Floral Brainteaser 2 Trivia Quiz

Answer: Bee orchid

Otherwise known as a Ophrys apifera (thank goodness for common names), a bee orchid is a European plant with a lip shaped a little like a bee. It can grow up to 20 inches high, and blooms between July and August. Bee orchids self-pollinate in the northern parts of Europe, but the closer they grow to the Mediterranean, bees are sometimes needed to help with pollination. If this is the case, this plant has the amazing ability to exude a scent similar to female bees, and the male bees, dizzy with desire, transfer pollen by what is called "pseudocopulation". That's incredible, isn't it - but what a dirty trick.

Answer: Summer snowflake

Summer snowflakes are plants cultivated for their ornamental impact on the viewer - and rightly so. These plants are just delightful with their delicate white bell shaped flowers drooping sweetly from green stalks. It's almost as if the breeze is about to blow a faint melody through them. Summer snowflakes, grown from a bulb, are perennial plants that are native to most of Europe, except for Russia and most of the Scandinavian area.

They have even found their way right down to the east coast of Australia and Canada.

Answer: Foxglove

Foxglove, also known as common, purple, or lady's glove has the Latin name Digitalis purpurea. This flower was once used widely in the production of the heart tablets, Digitalis and Digitalin, but the drug is not used as much as it once was, because its high toxicity can cause death.

It's a lovely little plant, nevertheless, particularly so on closer inspection. Growing in clusters on its long flowering stem, foxgloves can reach a height of six feet. Although mostly purple in colour, the flowers can also come in pink, yellow or white, and each one is dotted with complementary colours within its bloom. Bees love this flowers and disappear right inside to gather their nectar, emerging a little later, drunkenly laden with goodies. Watching bees emerging in this way from flowers during their always busy life is a true delight.

Answer: Ladder

The biblical story of Jacob's Ladder can be found in Genesis 28:10-22. Jacob's-ladder (or Jacob's ladder), the plant, is also known as Greek valerian. This is a perennial plant, quite tough, that grows between 24-35 inches high, and can be found in most woodlands, meadows and grasslands in the temperate areas of Europe.

This little flower has been used for medicinal purposes for millennia, dating right back to the days of Ancient Greece. The Greeks used it for animal bites, dysentery, and toothache, and, such was its popularity as a treatment for assorted ills, Jacob's-ladder was still being utilised by some physicians well into the 19th century AD as well.

By then it was also being used to treat rabies and syphilis. Either way, those patients were well and truly bitten. Today, boiled in olive oil, Jacob's-ladder is really only used to make black hair dye.

Answer: Primrose

The lovely little primrose is native to the western and southern parts of Europe, but has since spread east to the Ukraine, up to Norway, down to the north of Africa and even into Turkey. This little perennial comes with a soft scent, and though mostly pale yellow in colour, can also be grown with pink and white colouring.

Although its Latin name is Primula vulgaris, the primrose is anything but vulgar. She is just a dainty, shy little bloom that gladdens the soul. And how is she rewarded for keeping herself so pure and unsullied? Some people either eat her in salads, make tea out of her, or turn this little teetotaller into wine.

Answer: Thrift

"The" is known as the definite article and Huck Finn sailed off down the Mississipi on a raft. The plant Thrift is also known as sea thrift or sea pink. This unusually named plant grows in the northern hemisphere and some parts of South America. It is a compact perennial that produces longish stems from which dangle clumps of delicate pink flowers whose true beauty is only revealed on closer inspection. Often seen in rock gardens, thrift can tolerate soils in which high concentrates of copper are located.

The copper doesn't damage the flower at all but is excreted through leaves as they die off. A special honour was accorded this little plant when its design appeared on the reverse side of the British threepence coin minted between 1937 and 1952.

Answer: Cowslip

The cowslip plant is also known as herb peter, peggle, key flower, key of heaven, fair cups, buckles, plumrocks, palsywort and tittypines - among others. That's a lot of alternatives for such a small plant. Cowslips do very well in boggy grounds but are, more often than not, usually found growing in or around manure in cow paddocks and pastures - which probably explains their common name. Native to temperate climates of the northern hemisphere, this little yellow perennial produces up to thirty small blossoms on each stem.

The Spanish consume cowslips in their salads, while the English are known to use it in cooking, and making wines and vinegar.

Answer: Cheddar pink

Cheddar pinks are lovely shaded pink plants widely used as ground cover in rocks gardens or as border plants. This perennial plant is very hardy, beautifully perfumed with a clove-like scent, and can grow up to twelve inches high. It usually blooms between May and June, and will continue to blossom profusely if any dead flowers are removed periodically from it.

It likes the full sun and dryer soils however, and over watering this little plant can really harm it. The best thing of all about Cheddar pinks is that they attract butterflies and song birds. What more could you ask for in your garden?

Answer: Twin flower

Unless you look closely at the twinflower, you'll miss its real beauty. Each rich green stem of this bloom is only seven inches in length as a rule, and the twin flowers that grow on each hang like delicate pink tinted bells, so small they can be passed by without being seen.

This little plant was a particular favourite of Carl Linnaeus, the famous Swedish botanist who gave us the modern system of naming organisms, and the twinflower's Latin name of Linnaea reflects this fact. Twin flowers, or twinflowers if you prefer, definitely prefer cooler climates and the higher up the better.

They are usually found in the mountainous areas of northern Europe, Japan, Canada and North America.

Answer: Cloudberry

A cloudberry is a small amber tinted fruit, similar to a raspberry in taste, that produces a lovely white flower. Also known as a bakeapple, a knotberry or a knoutberry, the fruit of this plant is just as pretty to look at as the flower itself. The stem grows to approximately ten inches in height, and produces up to 25 berries on each. Native to arctic areas and the northern European and northern American continents, cloudberries, as the name suggest, can be readily consumed by humans, and, since the 1990s, quite a lot of research has gone into trying to create commercial productions of same. Rich in Vitamin C, their taste ranges between a sharp tang when fresh, to a creamy yoghurt if allowed to ripen more fully.

They can be used to make jams, juices, liqueurs, ice-cream, tarts or incorporated into a wide range of others foods as well.