#botanyshitposts

[identifyingplantsinposts]

Willowherb (Epilobium spp.)

It is a well-known pioneer genus, which means it grows in disturbed places, a trait which is demonstrated well by its growth out of a car's wheel well!

However, given the fact that it hasn't bloomed yet, and the geographical location is uncertain, it is difficult to hazard a guess as to its exact species, but this small stem ridge (below) suggests it might be E. tetragonum, which has a square stem and similar seedlings.

Epilobium tetragonum has these lovely flowers!

really can’t get over lichens growing on peoples’ CARS. all this talk of microhabitats and long term stability and preferences about humidity and substrates and how some lichens will only grow in untouched old-growth forests etc etc and there are some of these creatures living on literally the most unpredictable common substrate that changes positions at least twice a day and sometimes travels to completely different biomes. what the hell

[nocontextwife]

My wife leans her body side-to-side, elbows flexed & tight to her waist, hands at boob-height, palms down, wiggling, making "effort" noises, like an exhausted pterodactyl.

"...cause they're not co-operative flowers"

[amanitahouses]

some pollinator wolves, watercolor overlaid on photo inspired by this post by @botanyshitposts

[owlchimedes]

I'm sooo glad to find an envi sci studyblr!!! It feels like it's so rare.

yess!! there are like none of us out here! possibly it has to do with the venn diagram of tumblr users and people who go outside being separate circus tents, but that said, I'll list some cool people I follow if you want more env sci on your dash.

i was in parasocials with mallaidh-ann when he was working with seals and now he's doing salmon fishery work? swoon

headspace-hotel does environmental rage like no one else and also insanely good poetry

@hellsitegenetics is new and very funny

MC does fantastic work with @reasonsforhope to promote good environmental and human rights stories

@memecology makes me laugh, though they've been afk for a bit

@deadnaturalhistories is a natural history PhD candidate

@ecologie-txt is an ecology PhD candidate

@botanyshitposts is what is says on the tin (also, very smart)

@fatehbaz does anticolonial ecology 👌🏼

@weird-ecologies does wildlife conservation and scicomm

I really liked my friend's blog eco-filth but I think our upcoming master's thesis ate them...

mutuals with @endless-forms who's a science journalist

@wilder-thyme does archaebotany (wow!)

@moon-thestars is/was a biodiv conservation student, may be afk

nollectquest posts some foraging/homesteading content that I really enjoy

gallusrostromegalus likewise has an excellent #The Garden At The End Of The Universe tag

wild-west-wind is a park ranger

I've tagged those who are studyblrs and simply linked to those who are more personal blogs so as not to bother them too much. The best advice (imo) for finding envsci people on this hellsite is to hover around the solarpunk/tolkien/hozier/gardening/trc/justice tags and reblog-hop until you find somebody cool.

Feel free to add recs or nominate your own blog if you fall into any kind of botany, environmental science, zoology, conservation gig! Love to extend the circle!

[captious-solarian]

This is so cool

(Guy who has only ever seen protists voice:) Getting a lot of protist vibes from this. You get wildly different strategies, from basically-plants to parasitic to predatory to changing by life stage.

SpecBio concept #4: Plantworld

A planet resembling Earth in its late Archean state (higher temperature, no free oxygen, dense atmosphere, extensive salty oceans, thick coat of carbon dioxide), perhaps more tectonically stable, extensively seeded with Earth plants and bacteria. Not a single animal or fungal species is brought.

The first green settlers struggle to get a hold on the barren continents, in absence of fungi to erode bare rock and worms to aerate the ground. But some ground is more hospital than other, the first layer of debris provides soil for the survivors, and eventually plant life starts to grow properly.

For many millions of years the plants thrive, thanks to the abundance of carbon and water, the higher temperatures, and the lack of oxygen to interfere with carbon fixation; but eventually oxygen starts piling in the atmosphere, gigatons of carbon are locked into wood and buried debris (to be released in pulses only when wildfires burn out uncontrollably), and the diminished greenhouse effects starts to cool down the planet sensibly. The forests start to shrink.

There’s an obvious niche to be exploited there. Parasite plants without chlorophyll exist on Earth right now, such as the very unfortunately named broomrape. They’ve always thrived on Plantworld in many lineages, with the bounty of hosts to exploit, but now they can do one better: they find out how to secrete acids and enzymes to break apart cellulose, much like fungi did on a forgotten planet, and start consuming the vast dead biomass.

