Plant Collection Set - 8 Plant Leaf & Seed Specimen

  -- Seed in small amber clear Lucite block, leaf laminated

8 genuine different plants. Seeds are permanently encased in clear lucite material (in separate individual block) and leaves are laminated in plastic sheet. The specimens are crystal clear, indestructible and transparent. Safe, authentic and completely unbreakable product put specimens right at your fingertips!
Anyone can safely explore the specimens from every angle.

Size of each block is 44x28x16 mm (1.7x1.1x0.6 inch).

Size of laminated sheet is 76x76 mm (3x3 inch)

Weight of each lucite block is 15 g.

Total weight of the whole set with packing box is 300 gram.

Size of the packing box : 18x12x3.4 cm (7.1x4.7x1.3 inch)

These are handmade real specimen crafts. Each one will be a bit different (specimen size, color and posture) even in the same production batch.
The pictures in the listing are just for reference as we are selling multiple pieces with same pictures.

These plants are all from China.       

Upper row from left to right:

Peanut - (Arachis hypogaea), Green Bean - (Vigna unguiculata subsp. Sesquipedalis), Squash - (genus Cucurbita), Corn - (Zea maise)

Lower row from left to right:

Peach - (Prunus Persica), Rice - (Oryza sativa), Watermelon - (Citrullus lanatus), Chili - (Capsicum frutescens)

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Peanut - Arachis hypogaea

Order: Fabales  Family: Fabaceae  Subfamily: Faboideae  Tribe: Aeschynomeneae  Genus: Arachis

The peanut, or groundnut (Arachis hypogaea), is a species in the legume "bean" family (Fabaceae). The cultivated peanut was likely first domesticated in the valleys of the Paraguay and Parana rivers in the Chaco region of Paraguay and Bolivia. It is an annual herbaceous plant growing 30 to 50 cm (0.98 to 1.6 ft) tall. The leaves are opposite, pinnate with four leaflets (two opposite pairs; no terminal leaflet), each leaflet 1 to 7 cm (⅜ to 2¾ in) long and 1 to 3 cm (⅜ to 1 inch) broad. The flowers are a typical peaflower in shape, 2 to 4 cm (¾ to 1½ in) across, yellow with reddish veining. After pollination, the fruit develops into a legume 3 to 7 cm (1.2 to 2.8 in) long, containing 1 to 4 seeds, which forces its way underground to mature. Hypogaea means "under the earth."

The orange veined, yellow petaled, pea-like flower of the Arachis hypogaea is borne in auxiliary clusters above ground. Following self-pollination, the flowers fade and wither. The stalk at the base of the ovary, called the pedicel, elongates rapidly, and turns downward to bury the fruits several inches in the ground, where they complete their development. When the seed is mature, the seed coat (mesocarp) changes color from white to a reddish brown. The entire plant, including most of the roots, is removed from the soil during harvesting.

The pods act in nutrient absorption. The fruits have wrinkled shells that are constricted between pairs of the one to four (usually two) seeds per pod. The mature seeds resemble other legume seeds such as beans, but they have paper-thin seed coats, rather than the usual, hard legume seed coats.

Peanuts grow best in light, sandy loam soil. They require five months of warm weather, and an annual rainfall of 500 to 1,000 mm (20 to 39 in) or the equivalent in irrigation water.

The pods ripen 120 to 150 days after the seeds are planted. If the crop is harvested too early, the pods will be unripe. If they are harvested late, the pods will snap off at the stalk, and will remain in the soil.

Peanuts are particularly susceptible to contamination during growth and storage. Poor storage of peanuts can lead to an infection by the mold fungus Aspergillus flavus, releasing the toxic substance aflatoxin. The aflatoxin-producing molds exist throughout the peanut growing areas and may produce aflatoxin in peanuts when conditions are favorable to fungal growth.

Harvesting occurs in two stages. In mechanized systems a machine is used to cut off the main root of the peanut plant by cutting through the soil just below the level of the peanut pods. The machine lifts the "bush" from the ground and shakes it, then inverts the bush, leaving the plant upside down on the ground to keep the peanuts out of the dirt. This allows the peanuts to dry slowly to a bit less than a third of their original moisture level over a period of 3–4 days. Traditionally, peanuts are pulled and inverted by hand.

After the peanuts have dried sufficiently, they are threshed, removing the peanut pods from the rest of the bush.

