
A plant pundit comments on plants, the foibles and fun of academic life, and other things of interest.
Got the Moby Dick lego set?

Fall Field Work
After the summer lull field work begins again. Several students have projects that will require the team work approach to collecting data/plants/soil. A colleague wants to collect soil specimens from our long-term experimental plots, and that is always hard work. And we'll need to collect seed from some species for glasshouse experiments, and collecting data on an invasive species must be done for the depressing purpose of demonstrating the speed and extent of its spread. All these things must be done before 1. hunting season, and 2. a controlled fall burn. This makes for some fun because by now the prairie has reached it's full height, and even finding our plots can be tough, and then removing everything that could burn. Good thing one of the new students is tall; less chance of losing her. A few newbies will probably volunteer to give a hand with the field work just to see what field research entails and just to see the prairie. Regular nutritive rewards, particularly chocolate, keep things moving along. You know you just leave trails of little chocolate bars from plot to plot.
Something wrong with MLK memorial
Wildlife friendly yard and tomatoes
Our gardens provide food, cover, and water to quite an array of wildlife, unfortunately this year their primary food seems to be tomatoes. Let's see, so far the opponents have fielded a team consisting of young possums, a couple of raccoons, and a woodchuck. Apparently it takes quite a few tomatoes to keep these critters well fed, and all one asks is a BLT on a regular basis, one without teeth marks in the T. Now not to be too unfriendly, but what with small mammal populations running about 10 times higher in urban areas than in rural areas, my aim is to relocate a few individuals to even out the population. As a result of this experimental approach, the kitchen is now for the first time in a long time awash with tomatoes. The cucumbers have been quite wonderful, but the zucchini have been relatively speaking a no-show maybe for the 1st time in my long gardening history. Hard to know why; while growing they are producing mostly staminate flowers, perhaps a stress response to the hot, dry conditions. With the return of some cooler nights the capsicums are beginning to set fruit again although the variety has been fruitful during midsummer in the past. Rain is still needed, and it was probably too little water during my absence in July and early August that set the stage for poor fruiting now.
You still say tomato
Trees changed almost everything
A recent publication in geology (this link takes you to the SciAmer news, not the publication directly) reports that rivers changed significantly because of the evolution of trees. Although rivers vary significantly, they were broad and shallow with wandering courses prior to the evolution of trees where upon these larger plants with deeper roots which could hold more soil began restricting rivers to narrower, and therefore deeper, channels. So it comes as no great surprise that many flood prone areas are often the result of deforestation. Rivers are certainly not the Phactor's cup of tea, but trees are. It's hard to imagine Earth without its mantle of forests and soil, although it certainly isn't what it used to be. This story takes you back to the Devonian, a smallish geological period, just under 60 million years in duration beginning 416 million years ago. At the beginning of the Devonian one group of vascular plants existed and they ranged in size from about the length of your little finger to a full hand span, tip of the thumb to tip of the little finger, and they were the biggest plants on land! But by the end of the Devonian not only had plants diversified considerably, but the first aborescent plants appear, pseudosporochnalean cladoxylopsids. About 10 million years later the first true trees (Archaeopteris) appeared right at the end of the Devonian. The former grew like tree ferns while the latter had a branching crown, and you need more an more anchoring to keep bigger plants standing upright. The next geological period, the Carboniferous, the dominate land plants were aborescent forms of clubmosses, horsetails, and ferns, and these, along with the early seed plants, pteridosperms, formed the forests that changed the form of rivers.
Cover of the Rolling Stone
Only once before has the Phactor gotten the cover picture for a scientific journal where the cover illustration relates or is taken from one of the articles in that volume. But the 2nd cover picture is on its way according to the journal's editor by way of asking for some text describing the image. No question about it, you have to buy five copies for your mother, although these days it'll just be a pdf file. In the grand scheme of things, this counts for very little; it's just kind of fun. Still you have to have at least 5 cover photos before you can even be considered for the centerfold!
Friday Fabulous Flower - At the stage of seed dispersal
Friday Fabulous Flower - Someone else's very sexy Gesneriad
The biggest downside to having been identified early as a talented teacher was that it generated a career trajectory wherein universities offered me jobs and then sort of expected the Phactor to be on campus. Now this is nothing negative about teaching or its rewards, but my highly developed observational skills would have made me a great plant hunter. So there is a touch of envy when these museum/botanical garden colleagues show off some of their latest exotic finds. This one is truly a wonderful gesneriad. Wow! Sorry, uncertain what the species is. Perhaps a Columnea, but don't know this family well.
