Plants in the office or home are not only beautiful, they also ensure better air quality. Right? Not quite! According to a new study, the with the good air, at least, is nothing more than a myth.
Plants are good for the climate, they say. Following this logic, I have fought without a single green thumb for years, the Survival of generations of pot plants and lost. The plants also hope for good air died. Until now.
A meta study by the American scientist Michael Waring and Bryan Cumming from Drexel University in Philadelphia is now pleasing to the plant killer concluded that the potted Green power, neither the air in the office, still in the armchair in the living room better.
The scientists combed through publications of the last 30 years and published their results in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology. Conclusion: Each opened window is diluted potentially harmful organic Compounds (including hydrocarbons, alcohols, aldehydes, and organic acids) include, for example, in the indoor air faster than the plants could absorb these Compounds.
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Treasures of nature
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Treasures of nature
What is the origin of the myth of the air-purifying Houseplant? NASA’s it! The American space Agency announced in 1989, when she was looking for ways to clean the air in the space stations that plants do the Job perfectly, and cancer would filter out carcinogenic substances from the air.
Life is not a space station
A Plant was placed in a sealed chamber and with a single organic compound faced. Their decay and degradation was monitored over hours or days. The Problem is that these conditions have little rooms with day-to-day life in the interior of the earth in common, say the researchers Waring and Cummings. Here it airs, because it’s faster. Since NASA can’t.
The plants have enough time to clean the air in the office actually. To be able to, however, with a ventilation system to keep up, would have to be stuffed in the room with the green stuff all the time: Ten to 1000 plants per square meter would be needed. You can do this. I just open a few Windows.
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Alexander von Humboldt: The exceptional plant collectorExploration of the Spanish America
From 1799 to 1804 traveled to Alexander von Humboldt and his companion Aime Bonpland today’s Venezuela, Cuba, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Mexico, and the United States. During this time they collected thousands of plants, dried them and sent them for further investigation to Europe. This Plant, Dasyphyllum argenteum, is found only in Ecuador.
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Alexander von Humboldt: The exceptional plant collectorNew discoveries on every corner
In addition to plants, the two also collected seeds and nuts. Humboldt was interested but more for the totality of nature, so that most of it was carried to the plant collection from the well-trained botanist Bonpland together. However, Humboldt had a keen eye for Detail and was interested in palm trees and orchids such as this Catasetum maculatum, which he himself has drawn.
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Alexander von Humboldt: The exceptional plant collectorAt the forefront of scientific research
The actual work already began in nature: Humboldt and Bonpland filled six notebooks with 4528 plants. You numbered them, gave preliminary provisions, descriptions and location information in French, Latin or Spanish. In some cases, they made from plants and even ink prints on paper. Here is a Masdevallia uniflora, an Orchid from Peru.
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Alexander von Humboldt: The exceptional plant collectorSafe is safe
In order to ensure that the plants make it to Europe, divided the Humboldt collection and sent them in separate shipments. Once a shipment had arrived safely in Europe, he sent copies to friends and employees. No one can say how many plants were collected, and the crossing of the Atlantic survived. Here is a Werneria pumila, a species from Ecuador.
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Alexander von Humboldt: The exceptional plant collectorA successful return to Europe
After his return in 1804, Humboldt travelled to Germany and Italy, before he settled for two decades in Paris, to work on his Latin-American research. Soon after, he published his first book about the trip. “Essai sur la géographie des plantes” summed up everything he knew from long years of Botanical observations. Here is a Adiantum varium-fern.
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Alexander von Humboldt: The exceptional plant collectorOf pressed plants to printed books
At the end of Humboldt took more than 30 years, 32 volumes about his trip to America to finish – much of the Material has not been used. Many of the books are showing a large Tome, in French, with Print, scenes, maps, and animals. But it is the Botanical works with hand-colored pictures, such as this Corallophyllum caeruleum were was for which Humboldt is famous for.
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Alexander von Humboldt: The exceptional plant collectorHumboldt, the mastermind
The largest part of the Research and writing for the Botanical books, however, was made by others – first by Bonpland, who returned in 1806 to South America, then by Karl Sigismund Kunth. In total, they produced 15 volumes of the plants in Spanish America. The first pages were printed in 1805, the last in 1834. Here is a Culcitium-Reflexum.
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Alexander von Humboldt: The exceptional plant collectorKing of the Botanical books
Famous for the large number of plants collected by Humboldt, or the many books that he brought out made him but. It was the quality of the books and the detailed description of the plant. Many of the prints are based on drawings by Pierre Jean Francois Turpin, one of the greatest Botanical artists. Here is a Detail of a Attalia Amygdalina palm.
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Alexander von Humboldt: The exceptional plant collectorA question can not be answered
It remains unclear how many samples of plants Humboldt has actually collected. The researchers called self-contradictory Numbers between 4500 and 12,000 copies. The decisive factor is the speed with which he published the results, and the splendour of the books, however. He was even able to leave the swampy Grass Mariscus pycnostachyus look great.
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Alexander von Humboldt: The exceptional plant collectorOn Land and under water
Humboldt also gathered plants from the sea floor. However, not all specimens were brought to Europe, or later published, were new. Nevertheless, the scientists could not resist, to name a few according to themselves. Here is a Detail of a Zonaria kunthii, of an Alga, which is known today in honor of the Humboldt-colleagues Karl Sigismund Kunth as Dictyota kunthii.
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Alexander von Humboldt: The exceptional plant collectorFor eternity
Regardless of how important Humboldt’s work for the research, he left behind many of the most breathtaking Botanical prints ever created. Although the artist used, sometimes, exceptional colors, the images are still gorgeous, as this Oncidium pictum-Orchid.