pinned post: FAQ

welcome to BSP! i’m quill, i love plant science, we are all here to have a good time.

BEFORE SENDING AN ASK:

-i do not do plant identifications. this is because plant ID down to the species can be pretty tricky and takes time, and its best to have the plant in front of you while you do it, not to mention that i’m only well-versed in iowa plants (my home state). if you’re in the USA, it’s likely your local/state DNR or USDA office will have a key to local plants up on their website. i’m in the process of compiling a resource list for plant ID state-by-state in the US and US territories, I’ll get that up as soon as i can

-plant care stuff is similar, mostly because even though i know a lot about plants on a scientific level, im TERRIBLE at taking care of actual plants. i’m actually best versed in commercial greenhouse care and diseases/plant pathology on a wider scale. at some point i’ll try to get a basic resource list for better plant care stuff up, too

-i don’t check my dms unless you send me an ask specifically pointing it out; i do, however, read every ask i get, although i get enough that i can’t respond to all of them!!

-because i started this blog in high school, some of the older posts on here can be inaccurate or poorly worded; typically my newer posts are better sourced and executed and stuff imo.

THE BEST POSTS ON THIS BLOG (under construction as i remember more i really like):

- “Can u tell me about moss“ (moss crash course post)

- ”what's the dumbest piece of plant anatomy. where do you look at a plant and you're like "why did evolution do this instead of literally anything else"” and (similar topic) ”so when i see museum paleobotany illustration like especially pre-cenozoic most of the plants look intuitively 'simpler' to me; more cartoonish than modern plants, even modulo the overall realism of the illustration. i vaguely assumed this was because they were based on degraded fossil evidence, but lately i was thinking it's not inconceivable that morphology actually tended simpler in the past. any insight?”

- ”Whats a lichen if not a plant“ and (similar topic) “What exactly IS a lichen?? Pls im just an artist who only knows that plants are pretty” (closest current post to a lichen crash course)

- ”A little while ago you made a remark about ferns along the lines of "God really left you unfinished huh?". Can you please elaborate on that?”

- ”OH! about double fertilisation: bls explain the polar nucleii”

ok i doubt this is the true shape of the creature in question-- the fan shape looks like fasciation, which is an abnormality that can happen when a growing tip of a plant gets damaged or infected in a certain way-- but the absolute SHAPE this has taken as a result, like..... my god..... shapes that inflict tree europhoria upon ye for sure

Would you like a lichen?

————————-

TELOSCISTIES SPOTTED

when new model army said ‘well we know what makes the flowers grow but we don’t know why’. me kin id this entire blog etc

fellas. ive been really aching for academia lately. i miss it so much

well-manicured blooming suburban gardens hit different through the smog it seems

saw someone in the last post link lichen pics for those who dont have lichens in their area and although that is a cool sentiment...that's the thing about lichens!

lichens cover an estimated 7% of the surface area of the earth. they will exploit anything that's been sitting still outside enough to become a predictable habitat (we're usually talking years or decades, although there are lichens out there that grow by the month, too). you could be living on a barge in the middle of the ocean and as long as the ship is more than a few years old you could find lichens.

in the arctic, in low-oxygen habitats on the tops of mountains, in the desert, in a city or in the country, on plastic or rock or metal or bone or on the right kind of miscellaneous household goods left out in the elements over the course of years, its one of the only kinds of non-animal creatures on earth where its not a matter of if you will find lichens near you, its a matter of noticing the ones you already pass every day just by like, going outside, and becoming acquainted with the species that live in your area and what they look like. from a science communication standpoint its incredible to be able to make that statement in confidence actually. i also think it's good practice in biology, because looking for them by definition means looking closely at stuff thats overlooked because it's been there forever and therefore kind of fades into the background of what we're conscious of.

10/10 would recommend looking for lichens near you if you havent already. my first stop if youre starting to learn how to look would be a cemetery; to lichens, a graveyard is just a largely undisturbed area with a bunch of big rocks and trees that have been there for a long time. the older the headstones the better, provided nobody's come and scraped them off.

ok. things have been bad lately. but at least lichens and mosses exist and i can view them at any time you know

ahh no, i was mistaken! wrote those tags and then second guessed myself. lemon and lime trees don't need a second tree to bear fruit, they can self-pollinate! i fixed the tags.

theres a part in my fern textbook where it talks about fern 'spore banks' in the soil where fern spores land on the ground and instead of germinating get buried and can stay viable for several years and sometimes i think about it bc although they didnt elaborate on why this might be useful, if i was a fern-- a little guy who's survival strategy is notoriously to be the first to colonize any disturbed new places so i dont have to bother with any competition-- this would be a pretty sick deal.

like this is unconfirmed fern lore but like, if im a spore sittin several inches to feet underground and something happens thats bad enough to rip up the soil and expose me to sunlight and water again, its probably also bad enough to rip up all my competition and let me do whatever i want on a clean slate with all the nutrients i could wish for in the ruins of the ecosystem i was buried under. like, via a terrible natural disaster or landslide or something. and im already adapted to the environment because i came from a fern that was there the last time the land was ripped up and recolonized with ferns. rip to the other plants but im different lmaooo

mosses growing in the cracks in heavily used pavement cars rolling over them 76 times a day nothing but respect for our troops

the first lesson of science is humility actually. like hubris is cool but only if you can take the L

plants be like oh the creatures around me do not want to carry my seeds elsewhere but they DO like little treats and helpful times…..if only