What people need to understand about evolution
Dear Paula (Kirby), Very well said, indeed. You understand the situation vis-a-vis evolution and religion very well. It is rare to find someone who grasps fully the problem evolution poses for many religions. That being said, a very great many people in the USA, and many other countries, perhaps even a majority, will stick their fingers in their ears and yell, "La, la, la, la,...." so as not to hear any of it. And the most sobering realization is that it really means we, as individuals and as societies, must be responsible for our actions and deeds. Once you get comfortable with reality it is preferable to mythology, but this does not condemn religious stories to the dust heap completely because like the moral stories of Aesop, they need not be factually true to teach lessons.
Ballistic seed dispersal

The mechanism for explosive seed dispersal in Cardamine hirsuta (Brassicaceae). 2011. K. C. Vaughn, A. J. Bowling, and K. J. Ruel. AJB 98: 1276-1285.
Seeing Trees Contest - Win a nice book & print
Go to this link (non-endorsement, no money changed hands) and register to win a pretty, and pretty cool book and print. Since the Phytophactor is no one's shill, no names or titles are used, but it sounds like regular readers would be interested. Do be aware of the catch.
A presidential candidate who believes in evolution!
The Phactor has been asked many times if he “believes in evolution?” My answer is always the same, “No, because it isn’t a matter of faith.” Evolution is true because of all the evidence, because of the way this explanation makes sense out of so many otherwise inexplicable observations, because it helps unite some many different aspects of biology into a whole, and because of the usefulness of this explanation in doing more science. Not everyone uses language as precisely, so when a presidential candidate says “he believes in evolution”, he is in a sense correct because he’s taking it on faith that biologists know what it is of which they speak, so his acknowledgement of that is fine, and welcome. But it’s only news because all the other candidates are so proudly pig ignorant of science. And such a well-educated, well-informed fellow doesn’t stand a chance with that voting block. It doesn’t bode well for our country.
Kid discovers a break through in solar science. Not really.

So if our young scientist had designed a tree for optimal harvesting of solar energy, his trees would have looked like B, horizontal arrays, and according to the article he found a suboptimal "real tree" form to be better at light harvesting than horizontal arrays of solar panels. So as a natural skeptic this scientist was sort of dubious and then it turns out he wasn’t measuring the right output. Now young Mr. Dwyer still did a great science project, so congrats kid! It was a job well done. You learned a lot. Hopefully you aren't too discouraged or disappointed that it didn't really work and wasn’t such a break through, but you have to know a lot of things to really discover something novel, and most of us are happy enough going through their career just learning new little things.
But the lesson here is really about the rather sorry state of journalism; journalists want titles like “ancient mystery solved”, “new discovery of …”, “grand theory of everything falsified”, etc., rather than actually talk about real science, assuming they actually can talk about real science. So before you let a journalist run away with things, please check with a scientist or two, hopefully one not too caught up in their own little world such that they would offer some decent advice on you science project.
Now something for the ladies in the audience
Economic Botany vs. Midwestern Students
Tomorrow the contest begins. The Phactor vs. a certain midwestern complacency and parochialism that most students do not even know they have. Suffice it to say there was more ethnic and language diversity it my freshmen dorm in New York than there is among my students here in Lincolnland. The idea is simple really: start thinking globally. What's true for you is not universal. The good news is that a very effective means of bringing this home is via the topic of food. None of my students will ever put rice in their list of most important food plants; what a complete difference when the same exercise was done in Thailand. Also funny is when my students are unable to actually think of 10 food plants after you explain that Sugar-coated Chocolate Bombs are not a food plant. One of the things they are assigned, and you may find it interesting too is a photo essay entitled What the world eats. The photos are great, but study the groceries. You can learn a great deal: who of this group seems to have the best diet, the most diverse diet, the most monotonous dies, who eats the most fresh food, who eats the most packaged/processed food, who eats the most junk. Then the students have to compare this to their own diet. Parents may shudder at the thought of what their 20 somethings would eat when left to their own devices; it's sometimes as bad as you may think. How many of them do you think actually cook? Hint: don't hold up too many fingers. Your insights, comments, and feedback will be appreciated.
