Maret 17, 2017
(lively music) - [voiceover] if you thinkyou've got a green thumb, just wait till you see the natural world's craziest cultivators. we're counting downthe top 10 most extreme gardeners in the animal kingdom, to find the hardest-workinghorticulturalist. it's time to weed 'em and reap, when gardeners are takento the most extreme.
earth is a planet of extremes. extreme places (energetic music) and extreme animals. but some animals aremore extreme than others. join us as we count down, to find the most unusual, the most extraordinary, the most extreme.
(explosive drums) (delicate music) gardening can be hard work. from digging to fertilizing,planting to harvesting, making things grow can be tricky. and yet, not everybody likesgetting their hands dirty. once people thought that aremote-controlled lawn mower would mean that you could garden from the comfort of your chair.
and while our first contender lacks this sophisticatedtechnology, it has found a way to grow a most unusual plant from the comfort of a perchthat's high in the sky. this is where you find mistletoe. while most people know that mistletoe is a great way to get a kiss at christmas, few realize that it's actually a parasite. there are about 90 species ofmistletoe in australia alone,
and they all send out rootsthat penetrate the bark of trees and siphon off water and nutrients. the question is, how did theyget up to these aerial gardens in the first place? well, the answer lies with the animal flying in tonumber 10 in the countdown, the mistletoebird. it specializes in popping openthe parasite's ripe berries, and swallowing the sticky contents.
thanks to the bird'smodified digestive system, it only takes half an hourfor the mistletoe seed to pass undamaged from beak to bottom. (low horn music) and that's when the bird starts gardening. simply by wiping its bottom, the mistletoe bird managesto plant a sticky cling-on in the perfect position toform a new aerial garden. and while it's fun towatch the mistletoebird's
rear end waggle, thesepeople are queuing up to see a very different pooey plant at the huntington botanical gardenin san marino, california. - well, i think the flower is beautiful. the smell is not so good. - worse than baby's poop. (laughs) - [voiceover] the titan arumis the world's largest flower. the two-meter bloom is extremely rare. even in its native habitat
on the indonesian island of sumatra, it's not something you'dwant in your garden, unless you like the smell of rotting meat. also called the corpse flower,it uses its potent pong to attract pollinatingflies and dung beetles. this massive plant isnotoriously difficult to grow. life would be so much easier for botanists if they could work like a mistletoebird. all it takes is a wipe of the bottom,
and the seed's good to go! the mistletoe's developingroot quickly penetrates the branch of its host, and starts siphoning off all the nutrients it needs. the mistletoe bird isnumber 10 in the countdown because its garden is so self-sufficient that is requires very little help to grow. however, as the countdown continues, we'll discover animalsthat must work even harder
if they're to taste thefruits of their labor. compost is a gardener's best friend. so it's no wonder that people work hard to create nature's very own fertilizer. it's a matter of collectingall kinds of organic material, and then letting it gently decompose. but there's an easierway to create compost. all you have to do is callon our next contender, the earthworm.
it's the only animal inthe countdown that actually helps us in the garden. that's because 24 hours a day, these squirming waste disposal units turn organic trash into compost. just ask the worm shepherd, jonathan craig from yakima, washington. deep in the bowels of his basement, he breeds earthworms to sellto gardeners across america,
and believes that everybodyshould worship the worm. - i am the worm shepherd because i believe that without worms, we would not even be heredoing this right now. the reason why not isbecause without worms, there would be no food. and without food, therewould be no people. ancient civilizations,even before egypt -- sumeria used worms extensivelyin their agriculture.
agriculture was born using worms. - [voiceover] to find outwhy these slimy gardeners are so important, you just have to imagine what it would be like ifwe lived like an earthworm. we'd be found beneath the garden, in a complex network ofburrows that help plants by aerating the soil, and actinglike drainpipes for water. but most important would be our insatiable appetitefor dead vegetation.
