatment methods. After the frequency decomposition of a spectral signal by Fourier transform and wavelet decomposition, it was revealed that the important information of whole plant leaf as an example of biological samples was contained in the spectral details. Therefore, smoothing techniques were not appropriate because high frequency information is lost. A vast majority of published work used a Savitzky–Golay smoothing method on infrared spectra of complex biological samples. This method was shown to be less effective. In contrast, taking the derivative of the spectra showed significantly better results; with this pre-treatment method, the overlapping bands become more evident. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

There are tremendous content-based retrieval systems. Most of them are applied to general image databases. Some were proposed for specified databases such as texture databases, ancient paintings, document image databases, digital mammography, face image databases, etc. However, there are fewer for plant databases. Plants are used in various fields such as in foodstuff, medicine, and industry. Recently, plant is important for environment protection. On the other hand, the problem of plant destruction becomes worse in the few years. We should train people to know about plants, in turn, to treasure and protect them. In addition to the limited number of expert botanists, the convenient content-based retrieval system for plant is necessary and useful, since it can retrieve related information and knowledge from plant database for the query leaf so as to facilitate fast learning of plants. In this study, a leaf database is constructed and a classification method for leaves is proposed. Most approaches for leaf classification in literature used contour-based features. The proposed method tries to use region-based features. The reasons are that region-based features are more robust than contour-based features since significant curvature points are hard to find. Those features adopted include aspect ratio, compactness, centroid, and horizontal/vertical projections. The effectiveness of the proposed method has been demonstrated by various experiments. On the average, our method has the classification accuracy for 1-NN rule as 82.33% and the recall rate for 10 returned images as 48.2%, while the contour-based method has 37.6% and 21.7%, respectively. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Imaging Syst Technol, 16, 15–23, 2006 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Raw and blanched oregano (Origanum vulgare L. ssp. prismaticum Gaudin) were air-dried at 35° and 50°C in two drier pilot plants; raw oregano was also dried at room temperature in a shady place. Oregano leaves were analysed for volatile phenolic compounds by GC/MS-SIM, for chlorophyll by HPLC and for colour by reflected-light colorimetry. The highest contents of thymol and carvacrol were found in unblanched oregano dried at 35°C, followed by oregano dried at room temperature and by both samples dried at 35° and 50°C after blanching. The highest chlorophyll content was identified in oregano dried at room temperature, followed by unblanched oregano dried at 50°C and blanched oregano dried at 35°C. All unblanched, air-dried oregano leaves had colour attributes similar to the raw ones, while blanched-dried leaves were greener. The least damaging treatments were air-drying at 35° and 50°C without blanching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Three pressed leaves of Ulmus glabra (Wych Elm) were found within the pages of a copy of the Great Bible in the Library of the University of Western Australia. The Bible dates from AD 1540 and was originally housed at Ely Cathedral in Cambridgeshire. A radiocarbon age on one of the leaves found it was about as old as the Great Bible itself, and stable C and N isotope and neutron activation analyses were carried out on the same leaf. The δ15N values were elevated and the content of iron, arsenic, bromine, silver, gold and mercury were relatively high. These analyses are consistent with an environment where water logging is present, as at Ely at the time, and the silver and gold content are probably consistent with the cathedral setting. The mercury was found to be associated with the red ink in the Bible. It is intriguing to ponder why Wych elm leaves were placed in the Bible, especially in the light that a copy of an original edition of the King James version of the Bible from Ely, also in the library in Perth has many dozens of U. glabra leaves also preserved within in its pages. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Describes a leaf exchange program with students in other regions of the country for studying or collecting leaves. Similarity to pen pals; Gathering of leaves for the exchange; Preservation methods; Search for a leaf pal; Benefits.

The article explains how young teachers can prepare and present lessons about the colorful leaves in October. The purpose of the lessons is to encourage the children enjoy the beauty of the leaves' colors and forms, and to build their enthusiasm for new knowledge about their every day surroundings. Pupils could be asked to collect and identify fall foliage, describe each leaf's characteristics, and observe its parts. They could also draw some leaves or make a collection of pressed leaves.

Focuses on making book entries for a given class activity. Details of seed and leaf collection; Instructions in making fruit drawing cards; Information that should be included in the book entry.