Unabridged Note: Oreostemma is distinguished by a basal rosette of narrow, 3-veined leaves, solitary heads on - scapose stems, top-shaped involucres with (2)3--4 series of +- equal, evenly herbaceous phyllaries, pink to purple rays, greatly elongate style-branch appendages, and cylindric fruits.
The flowering stems, topped by drooping clusters of cylindrical flowers, reach 30 cm (12 inches).
Some brought out shisha water pipes, long glass stems topped by foil-wrapped apples or oranges, charcoal squares smoldering red above them, sweetly scenting the air.
"This," she said, pointing to some chivelike stems topped with purple flowers, "is called 'society' garlic, because it's not supposed to get on your breath or anything.
Summer phlox (P. paniculata) sometimes reaches more than 1.5 m (5 feet) high, on straight, stiff stems topped by reddish purple to white, fragrant, large, flat flower heads.
Ms. Emde works with six-gallon steel drums full of pith, seeds, stems, tops, peels and cores fermenting in a base of wine.
Field of Light, a solar-powered installation, will illuminate Australia's red center near Uluru with 50,000 stems topped by glowing orbs.
Thousands of acres of white-tarped greenhouses, some the size of several football fields, are crammed with seven-foot stems topped with rich red crowns.
Dracaena, the dragon trees, includes such houseplants as D. marginata, from Madagascar, which forms clusters of twisted stems topped by rosettes of narrow, leathery leaves.
Their slender stems topped with tiny pale lilac flower heads looked as if they were just waiting for an orange tip butterfly to lay its tiny orange eggs on them.
