#silversword plant

[geckomeleon]

Tova a Fire Flower. The spines that line her body are incredibly rigid and when she flexes the ones on her tail expand to make her more intimidating and dangerous. Tova spends alot of time traveling across the canyons breaking up any fights she deems to rough and does her best to protect those in need.

[lizardsaredinosaurs]

The most stunning example of evolution you could find — until the sheep! The sheeeeeppp!!

Ahinahina (Argyroxiphium sandwicense subsp. sandwicense) AKA Mauna Kea silversword

Mauna Kea volcano on Hawai’i island

Status: Critically Endangered

Threats: feral sheep and other introduced ungulates

[charring58]

Argyroxiphium sandwicense subsp. sandwicense, the #MaunaKea #silversword,[1] is a highly endangered flowering plant endemic to the island of Hawaiʻi (Big Island)

[mimble-sparklepudding]

14 Associations (Humble).

🐱 Animal: Bears, Oxen and (baby) Koalas.

💜 Colors: Black, Bronze and Red.

🎶 Song: Khazad-dûm from LotR or Humble by Angelou (personally I think more battle-hardened barbarian characters should be inspired by 90s Lesbian Folk Songs).

8️⃣ Number: 10 (Humble likes the number 10, as it's easy to add up and use as a scoring system).

🌑 Day or Night: Day (when he was growing up the night was considered a dangerous time for his clan, when people huddled indoors and slept).

🌺 Plants: Passion Flowers, Mountain Orchids, Silverswords.

🪔 Scents: Leather, Woodsmoke, Black Pepper.

💎 Gemstones: Amber, Obsidian, Tigers Eye.

🍂 Season: Autumn (a time of plentiful food and game in the mountains and when the leaves turn fiery red).

🌄Places: Rak'tika Greatwood, Sohm Al, Hell's Lid.

🥘 Foods: Roasted Meat, Cheese, Honey.

✨ Eorzean Deity: Azeyma, the Warden.

💧 Eorzean Elements: Earth and Fire.

🍹 Drink: Yak Milk, Ale.

Tagged by the marvellous @starrysnowdrop and the fabulous @reikatsukihana.

Tagging @bnuuywol @sasslett @cadrenebula @draculas-husband @houserosaire @kskellington @loldragoon-ffxiv @arcane-circles @miqomonkly @arinaxiv and anyone else who likes to try it.

[atiny-piratequeen]

The ahinahina (Hawaiian Silversword) is one of the rarest plants in the world, found on only two mountains in the islands (Haleakala on Maui and Mauna Kea on Hawaiʻi island). They flower only once in their life and can live up to 90 years.

Another endangered plant is the Koʻoloaʻula that typically come in red but can sometimes come out in yellow or even more: blonde

And one more is ʻolena, also just called Hawaiian turmeric. Apparently turmeric is very good for you so yeah 😊

!!! Oh the ko'oloa'ula is so pretty holy fuck

[waltwhitmansbeard]

Volcanic lowlands are disgusting with greenery. The material belched out hundreds years hence nourish plants like nothing else. Eager rivers curl down the haunches of the sleeping behemoth like sweat or tears, and with the mountain's bounty the village thrived.

It's a nice place to live, when it's not dark with glass-sharp ash.

Send me an ask with the first sentence of a fanfic and I’ll write the next five.

Volcanic lowlands are disgusting with greenery. The material belched out hundreds years hence nourish plants like nothing else. Eager rivers curl down the haunches of the sleeping behemoth like sweat or tears, and with the mountain's bounty the village thrived.

It's a nice place to live, when it's not dark with glass sharp ash. Keyleth picks her way carefully through, stopping to kneel among the silverswords and mountain orchids to pulse a little extra magic into their petals. They're just flowers—they won't feed anyone, can't be turned into shelter or furniture—but on the list of things Pyrah is in desperate need of, joy is not far down on the list. They're tenacious, these blooms, peeking up through the volcanic soil, determined to find the sun even amidst the swirling ash and smoke in the air. Their will to live, their determination to be beautiful in the face of such woe, it settles over Keyleth like a blanket, like a hug from her father.

