gravity’s rainbow

Welcome to the 9th edition of Berry Go Round, your favorite botanical carnival!  This is my very first carnival hosting experience, so I hope you like it!

I’m taking a plant morphology class this semester, and my professor has me a bit wary about the looming section on ferns with statements like “if you think this is complicated, just wait until we get to ferns.”  Christopher Taylor over at Catalogue of Organisms has a great post up on the details of a fern life cycle that I will certainly be referring back to!  Did you know that the “normal” fern plant with two sets of chromosomes develops from a totally different looking fern plant with just one set of chromosomes?  Luckily, the panic induced by trying to figure such crazy things out is greatly reduced by actually looking at ferns.  Emily has many incredible pictures of ferns at her blog, No seeds, no fruits, no flowers: no problem, like this lovely fertile frond of Blechnum spicant.

Blechnum spicant

Mary has another very informative post up, this time about the Verbena Family.  Since I have a special place in my heart for plants with angular stems, I particularly enjoyed this post.  Who needs a plant taxonomy class when you can just read A Neotropical Savanna?

At botanizing, we are treated to a beautiful post that may cause you to take a closer look at inconspicuous orchids.

Botany Photo of the Day recently profiled the somewhat mysterious Jovellana punctata, which I promptly fell in love with (don’t worry, there’s no bad poetry hiding behind that link).

Jovellana punctata

Matt Mattus at Growing with Plants shares several gorgeous fall blooming plants and his enviable tomato harvest.  If you aren’t jealous, don’t tell me.  I don’t want to hear about how easy it is to grow tomatoes when you don’t live in the desert.

Allium callimischon ssp. haemostictum

Seeds Aside regales us with the history of tomatillos, which he refers to as miltomate.  In northern Arizona, we’ve already had a few close calls with frost this year.  I’m hoping the tomatillos from our garden fill out before the first hard freeze.  I’m pretty jealous of the bounty from verdure’s garden.

And speaking of gardens, GrrlScientist and the very respectable Professor Steve present their recent trip to Darwin’s garden.  There are some absolutely gorgeous flower photos, so make sure you go check it out.

Thanks to everyone who submitted to this edition!  I’m not sure where the next Berry Go Round will be hosted, so while I do some sleuthing, go check out last month’s edition over at Not Exactly Rocket Science and don’t forget to submit entries for October’s Berry Go Round, which will be hosted at Catalogue of Organisms.

Share/Save

I’m hosting the next Berry Go Round at the end of the month.  You can submit posts to me at enchantressofnumbers (at) gmail (dot) com.  And if you haven’t already, check out the August Berry Go Round over at Not Exactly Rocket Science.

Share/Save

Biology in Science Fiction’s post on A Field Guide to Surreal Botany was featured in this month’s Berry Go Round.  I am now desperate to read it:

an anthology of fictional plant species that exist beyond the realm of the real. … Fully illustrated in gorgeous full-color by Janet Chui, the specimen entries are by turns witty, hilarious, and very strange.

Also, I’ll be hosting the next Berry Go Round on September 28th.  I can’t wait to see what interesting things get submitted!

Share/Save

I’m too busy to write anything substantial, so I’m just linking to another carnival today.  Festival of the Trees is longer than the latest Berry Go Round, but obviously not as good since it doesn’t include me!  FotT links to the 12 most magnificent trees in the world.  That made me think of the sycamore that I used to love to climb when I was growing up.  Maybe it doesn’t qualify as magnificent, but it was certainly well loved.

Share/Save

The 6th edition of Berry Go Round is being hosted this month at Seeds Aside.  Check out these fantastic orchids featured in the carnival.

Share/Save

There’s a new edition of Festival of the Trees up at Wrenaissance Reflections.  Go read it!

The best bits:

• Cutting down forests might kill you at Via Negativa.
• Getting rid of mangroves did kill people in Burma at Living the Scientific Life.
• Beautiful pictures of new leaves at Seeded Earth.

Share/Save

The 5th edition of Berry Go Round is being hosted at A Neotropical Savanna this month.  A Neotropical Savanna is one of my favorite blogs, so you should definitely go check it out.  But if you’re too lazy, I’ve got the best bits right here:

• Mutant!
• I love questions about why a particular morphology exists.  Seeds Aside answers one I asked a professor last year: Why do leaves in the tropics often have such long, skinny tips?
• One of my favorite trees

Share/Save

The 23rd edition of Festival of the Trees is up at 10,000 Birds. Of course, you also think trees are almost the best part of the world we live in and will go read every entry. Just in case you don’t, though, the best bits are right here:

From the intro this post on magnolias got, I was expecting much larger trees!  This author has obviously never visited the southern US.

The world’s oldest known tree - a spruce almost 10,000 years old.

Good tree planting advice:

1. Plant trees where trees belong.

2. Plant trees that belong where you’re planting them.

Morphology of baby leaves.

Tree roots are bizarre.

Share/Save

The 4th edition of Berry Go Round is up at Foothills Fancies.  If you don’t have time to go read all the awesome entries, highlights are below:

• Biodiversity and health issues at Seeds Aside.

• New seed fern fossils found where we didn’t expect them (in time) at the Ethical Palaeontologist.

• I’m very jealous that Fred has redbuds and I don’t.  They make me terribly homesick.  Spring in Flagstaff is not a very pretty season.  It’s chilly and dry and dusty and incredibly windy.

Share/Save

The second edition of Berry Go Round is up at Further Thoughts. I’m not in it this time, but it’s still fantastic. So go get your plant lovin’ on!

My two favorites are this post with incredible pictures of fiddleheads and this detective story about the sandpaper plant.

Share/Save