I was watching Prisoner (Prisoner: Cell Block H) and basically the plot line consists of an evil prisoner finding an oleander bush in the prison garden.
Now this being Wentworth, the funnest prison ever to exist, all the prisoners get to have barbeque outside in the garden, because they just had a riot and the barbeque will help improve morale
Basically one prisoner is cooking steaks and the “evil” person hands this prisoner cook, a skewer made out of a stripped oleander bush, which as you may know is very toxic.
So the meat the prisoner cooked gets oleander toxin in it and the prisoner who eats the meat falls ill.
Later Meg, the nice prison warder says “I don’t believe Bobbie would poison anyone, anyway I did some investigating and found this skewer by the barbeque pit. It was made from an oleander bush.”
Meg shows evil warder Joan, the skewer, which of course was stripped bare so it could be used as a skewer.
OK end of story.
So my question is, I can see how you can tell one stick from another if it has leaves on it or something like that? But could you tell one stick from another if the leaves and/or such were stripped off?
Oleander actually has a pretty distinct “twig” - It’s green, and they grow very straight. I’m sure I could tell one from many other possible plants.
(We have monster Oleander bushes lining one side of our yard.)
As an aside, the toxin in Oleander is* Cardenolide Glycosides*. Supposedly, two leaves are enough to kill a full-sized cow, but I seriously doubt it.
Perhaps the only other woody plant growing in the prison yard was Japanese Yew. Those stems’ll look a lot different from oleander stems even when stripped.
The good warder doesn’t need to determine the plant type from the stripped stem alone. He also can construct a limited list of all the possible types of stem in the area.
Distingushing oleander from some other bushy plant such as camellia might be hard, but if the only other plants are Norfolk pines, oaks and dogwoods, it’s easy to pick out a stick of oleander.
I agree with squink. There’s a big difference between “Here, this stripped twig is from a plant growing in England. What is it?” and
“Here, this stripped twig is from a plant growing in this prison yard. What is it?”
For the first, I could maybe get it to hardwood versus softwood, and possibly rule in or out a few large families. A real botanist could do better, but probably not down to a species, unless there’s something very distinctive.
But from the small sample of plants growing in a prison yard, it should be possible.
Perhaps beyond the scope of the TV Programme, but I’m pretty sure a botanist would be able to identify the species by examining sections under a microscope.
And I’m certain the species could be determined by DNA analysis - or even the individual plant if the likely candidates were grown from seedlings (as opposed to cloning).
Sure. I took a whole lab exam in Botany on identifying trees/bushes just by the bare twigs.
First we had an exam identifying plants by the leaves, then he said next month we’ll do it without any leaves. And not just oak versus maple … pin oak, red oak, white oak. I don’t remember using a microscope, there were enough details where the leaves would have attached (it leaves a distinctive mark on the twigs) plus the rest of twig.
As nofloyd stated, for instance whether the plant has opposite or alternate leaves can be readily checked from a peeled twig, and it narrows down the alternatives greatly.
Many freshly-peeled twigs (or recently worked wood) have a distinctive smell. I could tell bird cherry from birch (very similar woods in terms of color, structure, figuring etc., and often found growing next to each other here) instantly by smell alone.
If peeled outside the growing season when the bark tends to stick, the remains of inner bark on a twig help ID’ing quite a bit - some oxidize into bright colors, some are “hairy”, some are stringy, some are sheet-like and layered etc.
Even in the wild woods at any given (temperate) location, there is a limited number of possible alternatives to choose from when ID’ing a twig. In a planted environment the possibilities are much more varied but actual variation probably lower. Most people who have no idea on plant ID’ing can readily tell what grows on their and their neighbor’s yards.
Microscopic analysis of thin sections of wood is the only truly reliable way of ID’ing woody materials (including charcoal). It is surprisingly easy given a good reference, and only a slice off the cross-section of a small stick is needed. Not every species has distinctive microscopic features compared to close relatives, but a good degree of accuracy is attained.
