Eat my dirt, plant!

SOO, it's almost the end of the semester, and I have to write a paper (among many other things) for one of my classes. My hort professor is pretty cool and I'm definitely not complaining about the assignment because it should be relatively easy, but I'm a bit rusty in the writing department. I haven't written a real paper all semester, and I can't remember if I wrote any significant papers last semester. So it's been a while.
The assignment for my hort class is to "write a 4-page paper about your favorite plant". Sounds rather elementary to me--until I realized that I can't possibly write 4 pages about gerber daisies. I'm sure if I did the research, I could find some really interesting material to discuss in my paper, but I'd hate to waste all that time just to realize that Gerbera spp. really isn't that fascinating. So I tossed around a few potential subjects that I knew had some quality that would make them worthy of the effort--asparagus tree fern, banana plant, mandevilla--until somehow I stumbled across the Adenium obesum, common name Desert Rose. I had actually been thinking through all the house plants I had at home, when I remembered that Andy and I had seen desert roses for sale at Wal-Mart but neglected to buy one (something I now regret, because they are awesome!). So I started clicking around on the internet and found out a lot of cool stuff.

The main reason for blogging about this is that I have trouble getting papers started, so I'm trying to write about my findings a little to get my brain on the right page. So here's some info about Adenium obesum that I remember from what I've read so far:
-A. obesum is the most common species of Adenium but there are other varities that are sometimes considered separate species because they are so different.
-There are a variety of colors, usually reds/pinks, purple, and white, though most flowers possess petals that have colored edges and fade to white towards the center. The throat of the flower is often yellow.
-A. obesum likes it hot. For real. It's a desert plant, but also a tropical plant. It has a growth cycle with two distinct seasons--a growing phase where the plant requires plenty of water and sunlight, and a dormant phase where the plant should be watered as little as possible.
-Plants are subject to root rot if the soil is kept overly moist. (It's actually pretty sensitive.)
-The name--Latin, obviously--is derived from Aden, where some of the plants are found, (Adenium) and the fact that the roots and/or caudex are really fat and fleshy for water storage (obesum), a characteristic of succulents.
-This plant is one of a number of succulents cultivated in the art of bonsai. The Asians really dig that sorta thing.

-I found an article, written in rather broken English, about a desert rose bonsai supposedly worth $500 million.

Pretty sweet, huh?

That's pretty much all I've got right now, hopefully I can eventually make a paper out of what I've found. My main concern is credible, citable sources. Anything more prestigious than the average cheap-looking grower/supplier website does not give basic info about the plant, but is usually a very specific study of some kind. Maybe this at least got the pre-writing jitters out of my system and I can stop staring nervously at my outline and actually start writing.

-K