Q 01/05
A) Southern Mexico to Panama
B) The Congo River basin
C) Sumatra and Borneo
D) Coastal Brazil
Answer · why
The genus name comes from the Latin for 'monstrous', a nod to the naturally holed leaves. The ripe fruit is edible and reportedly tastes like fruit sa...
Q 02/05
A) The sweet scent of its flowers
B) Its edible fruit
C) Its sap, once used as a sweetener
D) A 19th-century nursery's marketing slogan
Answer · why
The unripe fruit is full of needle-like calcium oxalate crystals, so patience matters.
Q 03/05
A) Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean
B) Nosy Be off Madagascar
C) Mo'orea in French Polynesia
D) Java in Indonesia
Answer · why
Despite names like Ceylon creeper and Solomon Islands ivy, it comes from the Society Islands and has gone wild across the tropics.
Q 04/05
A) It was sold by a nursery called Devil's
B) Its sap raises blisters
C) It strangles the trees it climbs
D) It stays green even when kept in the dark
Answer · why
It is also very hard to kill. The plant rarely flowers in cultivation without hormone treatment; a spontaneous flowering was last reported in 1964.
Q 05/05
A) South Africa
B) Southeast Asia
C) Central America
D) Australia
Answer · why
Carl Peter Thunberg first described it in 1794 in his work on the plants of the Cape. The dangling plantlets root wherever they touch soil.
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