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Aparajita-Medicinal Plant

                   Aparajita is one of the plant we are familiar with in India. The word  Aprajita means  undefeated.  

Because of its beautiful color and appearance it is cultivated in many gardens. Its botanical name is clitoria ternatea which is a climbing creeper. It belongs to the family  fabaceae,  pipilionacae. Its leaves are dark green in color. There are some  varieties with white, blue and lilac color flowers. In Kerala  its flowers  are referred as  sankhu pushpam or conch shell as it resembles the shape of the conch shell.  It is also known as butterfly pea flower. In Hindi it is known as koyala and dintena in hindi. This plant can be found almost everywhere in  india, Egypt, Syria, Afghanistan, Persia, Mesopotamia, Iraq etc. It posses light, sharp and dry attributes.  The plant can have a single petalled or five petalled combined flower. This herb is mentioned in almost all ancient scriptures of Ayurveda.  It is a perennial twining herb.

                         Aparajita is best known for its medicinal values.  It has various internal and external uses.

 Almost all parts of the plants such as root, leaves, seeds are used for medicinal purposes. The root paste of the white variety plant can be applied to skin diseases. Its roots tied as a garland or waistband around the expectant mother’s neck or waist can favour normal child birth even when caesarean is predicted. The white  aparajita’s root is tied as amulet around the waist about seven days before delivery date. Aparajita alleviates swelling and pain.The white flower extract is used to cure goiter.The root extracts of clitoria are used  for eye, throat infection and urinary problems.

Aparajita  because of its tranquillizing effects on brain can be used in  symptoms like  brain weakness,vertigo and syncope. Aparajita is used for common cold, cough, asthma and it  reduces the irritation of respiratory organs. It is a good blood purifier. It is used in healing ulcers of pylorus, duodenum etc.

 

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Penguins-Sea Lovers

             Penguins are birds which do not fly . They are the birds with black and white feathers. The wings of the penguins are called flippers.      Penguins have knees but it look like they don’t have knees because of their very short legs . The upper part of the leg and knees are covered by feathers making them invisible to us.  Penguins feathers are short, overlapping and densely packed. The overlapping, outer layer feather of an penguin have an waxy oil which makes them water proof when they are in water. The thick feathers of the penguins keep them warm. Their bones are heavy and solid giving them more weight. Mostly flying birds have light weighted bones. Penguins have long and strong beaks. Penguins used to carry the materials needed to build their nest using their beaks. Using their beaks they preen their feathers,  feed  their young ones and spread oils to keep them waterproof. Penguins don not have teeth. The chicks have an egg tooth but that is not the real tooth. Penguins store their food in the stomach and it is regurgitated to the chicks.

Penguins spend almost 75% of their time in underwater  where they can dive, flap wings which look like as they are flying. 

The powerful flippers and streamlined bodies of the penguins make them  a good accomplished swimmers. Among all the birds penguins are the deepest divers and fastest swimmers. Porpoising is an act of leaping in and out of water in a short shallow arc while swimming and penguins are best known for porpoising. Penguins have superior eyesight in underwater then in air which helps them to catch the preys  even in cloudy, murky or dark water. penguins communicate through calls and visual displays. Penguins can sleep for only few minutes of any time in day or night. Penguins are fond of sea and ice. They can live in southern half of the world. We can also find them in shores of Antartica, South of Australia, New Zealand, America, Africa etc.

EMPEROR PENGUIN

 Emperor penguins are the largest of all penguins. On an average they are 45 inches tall and can weigh upto  90 pounds when mature. Emperor penguins spend long  winter on the open ice and able to breed even during this harsh season.

KING PENGUINS

The  rarest penguin in the world is the yellow eyed penguins. At sea yellow eyed penguins forage in pairs or alone. This kind of penguins feed mostly on fish. The largest of 17 penguin species is the king penguin but it is second only to the emperor penguins. They are 35 inches long and can weigh  upto  28 – 30 pounds. King penguins have longest breeding cycle among all penguins.

AFRICAN PENGUIN

The only penguin that lives in Africa is the African penguin which is a popular tourist attraction. They are 24-28 inches long. Fairy penguins are little penguins which are found in Australia which is a mjor tourist attraction. Fairy penguins can live for an average of 7 years.

Scientist found  32 species of extinct penguins. African penguins are the endangered species which is  facing threats from habitat loss from human development ,fisheries depletion etc. Penguins are exploited for food, oil and skins.