Why blog under a pseudonym?
Over at Science Blogs, the new over lords, National Geographic, has decreed that bloggers using pseudonyms will no longer be permitted. Well, that certainly bites, and may the Phactor predict that the blog they purchased will lose many good bloggers and a great deal of their readership. Although SciBlogs never saw fit to include a botanist, the Phytophactor would now be banned anyways, so there. Who wanted to be in your blog collective anyways, and they put stupid ads in the siderail over which you have no say. So there! This blog is hardly controversial, doesn't use bad language, and generally stays clear of politics and contentious topics unless for mental health reasons the Phactor needs to blow off steam. Upon those occasions that he comments about the ineptitude of deans or provosts, readers find it comforting to think "that may well be the fool we've got here", and that's the point of never quite pinning down person or place, it keeps people wondering, thinking, and the blogger remains free of entanglements of institution, person, or place. Besides it's amusing to write in the 3d person.
Wildlife friendly yard bites back
You do everything you can to make wildlife happy in your yard, except to let them eat my tomatoes, a crime punished by banishment, and then some, or in this case, just one species of wildlife makes your life miserable. Chiggers were a personal discovery in 1971 after having moved to the hotter, dryer midwest for graduate school. They were not a problem in upstate NY. The hot, dry weather has produced a sizeable population and each and every time the Phactor ventures outside, to water, to guard his tomatoes, to enjoy the evening, to see the pond progress, or lack thereof, the next morning new red, itchy chigger welts are found, and generally in either very uncomfortable or very embarrassing places. Mosquito repellants work to some degree, and perhaps the attacks upon my personal temple would be more numerous without its use, but who wants to do that experiment? The strangest thing of all is that Mrs. Phactor is usually a chigger magnet, while the Phactor is ignored a situation she has attributed to my being a distasteful person, but this summer it's quite the reverse. And that is the worst thing about it. Who said they could change the rules?
Friday Fabulous Flowers - Survivor Lilies
Pond Refurbishing Labor Troubles
Practical students
Students are flooding back to campus today and observing their diverse approaches is very enlightening. Some are very practical arriving with little more than a couple of bags, a box of this and thats, and their laptop. They plan to survive in a minimalist fashion for a couple of weeks and then drag back the rest of life's necessities when returning from Labor Day weekend. Now this strategy only works if you're the odd person out because if everyone did that the move-in problem would only be shifted in time by a couple of weeks. However judging by the small mountains of necessities accumulating upon the sidewalks, the wait-a-couple-of-weeks strategy is quite workable. While chatting with a couple of the move-in assisters, mostly 2nd year students who survived their own freshman move in as well as a year of university studies, a young lady came to my attention as the model of impracticality as firstly she was hovering over one of the larger mountains of "necessities" such that you immediately felt sorry for her roommate and secretly hope she is paired with another just like herself, which never seems to happen, and secondly she was wearing shoes that quite closely resemble these shown here. Now far be it for me to point out that
black shoes like this do not actually make much of a fashion statement especially when worn by day with denim short shorts rather than a little black dress, but you realize that here is a person who does not actually plan to move anything herself preferring to demonstrate the sharp distinction between labor and management by dress. Hmm, want to bet about her major? It isn't biology you can be certain of that. "How come you aren't wearing shoes like that?" asks the Phactor. They look and burst into giggles. "Freshmen," and they shake their heads. 2nd years can be so judgemental.
Jargon jockey
The Phactor does not condone scientific jargon in general and botanical jargon in the particular because its over use has been a leading deterrent to learning botany, but having said that, it's perfectly OK to have fun with it by posting and illustrating a new botanical term each day at the Phytography blog. The illustrations are often not usual plants either. So click on over and build your vocabulary of arcane terms. HT to AoB.
Here we go again?
