Recently, I picked some rhubarb from my mother's garden. As usual I removed the leaf and the bottom of each stalk with a knife. However, as I wasn't going to use them until the next day, I decided to pop them into a glass of water to stop them drying out. Overnight something quite strange happened - the ends of each stick split into a number of pieces and curled back, as shown in this photo: http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~dwmalone/rhubarb.jpg After stewing, the rhubarb tasted completely normal, but I've no idea why rhubarb would put on such a strange display!