The latest edition of Berry Go Round is up at The Phytophactor.  I’m more than a little late with this announcement, but I promise it’s not because I’m bitter about missing the deadline with my Archeopteris post.  That would just be petty and, despite what my sister may tell you, I really don’t hold a grudge like that.

There are a great many very cool posts (and blogs) featured in the carnival.  I was especially pleased to find the blog of ArtPlantae Today.

Botanical illustration is quite difficult. My drawings of mosses in my plant morphology course just weren’t this good.  In fact, I can barely recognize what I was trying to draw when I page back through my old notebooks.

I am refining my skills a bit this semester in my plant taxonomy course. I still find it easier to copy a line drawing than to draw from live plant material, so I spent most of last weekend looking up drawings of grasses and painstakingly reproducing them.  Drawing plants in such detail forces me to really think about the different structures and to appreciate their complexity.

I find that I really enjoy the process.  It is very different from the kinds of work I normally do.  Most of the time it’s both entertaining and soothing, whereas the work I normally do usually puts me somewhere close to elation or pulling my hair out without much inbetween.