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WhiteTigers–Interesting Facts

         White  tigers  are  the  beautiful  among all kinds of tigers that attracts everyone which inhabits different areas of the world. The father of all modern white tigers was Mohan which was captured in 1951 by the Maharaja h Shri  Martand  Singh. Maharajah was notified that the tigress with white cub was spotted. Soon a  search  for  retrieval  of tigress was began. The tigress was shot and her two cubs were killed. Mohan was escaped to be later caged. Mohan  was  then  used  for  producing  more white tigers. Mohan’s first   bred  was  Tigress Begum.  But they produced only a orange color normal cubs. Later Mohan   bred with one of his and begums one of orange Offspring. This mating was successful and resulted in four white   offsprings.  There are only few white tigers ins existence but they are of many species such as  Caspian, Indian, indo- Chinese, amur,  bali, sumantran, java, south china and many of them are now extinct.

          All white tigers have blue eyes which makes them look more attractive .White tigers are rare species. A tiger’s night vision is six times more than that of humans. A white tiger can weigh upto 300 kg and more than 3 meters  in length making them one of the largest animal in the world. White tigers have pink noses and creamy white fur. They do majority of their  hunting  at night. White tigers are good predators. They usually hunt large herbivorous animals including wild boar, antelopes, cattle, pig , goats etc. White tigers are not a species but they are just a variation of normal tigers. They   are  the  Bengal tigers with genetic condition called leucism  that results in reduced pigmentation. White tigers communicate using  their  body  scents  and  greet  each other by rubbing their faces and checks on each other.

             The white tigers are good swimmers but bad climbers. They may be slow runners. When most tigers swim they  don’t  spend much  time  fully submerged like white Bengal tigers.  White Bengal tigers have tail that helps them to keep balanced while swimming. White tigers are found in variety of habitats including   mangrove swamps, tropical forest, moist jungles etc  which  support dense vegetation and provide them with fresh water.

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Phoneix – Life After Death

Phoneix  is probably an imaginary bird. It is also called as an firebird which was described in ancient mythologies of  Persians, Indians, Arabians,Greeks, Romans , Egyptians, Mesoamericans, Native Americans, Chinese etc. It was believed that the phoenix has an power to heal  itself spontaneously. It was a kind of Sacred bird described in ancient mythology. Phoneix stands for immortality,resurrection and life after death. In the Egyptian mythology it was said that Phoneix  is a female sacred bird that has a attractive gold and red plumage. It was said to live for  500 to 1461 years . This mythical bird also represents  justice, sun, obedience and fidelity. According to Egyptian legend the phoenix burnt itself after every  500 years and reborn itself from the ashes.

Dapeng is the name given to the extremely large phoenix found in Indian and Chinese mythology which served as an arbiter which kills any dragons that is considered as evil. Phoneix was alone and it reproduces through parthenogenesis. It is extremely powerful that it can swoop down and capture any large animal and devour them. It is the only bird which needed fire to incubate the egg it had layed after many years. However some says  that Phoneix never eat and some says it eats only dew. It was also believed that it was born from itself without following the natural laws of reproduction. The Taoist called it as the “cinnabar Bird”.Its name came from the Greek word  for purple as Phoneix is associated with fire.A phoenix is the symbolic representation of death and rebirth of sun.

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Catchy Cats Eyes…………..

                  Cats are the very common species we can find most of the places in India. The best thing about the cats which I love was their eyes. Cats have different colors of eyes. Usually a cats eyes  was blue in color when they are born and it changes after  three weeks.  It is a rare case for the cats to keep its blue eyes when it grows. Only the pedigree breed can have blue color. Cats have so many range of eye colors in the animal   kingdom.  Pointed cats have blue eyes. Probably a white cat with blue eyes is deaf.  There are cases in which a cat can have different colored eyes  ie., a kitten with one blue eye and one green eye. These are due to a genetic process  called  mitosis. When you have a blue eyed male and green eyed female  then the genes will join together resulting  a recessive gene which makes different eye colors to the kitten.  

                 Most commonly cats have eye color in green/yellow range.  Cats eyes are extremely important because cats depends mostly on their eyes for hunting and stalking their prey.  Cats eyes function well in the dark. Their eyes can function well in approximately one sixth of the light needed for human vision.  The size of the cat eyes are normally larger than our eyes and more light can enter the eye .  Usually the lens of the eyes is more curved   which provides them with sharper focusing even at the edge of the lens. Cat eyes  are  of different   shapes  

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