Gianluca Corazza

Gianluca Corazza was born in Pietrasanta, Italy on June 29th, 1968. He is a botanical horticulturist, writer, plant blogger, botanical popularizer and photographer. Since when he was a child he was fascinated by natural sciences. From 1990 to 2013 he worked as a volunteer at the Lucca Botanic Garden. In 1995 founded Vivaio Corazza, a botanical nursery producing and preserving unusual plants. Together with Lucia Cortopassi (his wife) in 2014 he published “Piante Alimentari Insolite”, Edizioni Il Campano, Pisa, a book about botany, cultivation and use of 50 unusual edible plant species (in Italian). He also wrote articles for different magazines about aloes, stapeliads and Welwitschia mirabilis. He gives public lectures and speaks at conferences and workshops about plants, botany and horticulture. He bred new vegetable cultivars, like Citrullus lanatus ‘Cocoro’, 2013, (the first watermelon with both rind and flesh yellow), Cucumis sativus ‘Beluga’, 2012, (a light whitish-green long cucumber), Solanum melongena ‘Perona Bianca’, 2016, (a very large, white, pear-shaped aubergine), Ipomoea batatas ‘Radiosa’, 2015, (a sweet potato with thin pink and orange speckles arranged like rays if cut in section). He currently studies and grows many species, but his work is mainly focused on Gesneriaceae, Amaryllidaceae, Araceae, Begoniaceae, Iridaceae and Apocynaceae.

Peppermint Plant

Peppermint (Mentha × piperita, also known as Mentha balsamea Wild) is a hybrid mint, a cross between watermint and spearmint. Indigenous to Europe and the Middle East, the plant is now widely spread and cultivated in many regions of the world.It is occasionally found in the wild with its parent species.

Although the genus Mentha comprises more than 25 species, the one in most common use is peppermint.While Western peppermint is derived from Mentha piperita, Chinese peppermint, or “Bohe” is derived from the fresh leaves of Mentha haplocalyx.Mentha piperita and Mentha haplocalyx are both recognized as plant sources of menthol and menthone and are among the oldest herbs used for both culinary and medicinal products.

Asian trampsnail

General Information

COMMON NAMES: Asian Trampsnail, white bradybaena snail, Asian Tramp Snail

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GLOBAL DISTRIBUTION: NATIVE se.Asia – Indonesia; EXOTIC EXOTIC circumtropical and subtropical, incl. many Pacific islands

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COOK ISLANDS STATUS: Introduced – Recent, Naturalised; S.Group – common; Land, horticultural – mountains; disturbed and undisturbed habitats, gardens

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SIGNIFICANCE LIST: ; Pest – mild

KEY FEATURES: Shell a low spiral (helicoid), to 15x11mm(ØxH). SHELL colour variable – pale brownish to yellow-brown, 0-1 dark spiral stripe; ~5 whorls, spire convex; aperture with out-turned lip. ANIMAL grey to brown, tentacles dark. REPRODUCTION hermaphroditic, mutual mating, lay ~20 eggs (each 2mmØ) just under surface of the soil, hatch in ~15days.

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