Life needs things to live, a wise man once said, and life can do a hell of a lot worse than flowers.

[czi-mor]

you joke but in biology "alliance" is an informal way to describe a collection of species or genera that you want to group outside of strictly taxonomic terms

I learned this in a community ecology class when my professor dropped the term "silversword alliance" with no warning and I got blasted out of the classroom and into a fantasy world where a chivalric order of highly-specialized plant knights roam the countryside

turkey-grouse alliance

[indoorverticalfarmingnews]

Study Reveals New Insights for Habitat Restoration in a Changing Climate

Key Takeaways: Experimental Approach to Habitat Suitability: A novel method using experimental introductions provides more accurate habitat suitability estimates. Study on Haleakalā Silversword: Focused on this native Hawaiian plant, the study reveals varied survival rates across different climatic conditions. Contrast with Standard Models: Empirical results challenge common assumptions in…

[matthew-hunt]

Mauna Kea silversword This endangered plant is protected in an enclosure next to the Mauna Kea Visitor Information Center at Hale Pohaku. It is really strikingly silver in person.

[drrockclub]

When geology stops, life takes over...

Haleakala Silversword growing inside the barren Haleakala volcano crater.

Argyroxiphium sandwicense subsp. macrocephalum

[fresherbrine]

Haleakalā silversword, Maui, Hawaii

[ecowitchy]

[earthstory]

Haleakala Crater Massive and majestic, the world’s largest dormant volcano towers above the Hawaiian Island of Maui. So immense is the Haleakala Crater on the Hawaiian island of Maui that the American writer Mark Twain wrote: “If it had a level bottom it would make a fine site for a city like London.” The crater of Vesuvius, he said, was a ‘modest pit’ by comparison (http://bit.ly/1IT554R).

Haleakala’s vast bowl is 21 miles (34km) round and more than ½ mile (800m) deep, large enough, in fact, to accommodate the New York island of Manhattan. Within lies a stark landscape of tumbled rocks, multi-coloured cinder cones and bizarre lava formations resembling grotesque statues. But on a mountain 10,023ft (3055m) high, the crater is often cloaked in cloud. Mark Twain, after watching from the rim as the sun rose over the cloud-filled crater, wrote: “I feel like the Last Man… left pinnacled in mid-heaven, a forgotten relic of a vanished world.” (http://bit.ly/1L7FVzG). It was, he said, the most sublime spectacle that he had ever witnessed. Today, visitors can join organised trips to view the Haleakala sunrise, when the pink and purple shadows and filmy clouds are slowly suffused with bars of burning yellow and gold. The name Haleakala means ‘House of the Sun’. According to Hawaiian legend, the demi-god Maui crept to the summit before sunrise and roped the rays of the sun one by one as they appeared over the rim. The volcano’s huge, barren crater is not entirely the result of volcanic action. It has been carved out over thousands of years by erosion wind, rain and down-cutting streams such as Kaupo and Keanae have all played a part. But the multi-coloured cinder cones, such as Pu’u o Maui (Hill of Maui), almost 1000ft (300m) high, result from volcanic action 800-1000 years ago, long after Haleakala had pushed its peak high above the sea. Sulphur and iron spewed out with the burning lava account for their predominant yellow and red streaks. The cones include Bottomless Pit and Pele’s Paint Pot - named after the goddess Pele - said to have created the volcanoes. Strewn across the crater floor are volcanic ‘bombs’, which range from fist-sized to car-sized. They are fragments of molten lava that cooled before striking ground. There is some greenery amid the ash and cinders within the crater - bracken fields carpet parts of the southern slopes. But the most remarkable plants are the gleaming grey silverswords. Their succulent leaves are covered with a mat of fibreglass-like hairs that act as mirrors to reflect the scorching sun, and they grow in a spikey rosette that protects the plant’s roots from the sun by day and from freezing by night. ~ JM Image Credit: Haleakala Crater at sunrise. (Photograph by Jeremie Schatz, My Shot). Sourced from http://bit.ly/1Mo43wK More Info: Roughing It by Mark Twain: http://bit.ly/1L7FVzG Haleakala National Park: https://www.nps.gov/hale/index.htm East Maui volcano (Haleakala): http://on.doi.gov/1HmZn6S

[nebulations]

[ID copied from alt:

A basic character sheet of Antoine H. DeSilva or "Toni". On the left is her attire at her gun shop and on the right is her attire at the saloon as a waitress. While her face, hair, and body don't change she's noticeably acting different.

