Carrizo Canyon
Category: Nature
Blue-winged Teal
Grasshopper
Wild Donkey with Colt
Custer State Park, SD
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Yellow-rumped Warbler
A Botany Blog for Plant Nerds
Are you a plant nerd? Not just a gardener, no matter how passionate, but interested in the plants that aren’t found in a garden? Are you excited about botany? Then, I have a website for you:
In Defense of Plants
Abert & Abert
Abert’s Squirrel
Abert’s Towhee
Many plants and animals have either common or scientific names that honor people, often the person who discovered the species, or someone famous. For example, ‘Prince Charles’ and ‘Princess of Wales’ are both rose cultivars. Ornithologist Alexander Wilson named Lewis’s Woodpecker (Melanerpes lewis) after Meriwether Lewis, who discovered the species, and Clark’s Nutcrackers were named after his fellow explorer, William Clark. I find it interesting to learn a bit about the person behind various names, especially of species that I’ve seen and photographed. (more…)
Social Distanced Birding
The medical experts are telling us to keep our social distance. No hugs. No handshakes. No large gatherings. Events are cancelled. In many places, schools, churches, and other large venues are closed. We’re stuck at home staring at the TV—or are we? We may need to keep our distance from other people, but that doesn’t mean we can’t go out. We just have to choose places where we’re not in a crowd. (more…)
Megafauna & Obsolete Fruit
Osage Orange (Maclura pomifera)
Osage Orange (Maclura pomifera)
I try hard to create original material for my blog. After all, you can go read someone else’s writing somewhere else! But when I read this article, I knew I had to share it with you. It was that good.
We tend to think of geologic time on a huge scale, and the ice ages happened an incredibly long time ago. We forget how short our human history really is. This article made me look at the world with new eyes. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
