Camel – Packed and Ready to Go

Camels are large mammals known for their humps. They belong to the same family as the llama and the alpaca.
These animals weigh up to about 650 kilograms and are about 2 meters tall at the hump. A camel changes the extra food and water into fat and keeps it safe in its hump. When full, the humps are plump and erect. If the animal has not eaten for a period of time, the humps begin to shrink and sag to one side. Long eyelashes protect the eyes from sandstorms and glaring sun. The nostrils can close to keep out blowing sand.
Camels eat thorny plants, shrubs, and dried grasses.
The Bactrian camel, which lives mostly in Central Asian countries, has two humps. It is the largest species. These animals are named for the Baktria region of ancient Persia and can withstand severe cold as well as extreme heat.
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Wonderful Magnolias

Magnolias are trees and shrubs known for their large, beautiful flowers. There are about 100 species of magnolia.
Many magnolias are about 12 to 24 meters tall and grow in warm-temperate and subtropical climates of the Northern Hemisphere: America, East Asia and the Himalayas.
Some magnolias are evergreen and others are deciduous.
The flowers of a magnolia are white, yellow, pink, or purple. They can be 25 centimeters or more across.
The southern magnolia has large, white flowers that smell like lemons.
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Poppy – wonderful flower

Poppies are valued for their brilliantly colored blossoms. They are grown as garden plants and also for their seeds.
Poppies grow in mild climates throughout the world. They come in different sizes: from tiny plants that grow near the soil to plants that are up to 4.6 meters in height.
Poppy flowers are shaped like cups and have four to six petals. They may be red, orange, yellow, pink, blue, lilac, or white. Their seeds are used for baking breads and desserts. Medicine to relieve pain can be made from the poppy. According to Avicenna, a decoction of the poppies’ roots cured sciatica and headaches.
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Iris – graceful and amazing flower

Irises are popular garden flowers. They are known for their wide variety of colors and unique petal shapes. There are about 800 species of iris. They grow mostly in mild northern regions. Some irises grow from bulbs. Others grow from the rhizomes of other iris plants.
Irises have six petals that can be white, yellow, pink, red, blue, purple, brown, or even black. Irises can grow to 90 centimeters tall and usually have a strong fragrance.
Irises are known since ancient times. One of the frescoes found in Crete shows a priest surrounded by irises. The fresco is about 4,000 years old.
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Babylon – ancient city

According to the legend, the people who lived more than four thousand years ago in Mesopotamia, near the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, after the Flood spoke the same language. They were complacent and proud. And they decided to build a tower up to the sky. God learned about this, became angry and gave them different languages. And people didn’t understand each other, quarreled, abandoned the building and went to the different ends of the earth. The tower remained unfinished, but the city where it was erected, gained popularity. It was named Babel.
Until the end of the XIX century the Tower of Babel was considered a biblical legend. There was no physical evidence of construction of the tower.
The Bible says that the builders made the tower of mud bricks, as there were not enough stones. These giant bricks (6 m long) were burned and resin was used as a binder between them. The descendants of Noah, as the Bible said, spent three years searching for materials and about twenty-two years to build the tower.
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Crane – beautiful wading bird

Cranes are tall, wading birds known for their courtship dances, and voices. Today there are 15 crane species throughout the world, except South America and Antarctica.
Cranes have long legs, a long neck, and a narrow, tapered bill. They eat grains, and invertebrates they catch in the water.
Most cranes migrate fairly long distances to their nesting sites.
The largest crane, and the rarest Asian crane, is the red-crowned, or Japanese, crane. It can weigh up to 11.4 kg. It has vivid red feathers on the top of its head, but its body is snowy white. In 1952, this crane became Japan’s national bird.
The smallest crane is the demoiselle crane of Europe and North Africa.
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Sunflowers – Golden Giants

Sunflower is one of the largest and most splendid of flowers. It is valuable for its economic uses as well as for its beauty. The sunflower gets its name from the way it turns its head from east to west to follow the Sun, and its bloom looks like the Sun. The Latin name, Helianthus annum, is derived from the Greek words meaning “sun” and “flower” and from the Latin word meaning “annual.”
The flower usually grows to about two meters in height.
The bloom of a sunflower has two parts. The central disk flowers packed closely together are dark. When pollinated by insects, these smaller flowers develop into the seeds. The flowers around the outside are called ray flowers and they are golden yellow. A disk can vary from 5 to 50 centimeters in diameter and may produce from 100 to 8,000 seeds.
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