Green Bean - Vigna radiata

Order: Fabales   Family: Fabaceae   Genus: Vigna

The green bean or mung, or moong bean (also known as golden gram) is the seed of Vigna radiata, native to the Indian subcontinent, and mainly cultivated in India, China, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, Burma, Bangladesh, Laos and Cambodia, but also in hot and dry regions of Southern Europe and the Southern United States. It is used as an ingredient in both savory and sweet dishes. It is known by other names such as pasi payaru in Tamil, cherru payaru in Malayalam and pesarlu in Telugu.

The mung bean was domesticated in Mongolia, where its progenitor (Vigna radiata subspecies sublobata) occurs wild. Archaeological evidence has turned up carbonized mung beans on many sites in India. Areas with early finds include the eastern zone of the Harappan civilization in Punjab and Haryana, where finds date back about 4500 years, and South India in the modern state of Karnataka where finds date back more than 4000 years. Some scholars therefore infer two separate domestications in the northwest and south of India. In South India there is evidence for evolution of larger-seeded mung beans 3500 to 3000 years ago. By about 3500 years ago mung beans were widely cultivated throughout India. Cultivated mung beans later spread from India to China and Southeast Asia. Archaeobotanical research at the site of Khao Sam Kaeo in southern Thailand indicates that mung beans had arrived in Thailand by at least 2200 years ago. Finds on Pemba Island indicate that during the era of Swahili trade, in the 9th or 10th century, mung beans also came to be cultivated in Africa.

Kabocha Squash - Cucurbita maxima

Order: Cucurbitales   Family: Cucurbitaceae   Genus: Cucurbita

Cucurbita maxima, one of at least four species of cultivated squash, is one of the most diverse domesticated species. This species originated in South America from the wild Cucurbita andreana over 4000 years ago. The two species hybridize quite readily but have noticeably different calcium levels.

Kabocha is a type of winter squash, a Japanese variety of the species Cucurbita maxima. It is also called kabocha squash or Japanese pumpkin in North America.

Kabocha is hard on the outside with knobbly-looking skin. It is shaped like a squat pumpkin and has a dull-finished, deep-green skin with some celadon-to-white stripes and an intense yellow-orange color on the inside. In many respects it is similar to buttercup squash, but without the characteristic protruding "cup" on the blossom (bottom) end. An average kabocha weighs two to three pounds, but a large squash can weigh as much as eight pounds.

All squashes were domesticated in Mesoamerica. In 1997, new evidence suggested that domestication occurred 8,000 to 10,000 years ago, a few thousand years earlier than previous estimates. That would be 4,000 years earlier than the domestication of maize and beans, the other major food plant groups in Mesoamerica.

Kabocha is available all year but is best in late summer and early fall. Kabocha is primarily grown in Japan, China, South Korea, Thailand, California, Florida, Hawaii, Southwestern Colorado, Mexico, Tasmania, Tonga, New Zealand, Chile, Jamaica, and South Africa, but is widely adapted for climates that provide a growing season of 100 days or more.

Corn - Zea mays

Order: Poales
Family: Poaceae
Genus: Zea
Species: Z. mays

Corn is a grass domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The Aztecs and Mayans cultivated it in numerous varieties throughout central and southern Mexico, to cook or grind in a process called nixtamalization. Later the crop spread through much of the Americas. Between 1250 A.D. and 1700 A.D. nearly the whole continent had gained access to the crop. Any significant or dense populations in the region developed a great trade network based on surplus and varieties of maize crops. After European contact with the Americas in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, explorers and traders carried maize back to Europe and introduced it to other countries through trade. Its ability to grow in distinct climates, and its use were highly valued, thus spreading to the rest of the world.

Corn is the most widely grown crop in the Americas with 332 million metric tons grown annually in the United States alone. Transgenic maize comprised 80% of the maize planted in the United States. While some maize varieties grow up to 7 metres (23 ft) tall, most commercially grown maize has been bred for a standardized height of 2.5 metres (8.2 ft). Sweet corn is usually shorter than field-corn varieties.

Peach - Prunus persica

Prunus persica is a small tree native to China.  It is spontaneous or naturalized in Arkansas and several other states.  Spontaneous plants can be observed as isolated individuals or groves of plants where seedlings and juveniles originated from reproductive age plants in the vicinity.  The common cultivation and use of the peach as a food source have undoubtedly contributed to its spread and naturalization in the US.  The combination of the densely pubescent ovaries and fruits, along with the narrow, lanceolate-elliptic leaves,  easily distinguish it from other species of Prunus that occur in Arkansas.  The nectarine (Prunus persica var. nucipersica) has glabrous fruits. 

