Denizens of the Marl,

My main focus was to introduce an early blooming species that I don’t know if I talked about ever. I usually miss my window to see this plant and for some reason I’ve never gotten close enough to photograph it properly, you can kinda see a gleam of light on the glandular hairs but not well enough to show structure.

Triantha glutinosa, blooms in early June in Ohio but can last till late June and in other states occurs in bogs in warm water conditions and blooms much later which is strange to me. I think this must be an adaptive phenotypical thing but you would expect it to be opposite and light blooming also seems to not be the culprit so I don’t know.  False Asphodel is another common name but I honestly prefer calling it sticky or glutinous false ashpodel. As a plant living in these nutrient poor super leached marl flats this plant is a carnivor, protease excretor glandular hair trap specifically, but strangely only on it’s flowering stem and not on it’s minute basal rosette. Opposite of most species that are carnivores most species try to keep traps as far from the flowers as possible which makes sense evolutionary. Glandular traps near an inflorescence seems strange for successful pollination. As it turns out this may be a seldomly pollinated species where most individuals in populations are ancient clones that have formed from rhizome spread overtime in these glacial refugium. The other thing that seems notable is many people studying these false ashpodels (Triantha spp.) run into the same morphology and phenology problems that I have, and have even come to contempt and discourse over specific populations and are evaluating them as part of a biological species complex. I agree on the T. occidentalis western split on all accounts but some of the minor disjunct probable splits seem more complex overall (Central Appalachian mountain populations (TN, VA, SC, GA)

I feel like I can’t stress the importance of this limestone marl and the unique opportunity of getting this close to these plants without any special camera. Though I do wish I had one to display the features properly. Most of the time if you are traversing a fen you have to find and identify petrified marl shelfs or surface travertines, or you are walking on old and ancient tussock clumps from what is usually Carex stricta. Im walking on a displaced gravel shelf with petrified marl and wouldn’t dare to walk off of it and disturb the easily motile banks of loose marl or the suspended marl sediment floating like quick sand. The plants here are fragile and the habitat is equally fragile with many state listed species that cant take damage. Everywhere in the high exposure areas of marl flats are these Drosera rotundifolia and the smooth rounded/heartshaped leaves of grass of parnassas, which is in bloom as I type. Parnassia glauca is so beautiful with it’s unique floral venation and Ill post more pics once again when I get to it. The farther you get from the flats the less exposure and with it comes the sedge meadow with Arnoglossum plantagineum, also known as fen plantain leaved indian plantain. The last few shots are associated with the fully scabrid moderate sized var. ,not species, Silphium terebinthinaceum var. pinnatifidum, which we only see in fens in Ohio and the Ice scoured dwarf willow, Salix myricoides, in all of it’s new leaf glory. Still not looking blue with white pubescent undersides just yet.

Personal note:

Its been really weird doing this lagged posting because these are not matched to the time I was there. Right now, I feel like I should be posting about white bottle gentian, prairie gentian ,fringed gentian or ,andrews bottle gentian and here I am mid June posts. Heck it’s also Spiranthes spp. season and paw paw shaking season rn, most people are smelling sulfur shelves and foraging chicken of the woods(same thing). Trying to catch up and doing documentation and having a place to post personal thoughts on this stuff.

Let It Be Spring!!

New artworks from 2024.

Dm for availability.

Juniper against the wind, Sardinia by u/ZannaSmanna

I thought the earth remembered me, she took me back so tenderly, arranging her dark skirts, her pockets full of lichens and seeds. I slept as never before, a stone on the riverbed, nothing between me and the white fire of the stars but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths among the branches of the perfect trees. All night I heard the small kingdoms breathing around me, the insects, and the birds who do their work in the darkness. All night I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling with a luminous doom. By morning I had vanished at least a dozen times into something better.

(mary oliver, sleeping in the forest)

In love with my little patreon tier illustrations, i want to draw more teeny plants like this!

Hello, this is my first post on Tumblr

Her name is Bnee and she is a Botanist, Explorer/Ex-Mercernary for hire, she likes bunnies, although it isn't clear if she is a bunny girl herself or not, LOl

HORTICULTURE‼️‼️

ig - afternoondreams

Pollen dust Fairy

One down, one to go! Embroidery and adhd dont get along just this shoe took me months because i kept forgetting the project existed and then picking it back up. Im really happy with how it came out though, the plants are some of my favorites: ostrich fern, forget me nots, and hemlock.

Im still working on the design for the second shoe, but I know it will have water hyacinth and nasturtiums.

Just The Flax, Ma'am

Watercolor on Black Cotton Paper

2022, 25"x 33"

Blue Flax Flowers

Private Collection

Campfire conversations with Jake and Claudette 🌼

I thought the earth remembered me, 

she took me back so tenderly. 

Tulipa (tulips)

Tulips were first introduced to European gardens in 1554, a gift from the court of Suleyman the Magnificent in Constantinople. Originally a small mountain flower, the Persians had already produced tulips with bigger blooms in many colors but European (especially Dutch) gardeners started to work on developing new varieties immediately.

This led to the famous episode of Tulipmania from 1634 to 1637; a speculative frenzy centered in the Netherlands. In one month a single bulb of the red and white striped tulip 'Gheel ende Root van Leyden' went from 46 to 515 guilders and some lucky florist made a lot of money.

It all came to a crashing halt on February 2, 1637 when a florist in Haarlem auctioned a quantity of Swisters bulbs (a yellow tulip feathered with red) for an opening bid of 1,250 guilders. Finding no takers, he lowered the price to 1100, then to 1000... and all at once everyone in the room knew that the tulip bubble had burst. Within days tulip bulbs were unsellable at any price. While on the subject, does anyone remember the cryptocurrency boom?