Pick Rerry for president? Isn't this the 3rd candidate that heard from on high that they should run? Is this evidence for the trinity, and if so, why don't they agree? Apparently Pick's credentials are he's governor of the Lone Star Republic? Didn't we try one of these before? You know when you buy a car or a new beer, and you don't like the way it runs or tastes, do you go right back to the same place for another? And then you think about just how well the Lone Star is being run, and you wish to inflict that on the whole country? This just doesn't make any sense at all. Is Pick all that much smarter than W? Nothing really suggests that, especially their respective college records. Could that many of the GnOPe really think W did such a good job that they want to run another governor of the Lone Star? Wow! My confidence soars! The mind boggles. And what about the USA does Pick like so much that he wishes to be president after threatening to secede from the union? That bodes well for representing the polices of the USA. Looks like the inmates continue to run the funny farm. Molly Ivins simply wouldn't believe it, and you can be sure she'd have something to say about this Pick.
The calm before the storm
Tomorrow the Phactor's bread and butter begin returning to campus and a sleepy college town turns into vehicle, people, and stuff chaos. Clearly people in the education business approach this with mixed emotions. Most students approach the new academic year with a great deal of enthusiasm, and my job is to assist them as well as possible to maintain that enthusiasm, but after so many years, this being the start of my 5th decade of college teaching (starting as a graduate student), the reality is that some will not succeed for a variety of reasons the most common being procrastination combined with a bit of laziness or at least a desire to expend the least effort possible. The dread feeling creeping into my office is not from the students, or my classes, or the research, it's the black hooded specters of paperwork, committees, and meetings, and you find yourself thinking "at this stage in my career what does it really matter?" which is of course a type of bad attitude not of my making. And tomorrow it all begins. Guess it's time to start preparing for those classes, or do some field work!
Prairie study site visit - August

cherry tomatoes
This year's cherry tomato produces handsome golden spheres with a nice combination tartness and sweet tomato flavor. Nothing quite like cutting a few of these in half, combining them with equal sized pieces of fresh mozzarella cheese, lots of chopped basil, and then drizzling the combination with some olive oil and a balsamic vinegar. That is summer salad gold. Oh, and if accompanied by fresh white & gold Lincolnland sweet corn, and some pork ribs seasoned with a dry bbq rub, damn, pure summer goodness.
The garden needs rain, gentle rain.
Market day & dogs
Our fair city has a nice Saturday morning market with purveyors of everything from art to Zea maize. With stands and booths lined up and down both sides of 3 blocks of downtown city streets it's quite crowded and booths with popular items can have considerable lines of people waiting to purchase fresh produce. So why under such circumstances do people feel the need to bring their dogs? Markets are not a dog location, especially really big dogs, really, really little dogs, and any poorly behaved dogs. And then people with dogs seem to have the need to chat with other people who have their dogs, who then circle each other just enough to entangle all as well as unwary passersby. Dog owners also can be quite cheeky like taking a sample of sausage and giving it to their dog. Does the dog have money? Is the dog going to make a shopping selection? These people are giving away samples to sell sausage not to make your dog's tail wag. Children are also problematical in most cases and when turned loose released from their stroller those of us who are not used to looking out for little knee-biters are likely to tread upon your genetic heritage. Unfortunately the solution is almost as bad as the problem. Strollers the size of SUVs also do not belong in crowed places of any sort, and when driven into the back of your heels, sorry just doesn't cut it. And lastly people, you aren't shopping at Krogers; you're dealing with small vendors, so no they don't take your Discover card and it's helpful if you have lots of small denomination bills because paying for a green pepper with a $100 bill is more than a little silly. But other than these inconsiderates markets are one of my favorites places, but in other countries you don't see dogs, except being sold as food, or strollers, although shopping carts are quite common. In the last overseas market the Phactor visited, someone had turned a large mob of school children loose to conduct some type of food survey that caused them to chase around, trip over your feet, and bump into your person while messing with their cell phones. Felt like a large dog was needed.
Friday Fabulous Flower - a Queensland orchid
Sydney from on high
Book Report - 100 Top Food Plants
Even before the Phactor has finished reading about all 50 plants that changed history, another book cataloguing the 100 most important food plants lands on my to-read table. My first thought is what a sad commentary on how overly busy things have been that in the past 4 months that so little progress has been made on the to-read books pile. And now a new semester is starting, so there you go. No time to read books let alone write books. But it is necessary to acknowledge that these people who get their books actually finished must be admired for that if nothing else. Oh, yes, the book, their book, a published book. OK, that's sort of whiny; the Phactor did get a pdf of his most recently published research paper just day before yesterday (ooo, color plates!), and with two more in press, it's not that the keyboard has been idle.
