A shrub in Nepal supplies the raw material for the bank notes used in Japan

> I can't understand anything.

Is the typical botanical idiomatic problem.

Petiolate: Leaves join the stem by a narrow "tail".

oblong-elliptic: Shape of the leaf, self-explanatory, also indicates that the leaf is entire (blade shaped as one continuous structure)

acute on both ends: blade leaf starts and ends in a point (that is short in both cases).

glabrous above: upper surface smooth

slightly hairy below: surface below covered by tiny "bumps" or vesicles to protect from dry or chill conditions (feels hairy to the touch)

Peduncles thickened at the apex: Ambiguous, but that "tail" is more thick in one extreme (probably before to join the leaf blade).

Hemispherical capitula: Flowers "glued together" over a disk, and arranged as a half sphere. Is not exactly like a daisy, but you pick the idea.

involucre with lanceolate acuminate leaves subequal to the flowers:

That "disk" has also spear-shaped bracts (accessory small leaves) that are more or less as long as the flowers are.

Flowers subvillous-tomentose with yellowish pubescence

Flowers in this genus have a strange (and pleasant) plush texture. They are covered by a dense layer of short yellow (or red) hairs. Is very strange the first time that you see it, but also adds a lot of charm and coolness to the species.

> There are too many high-level botanical terms here, I can't understand anything.

That's easily fixable, for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTsAFpSXj7Y

i erred in assuming it was discovered by a 'gardner', then; thank you

you're probably confusing it with the similar-looking oleander, i put daphne (laurel or bay leaves) in my soup. all parts of daphne are supposed to be poisonous but it's not in the same league as oleander

oleander is an unrelated plant, being a rosid rather than an asterid, but in some languages people use the same word for both because they both have thick and leathery dark green glossy lanceolate leaves, usually glabrous, with minute reticulate venation

edit: no, laurel or bay leaves are not daphne, they're laurus or one of several other genera. laurus is also unrelated to daphne, being a magnoliid. i don't know anything about how toxic daphne is. i regret the error, which was due to Δάφνη being the greek word for laurus nobilis, the laurel from which we get bay leaves for seasoning food

thank you, i didn't know that!

it says they're planting it and harvesting the plants after no more than three years so the bark doesn't redden, but looking at the photos in the article, it looks like the hill districts in question aren't very forested? google maps makes it look like there are in fact many forests there: https://www.google.com/maps/@26.9,88.5101152,20665m/data=!3m...

presupposing a global hipster population of 100 million and paper consumption per hipster of one bullet journal per month, weighing perhaps 500 grams, we get 600 thousand tonnes per year of paper consumption, roughly four thousand times the amount the article tells us is being used to print banknotes. this seems like it could employ several hundred thousand people, but probably not nearly enough to run out of land suitable for growing argeli

Those are not soldiers, rather labourers looking for work who end up with a gun thrust in their arms as they're sent to the front lines.

Apologies I took that as well known.

That is roughly a quarter the way around the globe

This thread is grossly missing the point. OP is writing about a foreign aid program directed at Nepali people.

Nepal is a rocky country, having a large patch of lands unsuitable for farming. People in the rulal area are literally one of the poorest population in the world.

Paper bush ("Mitsumata") grows well in such a rocky soil. This program is essentially an attempt to set up Japan as a longterm buyer of the material, so that the local people can make constant money.

> Why not locally sourced?

Because if Japan sourced the material locally, it just ceased to be a foreign assistance program.

It's a difficult low margin crop. Not easy to grow cheaply and it needs to be processed to extract the fibers.

It's been grown in that part of Europe for thousands of years and in the 19th century it was a major industry there. I don't think it's still a major crop in Belgium (too low margin) but the company in question is entrenched now.

I'm aware it's being done already. But I'm not sure it would be a good starting point when designing a new set of notes. Euro banknotes are mostly made from cotton, and a lot of thought and effort is going into reducing the environmental footprint. The most circulated denominations last on average four years, the rest significantly longer I presume. How does that compare to polymer based banknotes?

The national institution that made them (CSIRO) also held the patent on WiFi. Among many other inventions.

Very interesting organization of Australias, and wish we had something like it in the US.

Because we already keep all the computers, the network and payment processing anyway.

Like 99% of physical payments are already involves computers anyway, even if it is done with a paper/plastic note.

So it's not "replace notes with computers" but "get rid of notes because computers are there anyway".

Anecdote: I don't have a card linked to Uber, so I pay with a cash or a C2C transfer. In the last two years if I ask the driver if they prefer cash or C2C they consistently prefer C2C - because it's way less hassle for them and also they often claim they are short on change.

And in the another anecdote I still carry cash on me but I use it only for a taxi rides and a one local smallware shop, so they wouldn't need to pay the processing fee for the 50c things.