Aloha from Hawaii: Perfect Patterns: The Chemistry and Geometry in Nature

Friday, August 18, 2017

Perfect Patterns: The Chemistry and Geometry in Nature

No plant evokes the image of a tropical paradise more than Palm trees and Hawaii is no exception, with slender swinging palms, along with pristine beaches and gorgeous sunrise and sunset.

Hawaii has many types of Palms, Coconut is also a type of palm. These are sturdy plants that grow in variety of climate from desert to rainforests. Palms belong to Arecaceae family and there are around 2800 palm species and 200- 230 genera.

Palms are endemic to all continents except Antartica.

Palm trees have two different kinds of leaves palmate and pinnate. Palmate leaves, like hands, grow in a bunch at the end of a stem. Pinnate leaves are like feathers, growing all along either side of a stem.

These leaves get intertwined swaying in the tropical breeze and create beautiful geometrical patterns.

Similarly, Bromeliads also grow in tropical sun kissed climate and lend an exotic touch and vibrancy of colors to the landscape. Big or small, growing on grounds or rocks or clinging to other plants like epiphytes bromeliads come in a wide array of shapes, sizes, and colors, including plants from both deserts and rain forests.

Bromeliads

The most famous bromeliad we all know is pineapple. There are nearly 3,000 types of bromeliads distributed throughout Central and South America and parts of North America, in many habitats and climates—ranging from sea level to mountainous elevations of up to 14,000 feet—with the largest number of species found in Brazil.

The wide leaves are sword shaped or scoop-like and grow around a central “cup.” This cup catches water in the plant’s habitat. The leaves are bright colored like red, yellow, orange, and green and presents with attractive patterns of variegated or distinctive stripes and dots. Often people wonder that they are made up of plastics. Stripes on the leaves of bromeliads are produced by variations in their moisture-gathering scales, and by areas in the leaf that contain less chlorophyll, making them less green than the surrounding tissue.

The colors of bromeliads and other plants are created because of variety of pigments like Chlorophyll, Carotenoids & Flavonoids and Anthocyanins plus the effect of sunlight ,temperature and climatic variations.

Presenting here some interesting photographs taken over course of many months about beautiful, eye catching patterns created by palms, bromeliads and Hawaiian Ti plants.