Ripley's Believe It or Not by Ripley’s Believe It or Not! for December 07, 2013
December 06, 2013
December 08, 2013
Transcript:
NASA has confirmed that the Voyager I Probe, launched in 1977, has finally left our solar system- messages from it takes 17 hours to reach the earth at the speed of light! The Jerusalem artichoke is not an artichoke- it's a sunflower. The Crucifix toad oozes a powerful glue from its skin to which insects stick, then it sheds its skin and eats it- insects and all!
More From Ripley's Believe It or Not
the name comes from “jerasoli” (spelling may be off) which means something along the lines of “turns with the sun”. When the “Jerasoli” got to England, they decided that the Spaniards meant “Jerusalem” and they started calling it the “Jerusalem artichoke”. (information courtesy of David Attenborough’s Life Stories “Foreign Fare” where he spends ten minutes giving a history of food name that double- peppers, artichokes ect…)
Also, the sunchoke/Jerusalem artichoke is a totally different part of the plant than a true artichoke. an Artichoke is the flowerhead of a thistle while the sunchoke is a rhizome from the root of a specific variety of sunflower. (this bit I got from my boyfriend, the chef)