Left attire close up: A lightly tanned brunette in a deep teal button up shirt that is way too big for her petite body and equally big khaki cargo pants with a dark brown leather tool belt wrapped around her waist. She has black cowboy boots with white embroidery that look like simplified silversword plants on both sides and has noted steel toe tips. She's adjusting her lost tech modified shooting glasses in one of her thick gloved hands. Clearly someone broke something and she's not happy about it ("Eh how can I-?... BRAH. AGAIN?")

Right attire close up: the same brunette except she's dashing off in a solid mint green holoku dress with frills on the end. She has dark brown socks, khaki ankle high lace up boots with heels, a simple white apron around her waist, and a woven light brown straw hat wrapped in a fuzzy band of blue Tomas feathers (a long and short feather stick out from the side). She salutes her regular square glasses with one hand and Carrie's a tray with a steaming bowl in the other as she gives the viewer a wink and a smile ("Aww! Sure thing! Comin' right up!")

The last bullet of info on Antoine has a doodle of Vash crying to Wolfwood about how the two ladies are the same person to no avail. "How?!", he cries, "They look exactly the same!". "WTF", says Nic, "No they don't!" End ID]

*yippee Kay Yays Onto your TL*

Introducing the Best Gunsmith, Repairwoman, and Nighttime Waitress on No Man’s Land!

- Self proclaimed prodigée of Best Gunsmith on NML!'

- Technically more of a Gun Repair (Wo)Man but meh!

- Runs Gun shop byday, serves @ saloon by night!

- Got her Tutu's "Silva -tongue" and will chew you out the Gun shop

- Everyone thinks her “waitress” work mode and her "Gun shop" mode are 2 different people entirely. Everyone.

(Except a certain Humanoid Typhoon…)

More info below the cut if you're curious!!

To the people who live in the town closest to her grandma's rusty old shack, she is the brightest smile in the dead of night. Darting around liquored stained tables at the poorly staffed saloon, she's the town's charming canary if you got a spare coin or two to drop in the jar near her perch.

But to the people who worship the horrors of No Man's Land with steel and gunpowder, she is the Best Gunsmith on this wretched planet. Sure her tiny establishment is a pain in the ass to find in the desert (she hasn't moved it since it was built but people love to theorize that it moves around on a WAM or somethin') but it's out there alright. Apparently if you're good enough to fix up, mod, and customize just about any kind of firearm that walks through your door you start causing some commotions deep underground. The kind of rumbling you only hear legends about:

"A small woman with a sharp tongue and sharper eyes who will only accept payment in the form of favors that must be repaid, 'less the fool who can't keep their end of the bargain meet their end."

To be fair, it's not like she causes those types of people grief on purpose. Everyone's got junk luck on No Man's Land, so you can't blame them for dyin' on her before they can do anything. But shit does it feel so cool to have such an infamous reputation. After all, that's her grandma's name she's gotta upkeep, and she can't afford to let her beloved Tutu's prestige go down in the quicksand. Can’t even bring herself to sully it with her own hands she keeps covered so religiously…

Perhaps that's why her smile shines so bright at night when she perches on her tiny little box to play yet another wonderful tune for her tiny little audience.

After all, doesn't silver shine brighter than gold in these parts?

[anonsally]

Day 2 of Maui vacation

I meant to post more [at all] about how the vacation is going. However, traveling with Wife is a very busy and active affair without much downtime for that. But I’ll try to post belatedly. So, here’s what happened on Day 2:

Birdwatching tour!