To start, how do you choose the 100 most important food plants? Well, by following the lead of Prescott-Allen and Prescott-Allen (1990, Conservation Biology) who documented that 103 plants provide over 90% of the food for 96% of the world's people, and that's just what the author, Ernest Small has done, with some quite well thought out adjustments to the list it came to exactly 100. The book is organized as a series of brief essays each of which includes some intriguing sections like the culinary terminology associated with each plant, which is totally delightful for the garbage minds among us (amaretto, amaretti, tortoni, frangipani, and so on for almond). Each essay has a bibliography (yea!) and specialty cookbooks (fun!) listed. The introduction to food is quite good, paralleling the introduction to food in my economic botany class, which is quite good too. Included is a nice section on the geographic origin of food plants. The book is a paperback with only black and white illustrations, but it's also a great book deal price-wise, and with a conference discount to boot, it was a must buy! There is quite a bit of overlap between the two books in terms of the plants listed, but the content does not overlap as much as one might presume, being primarily in the area of taxonomy and names, which in my case are fairly well known already, and thus skipped over. So both are recommended for those so interested.
Why plants and rainforest stuff, not politics?
A reader asks why the Phactor has made no comments about recent political events and instead rambles on about his tomatoes and rainforest organisms? Well, it’s fairly simple. The Phactor is so disgusted, so annoyed, so angry, so outraged that he will go ballistic if he starts thinking and writing about this topic at all. After all when you’ve been accosted, however nicely, by an upset shopkeeper in a small butcher shop in a beach community of far northern Queensland who’s worried about the impact of the USA’s stupid politics will have on global economics, well, you know there is a lesson to be learned and it’s pretty simple: rigid ideology of any sort is no way to govern. The butcher had decided that while his business was doing well, he wasn't going to risk a good thing by buying and opening another shop in a 2nd location until the world economy of which the USA is a lynch pin settles down. If a butcher thinks like this half way around the world, why is anyone surprised that the economy and the job picture have not improved. Our politicians, and therefore, the USA are not instilling confidence because of how they behave. The common good does not matter at all, either on a national or international level, just ideological purity. Fundamentalism either in politics or religion does not lead to thinking about consequences. Yours truly hopes that everything does not have to implode for people to learn that electing political ideologues is not a good thing, ever, of any persuasion. To all you good people of the world, let me apologize for our actions, for the stupidity of the electorate and the elected. Oops, blood pressure monitor, that bulging vein on my temple, says this is not good for my wa. Even a tomato-thieving varmint has a calming influence in comparison.
Sexual Dimorphism - Golden Orb Spiders

This particular spider's orb was also inhabited by a male, shown here in an inset (upper right) at approximately the same scale (Did you notice?). Now you may ask why is there such a huge difference in body size? In answer, remember sperm are not very big, so even a small male can make quite a few. So how do you mate with such a big fierce predator? Answer: carefully. Presumably a dwarf male is so small he isn't going to be mistaken for a meal, or even a snack, very often. In many invertebrates, females are bigger for egg production, so you start with somewhat smaller males who after all only make the much cheaper gametes, sperm. Such systems evolve when males of various sizes have different reproductive success. If larger males more frequently get eaten by the female before mating, and smaller males more frequently succeed in mating, then the average size of males decreases because those genes are passed on to offspring more frequently. At some point selection will be such that there no longer is any advantage to being still smaller. The dwarf males make a living by scavenging tiny prey caught and ignored by the big female, or by sneaking meals from larger prey items.
Kitchen Garden Update
After 3 weeks of neglect, although a good neighbor did water once or twice, the kitchen garden has survived a hot, dry July and early August fairly well and this may be attributed to the paper and straw mulch. The plants look pretty good, especially the tomatoes, however most of the near ripe fruit is on the ground half eaten. This would suggest we have a free-loading possum or raccoon hanging around. Damn. Fortunately the golden cherry tomatoes are far enough up on a tall vine (indeterminate plant you know) so they are generally out of reach. For some reason the zucchini have been slow to grow so many are in still in a juvenile mostly male stage, but are showing signs of kicking into gear. Asian varieties of eggplant are doing pretty well except the flea beetles have really laced the leaves. Peppers haven't done much yet, but a couple of plants are keeping things from being a complete failure. If the weather breaks a bit, and some rain appears, some beans, snap peas, and salad greens will be planted for fall crops. Basil and parsley have grown well, and were generously used in a Thai salad for din-dins tonight. Cucumbers have been very successful so far having climbed to about 8 feet and seem in pretty good shape. Hope the beetles hold off for a bit and don't infect them with wilt. Notice that nothing was said about vegetable because most of the summer crops are fruits. So that's the way it is for us small time farmers. Maybe the season of tomatoes and zucchini will happen yet.
