A friend once brought a picture of this plant to me and asked why don't the flowers ever open. An interesting question surely. TPP once studied a tropical flower that looked quite open but wasn't functional until it reclosed. But this is called the bottle gentian, Gentiana andrewsii, and the flowers don't open any more than this. It takes a big robust pollinator, like a bumblebee, to force its way into the flower, and in the process move some pollen around. This is an interesting way for the plant to select a particular pollinator. Sorry honey bee, you can't pollinate this native plant. This can make a nice addition for fall, partial shade flowering. Someone is bound to ask about when do the flower buds open.
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Don't tell me they found Tyrannosaurus rex meat again!1 week ago in Genomics, Medicine, and Pseudoscience
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Course Corrections4 months ago in Angry by Choice
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The Site is Dead, Long Live the Site2 years ago in Catalogue of Organisms
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The Site is Dead, Long Live the Site2 years ago in Variety of Life
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Does mathematics carry human biases?4 years ago in PLEKTIX
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A New Placodont from the Late Triassic of China5 years ago in Chinleana
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Posted: July 22, 2018 at 03:03PM6 years ago in Field Notes
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Bryophyte Herbarium Survey6 years ago in Moss Plants and More
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Harnessing innate immunity to cure HIV8 years ago in Rule of 6ix
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WE MOVED!8 years ago in Games with Words
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post doc job opportunity on ribosome biochemistry!9 years ago in Protein Evolution and Other Musings
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Growing the kidney: re-blogged from Science Bitez9 years ago in The View from a Microbiologist
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Blogging Microbes- Communicating Microbiology to Netizens10 years ago in Memoirs of a Defective Brain
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The Lure of the Obscure? Guest Post by Frank Stahl12 years ago in Sex, Genes & Evolution
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Lab Rat Moving House13 years ago in Life of a Lab Rat
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Goodbye FoS, thanks for all the laughs13 years ago in Disease Prone
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Slideshow of NASA's Stardust-NExT Mission Comet Tempel 1 Flyby13 years ago in The Large Picture Blog
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in The Biology Files
A plant pundit comments on plants, the foibles and fun of academic life, and other things of interest.
Birthdays during a pandemic
There is no good time to have a birthday, and certainly not during a pandemic. TPP's usual birthday celebration involves feeding a lot of fresh seafood to a bunch of friends who are happy to help you. And it doesn't get any better than that. But lots of things have been conspiring to make TPP feel old, and mostly because he is getting old. As one T-shirt given to TPP says "Survived the 60s twice" This is a good thing because lots of old friends have already died, so having birthdays is much better than not having any more birthdays. On a bit of a lark, family and oldest friends find ourselves in very rural south central Missouri, a state where TPP spent a couple of years once upon a time. The idea was to get away from people and just feel normal for a few days, eating and drinking and messing around like there was no pandemic. Rented a rather plush farmhouse for the purpose, and the outdoor shower and toilet are first class. The weather is comfortably warm during the day and cool at night. Their spring-fed stream provides a nice swimming hole and lots of nice surrounding natural areas. Just no seafood. So far we have been quite lucky and none of our close friends have gotten sick during this pandemic, and this is most excellent so far, but you do begin to feel that you life has gotten a bit impoverished defined by things that you cannot safely do. We were hiking this morning and since we were outside, most people, not a large number, were maskless, but the path was not terribly wide. A small number actually thanked TPP for stepping aside. Tomorrow is the actual birthday event, and nothing particular has been planned except maybe a carrot cake and a nice cocktail. On the whole TPP is thankful for the respite even if only a few days. Wish you could all come along. The number of Trump signs here in Missouri is actually rather depressing. How could so many decent people find this man an acceptable president?