The decomposer plants scatter their pollen and seeds to the wind (no animal disperser to exploit), gliding away on wing-blades like maple seeds, but why stop there? If they gather enough energy, they can manipulate osmotic pressure inside the seeds to move the blades, until they can flap them like wings. This consumes enormous amounts of sugar and oxygen: each plant can afford very few seeds. The strands of turgid cells become analogues of muscles, and soon Planetworld’s forests are abuzz with little flying seeds, flying as far as possible from the mother plant to avoid competing against their own kin.

Each incremental improvement to fitness suggests others. If you sharpen your chemical senses, you could detect the places were there is fewest competition… if you steal back some photosynthetic pigments from your prey (which are but light detectors, after all) you can repurpose them into crude eyes to look for better ground… if you can move your wing-flaps, you can move them on the ground to place yourself in a better germinating position.

Absorbing matter through roots is agonizingly slow for these increasingly energic parasites. It would be much quicker to take food in bulk. The flying seeds secrete powerful saliva-like enzymes to degrade the matter on which they germinate; they use their osmotic muscles to grind shell-plates against each other like tiny jaws; they develop internal specialized glands… And eventually they discard the roots at all, which have lost their use. Why bother growing into a plant form? You can just stay a flying seed all your life, and sprout your flowers directly there. Actually, now that you’re so nimble, you can just seek out your mates directly.

Half a billion year later, Plantworld has a rich biosphere full of animal life; swift-footed grazers and silent ambush predators, swarming minute plankton and giants feeding on them by the millions, industrious hive-builders and devious endoparasites; and perhaps some creature with inquisitive brains and dexterous hands who is in for a big surprise or two when they finally chart the history of life on their world.

SpecBio concept #3 (children falling from the “sky”) SpecBio concept #2 (liquid brain, chemical memory) SpecBio concept #1 (double silicate biosphere, one hot, one cold)

[nocontextwife]

"I think I chose the wrong day to form an opinion about pampas grasses"

[renderprism]

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Brendan 'Cygnus' James 📸🕷🦂🐞 (@cygnustech)

Posting to tumblr for the benefit of @botanyshitposts who I expect will be excited to see lichens carried around by caterpillars

[swagrum76]

Some more people you should follow

@necessary-disorder

@deconreconstruction

@minecraftendermanlover69

@endermanandtnt

@raventethered

@brambripreamble

@phoenixspace

@firema

@botanyshitposts

@loverofpiggies

@alexisboredddd

@zeeismeandihopeyouagree

@feydayarts

@kimquatz

@enderbonesart

@netherite-sword

@netherite-axe

@swagithard-blog-blog

@kookeon

@eughi

@eatsleepdraw

@wavveswavves

@fakewaves

@floralls

@glitchblock

@bxnwxghxrn-blog

[2ells2tees]

Inspired by @botanyshitposts , some lil guyz growing on sticks cut off my cherry tree last fall and left out. Lichen?!? Or something. Alive and cool.

[luflen]

@botanyshitposts

[scolop98]

Revisited some classic posts from @botanyshitposts the other day with a new appreciation for just how bizarre Vittaria appalachiana is.

[junderstruck]

@botanyshitposts

Lichen growing on only the black paint of a speed limit sign.

[altamaranempire]

I feel like I oughta be tagging @botanyshitposts to show off this albino/chlorophyll-less garlic that sprouted and then predictably died a few weeks back: I knew pretty quickly that it was paper white all the way through the sprout, but I potted it anyway just to see what would happen. Interestingly(maybe???) it died before completely depleting the actual garlic bulb, and instead left behind a lot of the mass to dry out over time. I guess maybe there was more wrong with it than a lack of chlorophyll... Maybe something that made breaking down the stored energy in the bulb harder? We’ll never know! ANYWAY tldr: Got a fully white plant (a fatal condition for just about anything plant-like) start growing and wanted to document it. Its parent/s were just commercial garlic like you would buy in a supermarket and it grew from bulb division.

[madseance]

[agatharights]

We went out hiking today at the Devil's Punchbowl in Wisconsin and because of all the ground springs, the whole place was covered with an embarrassment of skunk cabbages! A glut of them! Riches of skunk cabbages! Naturally I spent way too much time up to my ankles in mud getting pictures but it was worth it.

Also I feel like @botanyshitposts can appreciate just the *carpets* of skunk cabbage that were covering this place. All those bright green growths are skunk cabbages, and this went on for maybe two miles of hillside over a creek! 

[chaotic-neutral-knitter]

For a second I thought @botanyshitposts had moved to FB.