we'd even go up to thesurface to drag down leaves, so we could feast on them at our leisure. (jittery music) and since we'd consume our own weight in rotten vegetation every day, we'd produce an awfullot of waste products. for gardeners, wormexcrement is black gold. it's nature's very own compost, delivered right to the plant's front door.
the waste products ofearthworms are packed with vitamins and mineralsthat plants need for growth. and now it seems that compost could also stimulatesomething else to sprout. (mysterious music) englishman colin gray reckons that compost helps grow a healthy crop of hair. - [colin] after a few weeks,i suppose, that i'd used it, even my hairdresser had said,
"your hair's, you know,improving. it's getting thicker!" and it followed on from there, really. and i've noticed a difference. in fact, the hairdresser charges me more now than she used to. she's put the price up. - [voiceover] colindiscovered this miracle cure after using an old bagof compost as a headrest. so what is it that makesthis fertilizer so special?
- [colin] it could be theplastic on the outside, or it could be the chemicalsthey're using in the bags. i don't think we ever know, do we, really. i know it's working for me,or doing something for me. - [voiceover] it doesn't matterif worms are on your head, or in your garden. the world would be a betterplace if we all recognized the power of the earthworm,according to jonathan craig. - [jonathan] the reason wehave lost touch with the worms
is because we have losttouch with ourselves. as soon as we find outwhat's wrong with us, we'll then see a simple, humble creature working 24 hours a day, not sleeping, eating, pooping, procreating, all for us. all to keep the world aplace to keep growing food, which we eat. without them, we wouldn't be here. (eerie music)
- [voiceover] the worm maybe the king of compost, but it takes more than justfertilizer to make a garden. there are animals comingup in the countdown that have not only green thumbs, but tongues, paws, and jaws. (dramatic music) our first two contenders have shown that some gardeners haveinteresting toilet habits. and as our countdown continues,
we'll discover an interesting greenhouse full of flesh-eating flowers. and later, what living hedge trimmers have shaped the trees of africa? the next contender in our countdown of the most extreme gardeners has an unhealthy interest in flowers. sure, we think they're pretty. but it pays to rememberthat we're actually looking
at a display of a plant'sreproductive organs. human gardeners have beenusing this information to breed different plantvarieties for more than a century. first, they expose the long, sticky stalk that's the flower'sfemale reproductive organ. then they collect pollensacs from another plant. by transferring the male pollen grains onto the female stalk, the plant is artificiallyfertilized by human gardeners.
it's a technique that's been practiced for countless generations by the animal crawling in tonumber eight in the countdown. this is a female thynnidwasp from australia. she has no wings, so she's forced to crawlup the stems of flowers to catch not the eye, butthe nose of a passing male, by releasing a perfume of pheromones. (fast vibrating music)
when the winged male flies down, he takes her in his arms,sweeps her off her feet, and mates with her in midair. it's this behavior that makesthe male a wonderful gardener, if you're a drakaea orchid. its flower looks likea female thynnid wasp, and what's more, it produces a perfume that mimics the wasp's pheromones. when a male follows thischemical come-hither,
he becomes an unwitting gardener. (buzzing) as he tries to carry awaythis vegetable female, he swings within range of theplant's sticky pollen sacs. (high vibrating music) undeterred by the pollen on his back, he tries his luck with another orchid. only this time, hisstruggles deposit pollen onto the plant's femalereproductive organ.
but this isn't the only plant that completely manipulates its gardener. there are plenty more growing here, at california carnivores,a macabre nursery just north of san francisco, that houses the world's largest collectionof meat-eating plants. in this savage garden, there are all kinds ofways to fool insects, as peter d'amato explains.
