Photographer: Ed Finney, Sarasota, Fla.

NEXT | START OVER | PREVIOUS Both times that I have visited the Florida House Butterfly Garden at the local vocational college, large Sulphur butterflies have been fluttering around this particular Cassia and they keep coming back over and over. It is called Popcorn Cassia because when you run your hands through the leaves, your hands then smell like fresh cooked, buttered popcorn (or so they say — I didn't have the nerve to try it since there was a passel of ladies touring the gardens). Here is something that I bet you didn't know — I know I certainly didn't: This tree, Cassia didymobotrya, has been used for over 300 years by farmers in Africa in a process to preserve milk — the treated milk product is called mursik. Other plants are used also, but Cassia didymobotrya is the favorite plant used in the process, and one study found that 60 percent of the homesteads had the trees planted and protected, nearby for use in treating milk. More information on this. Submit a picture. Copyright © 2004 Consolidated Publishing Co.