Episodes

  • Ep. 1: Banana

    Ep. 1: Banana
    May 8 2018
    Sue Perkins presents a pocket-sized guide to the humble banana, the world's largest herb. Hear how they're available not just in yellow, but in red, orange and purple varieties, and discover that they have so much potassium in them that they're slightly radioactive.
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    13 mins
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  • Ep. 2: Welwitschia Mirabilis

    Ep. 2: Welwitschia Mirabilis
    May 8 2018
    Sue Perkins presents an audio guide to one of the world's ugliest plants, which resembles a huge jumble of fraying, dying leaves that have been carelessly dumped out of the back of a van onto the dusty, desert ground.
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    11 mins
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  • Ep. 3: Coconut

    Ep. 3: Coconut
    May 8 2018
    Sue Perkins presents a guide to the coconut. You might be thinking of piña coladas on the beach but the coconut itself is not only a tasty form of food and drink, but also a textile, a building material and so much more.
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    12 mins
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  • Ep. 4: Venus Flytrap

    Ep. 4: Venus Flytrap
    May 8 2018
    Sue Perkins presents a guide to the endangered Venus flytrap, whose name is slightly misleading. Only about 5% of its diet is made up of flies, with the majority consisting of ants, spiders, beetles, grasshoppers, and the occasional small frog.
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    13 mins
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  • Ep. 5: Squirting Cucumber

    Ep. 5: Squirting Cucumber
    May 8 2018
    Sue Perkins presents a guide to the squirting cucumber. As the name might suggest this is a rough and hairy plant with bulbous fruit filled to bursting point with sticky juice and seeds which it can shoot 20 feet in the air.
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    11 mins
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  • Ep. 6: Drakaea Livida

    Ep. 6: Drakaea Livida
    May 8 2018
    Sue Perkins presents a guide to the Warty Hammer Orchid, which has an extremely cunning way of attracting the thynnid wasp to pollinate it - it disguises itself as the female wasp.
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    11 mins
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  • Ep. 7: Giant Water Lily

    Ep. 7: Giant Water Lily
    May 8 2018
    Sue Perkins presents a guide to the floral queen of the Amazon, the Giant Water Lily, which can grow up to three metres across and inspired the design for the Crystal Palace used for the 1851 Great Exhibition.
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    11 mins
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  • Ep. 8: Theobroma Coca

    Ep. 8: Theobroma Coca
    May 8 2018
    Sue Perkins presents a guide to the cocoa plant. Hear about its origins on the Amazonian slopes of the Andes in Columbia and Ecuador. A chocolate fan? Find out how cocoa plants are fatally poisonous, and can cause diarrhoea, vomiting, heart attacks and death.
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    12 mins
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