- [peter] most pitcher plantslure nectar-feeding insects with nectar that has drugs in it, and it makes them rather intoxicated. inside of the pitcher, there are glands that very much like an animal's stomach secretes acids and enzymesthat are mixed with water. so the fluid inside iskind of like your stomach, where the digestive acidsand enzymes are what break the insects down, oncethey're caught and drowned.
this is the leaf of anamerican pitcher plant, which grows in the eastern united states. and you can see that these catch literally thousands of insects. in here are the digested remains. these are the exoskeletons, the shells of the insect. all the nutrients are absorbed through the cell walls of the pitcher.
so it's almost like they'recatching vitamin pills with legs and wings. many people are surprised toknow that the united states has the widest variety ofcarnivores plants in the world. the vast majority are not tropical at all. this, of course, is the mostfamous carnivorous plant, the venus flytrap. it has traps that are shapedlike clamshells or taco shells, and they're lined withvery sharp little teeth.
but inside of the trap are sixto eight little trigger hairs that are so tiny they'realmost microscopic. there's nectar at the base of the teeth, and nectar-feedinginsects will climb inside to drink the nectar. when they do, they have to touch two of the little triggerhairs within 20 seconds to spring the trap. what happens is amazing.
electricity runs through theoutside cells of the leaf, and it causes thosecells to triple in size in less than a second, andthe trap will warp together imprisoning the insect. and i'll show you what i mean. i've got a nice tasty slugfor this flytrap here. we'll hit the trigger hairs, and see how it has snapped shut. they've always appeared in movies.
- [giant plant] "feed me. food!" - the most popular recent moviewas little shop of horrors. - [giant plant] (burp) - we don't have any man-eatingor woman-eating plant here. but with gene splicing, who can tell what we might be able to develop, 10 or 20 years down the road? - [giant plant] now you will do as i say. - yes, master.
- [giant plant] you will goout and find me some food! - [voiceover] luckily, the drakaea orchid is not looking for lunch, but love. it won't produce seeds without the help of itsslightly confused pollinator. while the thynnid wasp isonly an accidental gardener, our next contender is another pollinator, that takes its duties much more seriously. so far our gardeners have either been
fooled by a dirty trick,or made tricky dirt. but still to come, we discover that the grass is alwaysgreener on the other ride. and later, find out why trees in africa either shape up or ship out. it may not look like it, but this volcanic islandcould one day become the modern equivalentof the garden of eden. all it needs is a littlehelp from the next contender
in our countdown of extreme gardeners. while the first seedsto land on the bare rock are blown in on the wind, a very special plant hitches a lift inside a fruit-eating bird. it's the fig, and on tropical islands it really does become the equivalent of the biblical tree of life, providing food for all kinds of animals.
however, the tree's flowerswould never get pollinated if it wasn't for thework of the tiny gardener crawling in to numberseven in the countdown, the female fig wasp. fig trees are unique,because their flowers are completely enclosed within the fruit. so the female wasp has to force her way through a narrow opening. even though she's small enough
to fit through the eye of a needle, it's such a tight squeeze thatshe has to shed her wings. but she doesn't wipe off the pollen she's carrying from another fruit, because it's trapped ina hollow on her chest. inside, she looks for aplace to lay her eggs, and in the process, shewipes the male pollen onto the fig's female reproductive organs. the female fig wasp is numberseven in the countdown,
because without her careful pollination, there would be no fig tree. and unlike the thynnid wasp, this tiny gardener spends much of her life actually inside the plant she pollinates. her offspring hatch, grow, and even mate inside the fig. they only leave when males drill holes in the walls of the fruit,
setting free the next generationof pollen-coated females to fly off in search of another tree. there are about 1,000 species of fig, and amazingly, eachappears to have co-evolved with at least one fig waspthat pollinates its flowers, and allows the trees to reproduce. it's a combination that's been together since biblical times. the fig is the first treereferred to in the bible.
it was definitely in the garden of eden. and although the fig waspdoesn't get a mention, we can be sure that it wasalso present inside the fruit. and while some scholars have suggested that it may have been afig, and not an apple, that led eve into temptation, most agree that she andadam used fig leaves to cover their naughty bits when they were banishedfrom the garden forever.