(below the cut, more detail than anyone besides @lies​ wants about the birds we saw and also what happened with the broken fridge in the condo)

There are only about 50 species one is likely to see on Maui, and we saw 29 of them, including some forest birds which I had particularly hoped to see.

Our guide picked us up around 7:30am. It turned out it was just us and the guide, even though we hadn’t paid for a private tour. Apparently everyone else who wanted to birdwatch last week had wanted to go on Tuesday, so we lucked out. 

We started at Kealia Pond National Wildlife Refuge, which used to be a fish farm. We saw 15 bird species there, including a huge number of Hawaiian black-necked stilts, lots of Hawaiian coots, some hybrids of mallards with Hawaiian ducks, both of the doves we’d been seeing around town (spotted and zebra),  a couple of wandering tattlers, a family of black-crowned night-herons, and a Java sparrow which was adorable and looked a little like a tiny puffin. On our way out we passed a gray francolin, which was introduced here for hunting.

On our drive up to Haleakala National Park, we saw lots of common mynas (they’re everywhere in Hawaii), as well as a Pacific golden-plover and 2 Eurasian skylarks, a pair of ring-necked pheasants, and a few chukars. I hadn’t realised how many kinds of game birds had been introduced here for hunting!

We went up to the summit (about 10,000ft (3055m)), but it was completely clouded in, so we couldn’t see the views of the crater or the ocean. But we did see some fascinating lava rocks and interesting plants (silversword), and the observatory buildings.

Then we drove down to about 7000ft and had lunch (luckily there was a shelter with a picnic table under it, as it was still a bit drizzly there) before walking a short foresty trail with a few points overlooking a gulch. Two nenes (the Hawaiian goose) flew past while we were eating. On the walk we heard, but didn’t see, a Chinese Hwamei and a Maui Alauahio (though we may have had a glimpse of the latter), and we saw a bunch of `apapanes and even more `i`iwis as well as the Hawaii amakihi (Maui subspecies). The `i`iwis kept chasing the `apapanes away--both are fairly spectacular red birds (endemic to Hawaii) that like to feed on red flowers. I was particularly excited to see the `i`iwi since it is on the cover of my Hawaii bird book!

The drive down the mountain was treacherous at first, but atmospheric--we were literally inside a cloud with very poor visibility! The final site was a golf course. We birdwatched from the van, driving slowly along the road and stopping whenever we saw anything interesting. The most exciting birds there were the Java sparrows (so many tiny puffins!), scaly-breasted munias, chestnut munias, and red-crested cardinals. We also saw a mongoose, which is worrying--they eat the nene eggs and chicks. Then the guide dropped us off at about 4pm. A long day!

Since then (just to include most of the birdwatching content in one post), I’ve also seen rosy-faced lovebirds (released/escaped pet parrots) and warbling white-eyes from the balcony of the condo we were staying in.

Disappointingly, the broken refrigerator in the condo didn’t get replaced because the old one couldn’t be removed due to being blocked in by the newish washer and dryer. The owners gave us a partial refund (less than 10%) in compensation but it was a real shame because the kitchen was otherwise very nice and we would’ve liked to cook our own meals some of the time. That night we ate out at a nice restaurant instead.

[brave-heart-academy]

Silversword Dorm + Logo

Silversword is one of the nine dorms of Brave Heart Academy.  It is founded based on an individual's patience and tolerance. Students from this dorm excel on Magic Analysis and Magic Potions. Their fighting style is Tai Chi.

Students have a magical tool that resembles a shovel which they can use to create different terrains. They are located on the shores near the island and school. The dorm is lead by Zaman Clockwork, a student from 2-B.

The name of this dorm is derived from the very plant itself which blooms only once in its lifetime. In relation to naming this dorm, while there are other plants or trees that can bloom longer, that was because the one who named the dorm saw this particular plant first in Google (You know who you are nya XD) XD Also, it fits the saying “It was worth the wait.”.