A nasty plant
Rainforest in the rain
Not quite cryptobotany - Annual Thismia Hunt
The holy grail of Lincoln-land plants is Thismia, a plant that has been MIA for nearly 100 years now, but every year people go looking for this midget in hopes of still discovering it alive, but the Chicago area has seen a little bit of development since it was last seen near Lake Calumet. Volunteers are always welcome to assist in the search, but the Phactor who spends all too much time on his hands and knees doing his own research, isn't up for this. This isn't quite cryptobotany since it once did actually exist, but it's close. HT to Get your botany on.
Tropical garden color
Home Again
At the great risk of complete incoherence, the Phactor reports his return home after a 30+ hour travel day after a night of less than 4 hours sleep. Nothing amiss happened; just the usual clueless, inconsiderate fellow travelers who add so much color to your travels. A few comments for those who fall into to this latter category: get luggage you can actually handle without assistance and that will actually fit into storage bins, please recognize that you are not alone on the aircraft, stop your kid from kicking my seat or leave it to me whatever you prefer, if you plan on asking your seat mates to move more than one or two times ask for the bloody aisle seat, patience is a virtue because everyone there has someplace to go, if you bump into me, trip over my luggage, or stop blocking my path one more time because you're more engrossed in your cell phone than walking the damned thing is going to get thrown down the concourse, have your travel documents ready and filled in before walking up to the immigration desk with 200 people waiting in line (looks really cannot kill it turns out). Love to visit places; hate to travel, if you understand what that means.
Very slow internet
Halfway around the world is no great distance for those little electrons to travel, but the interface available here in our tropical paradise is quite slow which is why no recent pictures have been posted and why so few blog postings. Reports from the tropics will have to be a retrospective. Uploading images is just out of the question. In a manner of speaking when you're in the tropics you shouldn't have access to newspapers, the internet, or underwear, none of which is very useful here. But soon, all too soon, the Phactor will be on the road again, returning to the great midwest, which surely will welcome us with milder weather.
Where do you publish and why?
Seeking a large number of illustrations for a book has been a very informative, but frustrating process. The lesson is simple. Not-for-profit journals published by scientific societies have in every single case given permission for use of the images from their publications, and of course, full attribution is given. For-profit journals have in every single case wanted payment for use of an image, even if the authors have given me permission. So the question is simple, do you want your research, your scholarship to be used or not? Of course, there is another tradeoff. Some of the most prestigious of scientific journals are for-profit publishers, and while it may indicate that your work is the latest and most important, and you may receive more notoriety for publishing in such venues, you work isn't going to be used as widely as you may wish. Now of course this is all because the publisher of my book is also an academic publisher and the budget for illustrations is basically nil, and no question about it, both the publisher and author hope the sales will result in some economic gain. So you begin to wonder what is fair usage?
Fern Envy
The Phactor's beach house is quite nicely landscaped for both attractiveness and privacy. And the selection of several plants shows a bit more imagination going beyond the typical UTF (ubiquitous tropical flora - Don't get me started!). So while sitting on the veranda enjoying the gentle (OK, a bit stronger than gentle) breezes blowing in off the Coral Sea, a fern catches my eye. Or at least my initial assumption was fern, but without any good reasons why. Several of the hanging baskets, of basket ferns and clusters of elkhorn ferns on tree trunks have long slender fronds hanging limply below, and it was clearly something different. The locals call it ribbon fern. Some of the long, slender fronds are dichotomously lobed apically, and then the whole thing became clear. There were fertile fronds with two rows of big fat sporangia fused basally to the fertile fronds, which leads you to the inescapable conclusion that even though this is a tropical epiphytic fern, there is only one thing in the world this fern can be which is a species of Ophioglossum, which turns out to be O. pendulum, a native of Queensland (sorry connection too slow to upload my images), and the Phactor is so jealous. Hope this fern is in the trade somewhere so it can be obtained in N. America.