however, in a desert in israel, there's another biblicalgarden that's come to life. archaeologists excavatingherod's palace on mount masada have found some miraculous seeds. they're not from a figtree, but a date palm, and they're 2,000 years old. and yet, when they were placed in a pot, they germinated. they're the oldest seedsever to have produced
a viable plant. the judaean date palm waslong thought to be extinct, and now scientists are hopingthat it will provide clues about its legendary medicinal properties. once its fruits werethought to be able to cure everything from toothache to cancer. the medicinal effects of figsare also well-documented. however, the fig waspdoesn't need a laxative. this gardener uses the fruitfor both food and shelter.
and while few people evernotice the effort the fig wasp puts into its pollination, there's no mistaking thework of our next contender. it's a gardener that's shapedthe trees of a continent. every gardener knows thatwith regular pruning, a hedge can be turnedinto all kinds of shapes. and since 1912 in rhode island, the green animals topiarygarden has been home to 21 different species of bushy beast.
(shears clipping) you can even find our next contender, because when it comes to pruning, nothing beats a giraffe. (spooky music) this walking hedge trimmer isnumber six in the countdown, because it plays a majorpart in defining the nature of the african landscape. giraffes love eating acacia trees,
and can pluck more than 30kilograms of leaves every day. their leathery, 50-centimer-long tongue seems unaffected by theacacia's spiniest defenses. giraffe browsing is so severe that it can seriously damage trees and alter the way they grow. with years of pruning, the shape of the acaciachanges constantly. eventually it develops awaist at about head height,
where giraffes feed most easily. then, when the very centerof the tree is out of reach, it can finally escape fromeven the tallest hungry mouths. acacias are the dominant trees over much of sub-saharan africa, and they get theircharacteristic umbrella shape thanks to the four-legged hedge trimmers that are number six in the countdown. but the acacias are not the only trees
that have been shaped by careful pruning. there's one tree that'sover 400 years old, and stands only a few centimeters tall. welcome to the oakland bonsaigarden in northern california. it's run by the bonsaisociety of san francisco, and each plant has been carefully shaped to produce the illusion of age, as andrea burhoe explains. - [andrea] you should be able to feel
that you could stand under that tree and be out in the wild with it. - [voiceover] the word bonsaicomes from the japanese for tray-growing. by limit root growth and careful clipping, a tree which normallygrows over six meters tall can be shrunk to just a few centimeters. and they can be ancient. this garden contains a blackpine called pacific king,
that's estimated to be 400 years old. this is not a tree that you'dgive to a giraffe to prune. in africa, giraffes actuallymake acacia trees taller, not shorter. and these are hard-working hedge trimmers. giraffes can spend morethan 16 hours a day feeding. this dedication to gardening is why they've eaten their way intonumber six in the countdown. so far, we've weeded outa humongous hedge trimmer,
and a puny pollinator, because they're no match for an animal that really goes ape in the garden. and later, why would anybodytake plants to the arctic to keep them under lock and key? new york city is the verylast place in the world you expect to find the next contender that's why people decidedto bring a real forest into the concrete jungle.
well, an almost real forest. welcome to the most exclusivegarden in the bronx. it took 10 years to complete the largest african rainforest ever built. there are 15,000 living plants in here, of more than 400 species, and it's also home to22 very special guests. (regal music) popping in to number five inthe countdown, is the gorilla.
(tranquil music) humans may have created the congo gorilla forest at the bronx zoo, but gorillas are also gifted gardeners. to find out why, you just have to follow the money collectedfrom the visitor's entry fees, and head off to the zoo'sconservation projects on the other side of the world. here, in the denserainforests of western africa,
a male gorilla will eat more than 18 kilogramsof vegetation a day, to fuel his 180-kilogram body. he has over 200 speciesof plant to choose from, but he's not greedy. he selectively prunes the forest, which, just like the giraffe, can affect the way theplants in his garden grow. what's more, a recent study has shown
that he remembers where he's been eating, and will deliberately avoid that area to let it regenerate. gorillas are number five in the countdown, because their careful pruning stimulates new growth in the jungle. they also play a vital rolein the dispersal of seeds, depositing them with a generousdollop of gorilla fertilizer to encourage new seedlings to sprout.
