Peanut Leechy Gallery: Lianas

Lianas are so good for mandalas!

Simple horizon

And here’s another take:

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Simply wxrong rather than an easy get

I was just reading the following post on The Panda’s Thumb:  Challenge: research in the 1000 most common words. Basically, it is pointing to a list of the 1000 most common words in the English language and challenging you to write a simple statement of your research that is only using words from this list.

There’s this link that will check it for you when typing.

That’s really challenging. I lost at this game. This has a lot to do with the fact that I’m currently working in a discipline that cannot avoid a minimal jargon: phytopathology, the science of plant pests and plant illness. Any word related to pests (pathogens, fungi, microbes, viruses) are forbidden first. And it all begun with “plant” itself, which is not allowed (plants do not belong the 1000 commonest, does it make sense?). I’m afraid there’s no way I can express my research under such a challenging constraint. The best I came up with was this:

I study how small cell things are attacking bigger green things that need light and water to grow.

And frankly, this is just a way to weave in implicit meaning. That is, I’m utterly wrong. Anybody ignoring or not getting the implicit that green things that need light and water to grow means plant won’t have the slightest idea as to what I’m doing in my job. Not to say “small cell things” is any better -it is much worse indeed. It’s a very bad way to imply I’m working on fungi, the only idea I get somewhat right is that they are plant enemies.

I think I need to ponder about simpler ways to tell what I’m doing in my job…

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Fern poetry

Just played again with a random poetry generator. Made it for ferns. Made my moment.

First try is not bad:

Sporophytic Food

Horticulture bugs with actual fossile record.
Shall not a taxonomist radiate with Carboniferous phenotypes?
Direct sunlight is used as the ferns of plenty of families,
But the study of ferns ponders many taxa.

Growing garden!
Hark!
The fern radiation allows for the sister species’ spores.
Forget it!

or even this second one:

The Study Of Ferns’ Fossile Record

Direct sunlight has the fern radiation’s importance,
But It reduces the wind’s phenotype.
Wet conditions begins with actual garden.
Oh, no!

Classification disperses the food of Fern’s spores.
Alas!
The sister species is called growing period.
Ah, but a taxonomist ponders cheap taxa!

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Fern lapse for rainy saturday

Timelapse of fern sprouting. Saturday like.

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Peanut Leechy Gallery: leafloads

–Philodendron is all about leaves, paternity leaves and center froggy kids.

Mirroring leaves, backframe.

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BGR latest edition online!

You can find over there at Hort Log the very latest of the Berry Go Round Carnival.

It’s a themed Berry this Month, and it’s covering Ugly Smelly Plants. Of course, none of the critters are actually ugly. They’re all fascinating. Nor smelly except in the plant sense, which is good, because all plants smells for the best.

Maybe we should meme the theme options, and start series for berries. That’s certainly a good idea.

Meanwhile, I’m back again…

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Not possible

A few weeks ago, at the farmers market, my favourite stallholder asked me if I wanted some good yams*. She knew I would certainly be interested in, because she knew I was working on yams and I regularly buy her tubers (for food, not work). Well, I’m still learning ways to cook these, and it is certainly an amazing food, even if not as tasty as potatoes (sweet or not), depending on varieties.

Anyhow, I asked her what the variety’s name was. (Just curious, very curious). These were indeed quite small and amazingly regular tubers, with strange self peeling epiderms. Cute tubers.

“That, is Not Possible**” she said. I was disappointed: why didn’t she know the very stuff she was selling out? I bought them.

The thing is, you can’t possibly hear upper case letters in a discussion. The variety’s name was simply “Not Possible”, I just did not understand this.

Later on, speaking yams with colleagues during a meal, they enquired whether I already tasted “Not Possible” yams, and I realised that yes, I’ve eaten this before. It’s just that it’s Not Possible, the most implausible name of a plant variety…

And that’s it!

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* I mean true yams (Dioscorea sp), the crop ones (D. alata or D. rotundata/cayenensis that occur here). What’s often sold as yam in the USA are sweet potatoes, not yams.

** “Ca, c’est Pas Possible”.

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Plant Species otw: Asphodelus albus

Asphodelus albus

White asphodel. Probably subsp. occidentalis (given its location, Western France), but this needs confirmation.

Pyrophytic (if this would be a word of the week post): because of its bulb, the species is tolerant to fire.

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Peanut Leechy Gallery: out of the blue.

Fernsea, a German edition…

Out of the blue.

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Heterostyly

Enjoy this video worth a word of the week section. Go to vimeo to comment there and compliment the author too!

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