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Environment Trivia

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The longest leaf in the world belongs to the raffia palm and can reach up to 65 feet long. The second longest leaf belongs to the fan palm and can reach up to 20 feet in length.

North Dakota is the nation's top sunflower grower, producing 50 percent of the U.S. crop. Germany uses kernels heavily in making bread and is the largest export market for U.S.-produced sunflower kernels, accounting for more than half of all kernel exports. Spain is the largest export market for U.S. in-shell sunflowers.

The longest lightning flashes measured have been 20 miles in length. Long flashes occur most often by high clouds. The smallest flashes may measure less than 300 feet.

Nyctitropism is the tendency of the leaves or petals of certain plants to assume a different position at night.

The low rumbling of distant thunder is called brontide.

Oak trees are struck by lightning more often than any other tree. It has been theorized, this is one reason that the ancient Greeks considered oak trees sacred to Zeus, god of thunder and lightning.

The lower the Sun is behind you, the greater the rainbow will be in front of you.

Oblong, linear, oval, elliptical, awl-shaped, spatulate, deltoid, and reniform are different types of leaf shapes.

Of all the ore dug in diamond mines, only one carat in every 23 tons proves to be a diamond.

Of the 20,000 species of orchids that grow around the world, not one is parasitic. In nature, many orchids cling to trees and bushes as a growth habit, but they take nothing from the host plant and do not inflict injury upon it.

The magnolia was named for Pierre Magnol, a seventeenth-century professor of botany at the university in Montpelier, France.

The main ingredient in eggshells is calcium carbonate, the same brittle white material of which chalk, limestone, coral, pearl, cave stalactites, and shells are made.

The mistral wind of southern France once blew a string of locomotive cars from Arles to Port-St.-Louis, 25 miles away before the cars could be stopped.

Oil of wintergreen does not come from the wintergreen plant but from the bark of the sweet birch.

The most abundant pigment in the world is chlorophyll.

Olive trees can attain a great age. Some in the eastern Mediterranean are estimated to be over 2,000 years old. They grow to a height of 20 to 40 feet and begin to bear fruit between 4 and 8 years old. It takes a ton of olives produces about 50 gallons of oil.

The most destructive tornado on record occurred in Annapolis, Missouri. In 3 hours, it tore through the town on March 18, 1925, leaving a 980-foot-wide trail of demolished buildings, uprooted trees, and overturned cars. It left 823 people dead and almost 3,000 injured.

On a clear day with blue skies, lightning can jump outside of its parent cloud and travel for more than five miles through clear air. This is called the "bolt from the blue" phenomenon. The study of lightning is called keraunopathology.

The most drought-resistant tree is the baobab tree. It stores 35,900 gallons of water in its trunk for later use.

On a hot afternoon, the atmosphere draws up 5,500 million gallons of water an hour from the Gulf of Mexico.

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