however, when it comes to planting seeds, not even these heavyweights can compete with the smallest kangaroo in the world. australia's tropical rainforests are home to a very strange andvery ancient gardener, with a lineage that stretchesback over 15 million years, the world's oldest livingkangaroo is the hypsi. hypsi is short for hypsiprymnodon, a guinea pig-sized marsupial
that looks as much likea possum as a kangaroo. it has a real fondness for fruit, and in times of plenty,it'll store them for later by carefully burying them underground. the hypsi is number four in the countdown because each season it can bury more than 700 different fruit. and while this keeps its foodsafe from other fruit eaters, unfortunately the hypsi's not been blessed
with the world's greatest memory. forgotten fruit germinate, sometimes more than 60 metersaway from the parent tree. here they stand a betterchance of survival, because they no longer haveto compete with the adult for space, sun and nutrients. however, some seeds will be buried on the other side of the world, not in the forest, but deep under ice.
(high-pitched blowing) on the island of spitsbergen,far above the arctic circle, the norwegian government hashollowed out an old coal mine, and is using it to store seeds. lots of seeds! it's a doomsday collectionof the plants of the world. the aim is to protect theplanet's genetic resources in case of disaster, beit nuclear war, pollution, or contamination causedby genetic engineering.
the temperature is constantlykept well below freezing, because the facility isburied deep in the permafrost. safe in this massive deep freeze, it's hoped that the seedsstored here will remain viable for 200 years. it would be the hypsi's idea of heaven, if only it could rememberwhere it was buried! however, this forgetful gardener is also doing its bit for the environment.
by carefully planting seedsaway from the competition, the hypsi not only helpsthe forest regenerate, but digs itself into numberfour in the countdown. while our last two contenders have been very environmentally-friendly, still to come is a ghostly gardener that amazon indians believeis working for the devil. and later, how would youlike a lawn on your back? to find the next contender
in our countdown of extreme gardeners, you have to be preparedto get your hands dirty, especially when collecting poo. and this is jumbo-sized dung. - "i hit the jackpot!" - [voiceover] when theringling brothers circus gives away elephant droppings, there's no shortage of gardeners ready to make the most of the manure.
that's because fecesmakes great fertilizer. and in africa, feces fertilizes a garden that feeds 5 million hungry workers. termites may appear tobe unlikely gardeners. after all, what plantcan grow in the darkness at the heart of a termite mound? and while the massive queen of the colony doesn't need any light, she does need food if she's to keep on producing15 eggs every minute.
the only trouble is that the queen, and the 5 million otherhungry mouths in the colony, can't digest the tough woody cellulose found in the plants they eat. so that's why the queen produces babies that will grow into thebest gardeners in africa. no other animal is better atturning feces into fungus. when foraging workers return with a belly full of chewed-up plants,
they all go to the toiletin the fungus garden. here, six-legged gardenerscultivate a white fungus that only grows on termite toilets. when the fungus breaks down the cellulose, the termites eat the fungus. the huge white garden can weigh more than 20 kilograms. that's a lot of mushrooms! and so's this eight-kilogram monster
on display at the university of florida. - it's all right. (laughs) - [voiceover] however, it's no match for the amazing vegetables produced by gardeners from alaska. (clicking cameras) the alaskan growing season may be short, but it's very intense. plants get to enjoy over two months
of practically non-stop daylight. couple that to a whole lot of fertilizer, and people like jean dinkel can produce some record-breaking cabbages. - [jean] i measured it before,and it goes about 72 inches. about six feet across. the head itself is not large. it could spend a little more time growing, but it's pretty mature.
it's a huge cabbage. and it's just gorgeous. - [voiceover] a cabbagethis size could feed even the largest termite colony. but only after they've turnedit into fecal fertilizer. it's a complicated process,having to grow food in an underground fungus farm. so perhaps that's why our next contender cuts out the middleman,
simply by building itsgarden inside its body. (majestic music) in 1951, author john wyndham wrote a novel about a terrifying plantthat could not only move, but turned us into food. - [scientist] it doesn't seem to have any central nervous system. - then how does it move? - all plants move.