Rice - Oryza sativa

Order: Poales  Family: Poaceae  Genus: Oryza
Binomial name Oryza sativa

Oryza sativa (common names include Asian rice) is the plant species known in English as rice. Oryza sativa has the smallest cereal genome consisting of just 430Mb across 12 chromosomes. It is renowned for being easy to genetically modify and is a model organism for cereal biology.

Rice is the seed of a monocot plant Oryza sativa. As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in East, South, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and the West Indies. It is the grain with the second highest worldwide production, after maize.

Rice is normally grown as an annual plant, although in tropical areas it can survive as a perennial and can produce a ratoon crop for up to 30 years.[4] The rice plant can grow to 1–1.8 m tall, occasionally more depending on the variety and soil fertility. The grass has long, slender leaves 50–100 cm long and 2–2.5 cm broad. The small wind-pollinated flowers are produced in a branched arching to pendulous inflorescence 30–50 cm long. The edible seed is a grain (caryopsis) 5–12 mm long and 2–3 mm thick.

Rice cultivation is well-suited to countries and regions with low labor costs and high rainfall, as it is very labor-intensive to cultivate and requires plenty of water for cultivation. Rice can be grown practically anywhere, even on a steep hill or mountain. Although its parent species are native to South Asia and certain parts of Africa, centuries of trade and exportation have made it commonplace in many cultures worldwide.

The traditional method for cultivating rice is flooding the fields while, or after, setting the young seedlings. This simple method requires sound planning and servicing of the water damming and channeling, but reduces the growth of less robust weed and pest plants that have no submerged growth state, and deters vermin. While with rice growing and cultivation the flooding is not mandatory, all other methods of irrigation require higher effort in weed and pest control during growth periods and a different approach for fertilizing the soil.

Watermelon - Citrullus lanatus

Order: Cucurbitales  Family: Cucurbitaceae  Genus: Citrullus

Watermelon (Citrullus lanatus (Thunb.), family Cucurbitaceae) is a vine-like (scrambler and trailer) flowering plant originally from southern Africa. Its fruit, which is also called watermelon, is a special kind referred to by botanists as a pepo, a berry which has a thick rind (exocarp) and fleshy center (mesocarp and endocarp). Pepos are derived from an inferior ovary, and are characteristic of the Cucurbitaceae. The watermelon fruit, loosely considered a type of melon – although not in the genus Cucumis – has a smooth exterior rind (green, yellow and sometimes white) and a juicy, sweet interior flesh (usually deep red to pink, but sometimes orange, yellow and even green if not ripe).

Chili - Capsicum frutescens

Order: Solanales   Family: Solanaceae   Genus: Capsicum
Capsicum frutescens is a species of chili pepper that includes the following cultivar and varieties:

Piri piri, also called African Bird's Eye or African devil

Malagueta pepper

Tabasco pepper, used to make Tabasco sauce

Thai pepper, also called Bird's Eye chili, Chili Padi[, or Siling labuyo

According to Richard Pankhurst, C. frutescens (known as barbaré) was so important to the national cuisine of Ethiopia, at least as early as the 19th century, "that it was cultivated extensively in the warmer areas wherever the soil was suitable." Although it was grown in every province, barbaré was especially extensive in Yejju, "which supplied much of Showa as well as other neighboring provinces." He singles out the upper Golima river valley as being almost entirely devoted to the cultivation of this plant, where thousands of acres were devoted to the plant and it was harvested year round.

Named as in "bushy" or "shrubby" plant growth. It has been suggested that Capsicum frutescens, in its primitive form, may be the ancestor of Capsicum chinense. Normally treated as a perennial. This species is mainly represented by two cultivars, Tabasco and Malagueta. Tabasco is the most common cultivar of Capsicum frutescens. The Malagueta is a popular cultivar in Brazil. It is not related to Aframomum melegueta, the melegueta or Guinea pepper, from Africa, which is related to ginger.

Flowers solitary at each node (occasionally fasciculate). Pedicels erect at anthesis but flowers nodding. Corolla greenish-white, without diffuse spots at base of lobes, corolla lobes often slightly revolute. Calyx of mature fruit without annular constriction at junction with pedicel, though often irregularly wrinkled; veins usually not prolonged into teeth. Fruit flesh often soft. Seeds straw-coloured. Chromosome number 2n=24, with one pair of acrocentric chromosomes, e.g. Tabasco pepper.