they don't usually pullthemselves out of the ground and chase you. (breaking glass) (screams) - [voiceover] and while our next contender doesn't have to deal with the man-eating monster fromthe day of the triffids, there is a plant on the islands of palau that's found a most unusual way to move.
and it relies on swarms of the animal swimming in to numbertwo in the countdown, the jellyfish. the story begins millions of years ago, when a coral reef rose from the sea, trapping jellyfish in alandlocked saltwater lake. safe inside their private pool, these extreme jellies became vegetarian. the stinging cells on theirtentacles disappeared,
and they came to rely ona most remarkable garden. now millions of jellyfish have become synchronized sun worshippers. they're number two in the countdown, because they spend theirlives looking after plants 24 hours a day. imagine if we were like the jellyfish. how would you like to haveplants living in your skin? if we were like somejellyfishes and corals,
we'd have millions of microscopicalgae inside our body. the algae collect sunlightand photosynthesize, creating sugars and proteinsfor their use, and ours. and in return, we just have to make sure that we carry the plantsto the parts of the lake with the most sunshine. and when the sun goes down, so do we. we'd migrate down tothe bottom of the lake, to collect nitrates and phosphates
to fertilize the algae cells. then it's up with the sun,and the cycle continues. strangely enough, some people really do wear a living green coat. in belgium, agricultural technicians have created clothes from grass. simply plant seeds on sacking material, water daily, and you have a fabric that can really grow on you.
these outfits are said to be comfortable, and surprisingly light. the water in the sackingeven keeps you cool, although it's not somethingyou'd wear to the track. (friendly chatter) (surprised words in a foreign language) the palau jellyfish alsoneeds to avoid hungry animals, although this sea anemoneis more interested in eating the jellyfish than the plants its wearing.
the swarms of jellyfish are defenseless, because when they began relyingon their internal garden, they no longer needed their metabolically expensive tentacles. things are very different for the most extremegardener in the countdown. it'll kill anything that entersits careful cultivations. we've seen the nine contenders. they are the best of the best.
only one animal is a moreextreme gardening guru. the most extreme gardener in the countdown lives deep in the amazonianrainforests of peru. you can see its work incleared areas of jungle that are called the devil's gardens. the mysterious tracks of vegetation were not created by tribesliving in the forest. these people are gardenersin their own right, creating small gaps in thejungle to cultivate their crops.
something else createdthe devil's gardens. (mysterious drum music) the locals tell stories of an evil spirit, a mythical dwarf called chullachaki. he often appears as afriend or family member to lone travelers in the jungle, and then leads them incircles until they're lost. chullachaki is said to livein the devil's gardens, which is why people stay awayfrom the strange clearings,
where you can find onlyone species of tree. and the legend is partly true. no human hand made the devil's gardens. they were created bythe animal scurrying in to number one in the countdown, the lemon ant. these tiny gardeners make their homes inside the stems of the only tree found in the devil's garden.
and they'll defend theirhome from all intruders. they'll even weed outother competing plants. their aim is to create space in the forest for the single speciesof tree they live in. this is how the ant colony expands as it moves into nestingsites within new saplings. taking on a jungle isn't easy, but these gardeners come equippedwith a horrible herbicide. each ant is armed with a sting,
that's used on bothinvading animals and plants. they inject their venom offormic acid into the leaves, which soon removes all competition. lemon ants are numberone in the countdown, because colonies can create clearings that cover 1,300 square meters, and are estimated tobe over 800 years old. a garden that size couldcontain 15,000 queens, and 3 million workers.
(chirping insects) it requires extraordinary dedication to maintain a clearing ina lush tropical jungle, and yet for centuries,these tiny gardeners have been cultivating their host trees, and killing off weeds. no one other animal can compete with the countdown'shardest-working horticulturalist, which is why, when it comes to gardening,
the lemon ant really is the most extreme!
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