March 2013 Berry Go Round

Hey, folks, the March Berry-go-round plant blog round-up is here, over at the Plants and Rocks blog.  Our thanks for a job well done, and for pointing the way to some plant blogs that TPP had missed along the way.  And our thanks for including TPP.  For you plant bloggers who were not included, there's a submission form posted at the Berry Go Round site, so do yourself a favor and let everyone know about your blog.  Or you can nominate a favorite plant blog. 

Berry-go-round #56 - plant blog roundup for October

Hey, plant lovers, the latest plant blog carnival has been posted over at Seeds Aside.  Click the link and go have a look at all the goodies you may have missed or not known about.  No question about it, at least one kindred spirit was found, someone who claims the exalted title of botanist.  There can be no higher calling. 

Berry Go Round plant blog round up for July 2012

Drat!  Completely lost track of what number BGR this is, but guess it doesn't matter so long as you have a link to click.  So here it is, the July round up of plant blogs from over at the The Daily Plant, where Daniel Chamovitz is able to leap tall buildings in a single bound while he keeps his identity secret by portraying a mild mannered botanist, or something like that.  So zip on over and have a look see; you can never have too many plant blogs to read. 

Berry-Go-Round Plant Blog Carnival #50

It has been a long late spring over at the Seeds Aside blog, but worth it for the collection of nifty plant blogs from March & April.  Click on over and have a look.  You can find out about the different colors of pepper and why lawn mowers should be banned (cruelty to grass), and many others.  Enjoy.  

Berry-go-round #49

Bora over at Blog around the clock did a great job of rounding up a bunch of plant related blogs even though February was a shortish, but slightly longer this leap year, month.  It does my heart good to see so many interesting plant blogs and makes me wonder how it is that people cannot find these wonderful offerings interesting.  So click on over to BATC and have a look at all the postings you may have missed.  Thanks, Bora.

A very merry Berry-Go-Round #47 and more

Oops. Forgot about BGR and failed to submit any blogs. My bad. But nonetheless the Roaming Naturalist rounded up some interesting December blogs for your amusement and edification.
Here's an interesting round up of recent bio-agricultural blogs from the Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog. In particular you might like the article on guerilla grafting, a new approach to urban farming. Next garden ninjas will be crawling over our fences at night to snag some zucchini.
And then some people get a kick out of the most mundane things, and they must be happy people. So zip over to Get Your Botany On and see the first flower of 2012. Having low expectations helps, but bragging rights are bragging rights. Actually a number of these winter rosette or winter annual plants are in flower sort of, or not, because they have what are called cleistogamous flowers; they never open beyond the bud stage and are self-pollinated in the bud. This may be the case for this little mustard.
The Phactor is having trouble, just old habits really, in remembering the current scientific name of the tomato, so it was good of the Digital Botanic Garden to remind me. Let's fact it, after calling the tomato Lycopersicon esculenta (the juicy wolf peach) for 40 or so years, it's hard to remember that it is now Solanum lycopersicum, the nightshade wolf peach. This happened because tomato was found to be part of the nightshade lineage, and the specific epithet esculenta (um) was already in use, so they epitheticised the old generic name. And it's a simply great image of a pre-BLT tomato.
Enjoy.

Berry-go-round #44 - September 2011

Well! Somehow my move to FoS has knocked the Phactor off the Berry-Go-Round notification list, but no matter, here's the link to the latest round up of plant-related blogs over at A DC Birding Blog. This month's round up is rather modest, and that's not a criticism of our fine feathered blogger, but all you plant blogging people that read this should drop off a nice plant-related blog link once a month to give yourself a bit of credit, and to help out the blogger in charge of the round-up carnival.

Berry Go Round #38

It's a Tuesday, it's cold and snowing, it's the 29th of March, a stack of exams is awaiting my attention, a laboratory needs prepping, and providing an antidote for my general depression Berry Go Round #38 has been posted over at Anyone Seen My Focus? How can that not cheer you up? Click on over and have a look.

Berry-Go-Round #37 - February 2011

With no fanfare or trumpets, no banners or bugles, here’s February 2011’s Berry-Go-Round #37 , a blog carnival of the latest plant and plant-related blogs from here, there, and yon. The Phactor has always wanted to visit yon. Thanks to all the contributors; hopefully nothing got left out, and you discover some new things, some new blogs, some new bloggers.
Let us start with people who aren’t suffering from SAD, seasonal affective disorder, in February unless it’s their rainy season. What’s Mary’s line, er, vine, er, liana? We’re dying to find out, but it’s a serial blog to be continued. Go to The Accidental Botanist and enter your guess. Over at Beetles in the Bush, Ted got over the seasonal blues with bamboo orchids, and a reminder about conducting Google searches in the native tongue wherever you are.
That poi, poi boy Matt over at The Scientist Gardener blog provides information about that tropical starchy staple, taro, past and future.
Brushing aside any thought of the tropics, Seed Aside is still in full winter mode fixing seasonal soups here, here, and here, but with a catch, the botanical ingredients are only given by their Latin names! But to be consistent, perhaps it’ll need a pinch of sodium chloride. Eat hearty folks.
No one can resist the first flower of spring motif, but darned if this isn’t a bit pessimistic for an optimistic event. But the heart-warming aspect of this Slugyard blog is that skunk cabbage is a heat generating plant; good trick for early spring flowering even if they become First Flower for the Deer?. The Digital Botanical Garden featured that pre-eminent spring flower, the primrose, and how it's floral forms intrigued prominent Victorian botanists. Lastly in this mini-theme category, over at Anybody Seen My Focus? presents a somewhat under whelming spring flower, but it's Joan’s First Wildflower of 2011: Hairy Bittercress (Cardamine hirsuta). Hailing from that 3d world state of Wisconsin so oft in the news of late is Sonoran Trees VC spotted a parasite upon a parasite, and so on infinitum, one mistletoe species as an epiparasite upon another mistletoe (good eye there), so confirmed by my downstate colleague, Dr. Dan Nickrent, a renowned expert on parasitic plants. And still more Sonoran botany from Jade Blackwater at Brainripples, pinyon pine and junipers. That’s where all the little pinyon nuts come from, and you may be sad to learn that each one is a pregnant female!
Continuing on with edible plants John over at Fascinating Experiments provides a list of his top 10 foraging for food plants. A taxonomic note of caution for the would be wild foods enthusiast; be certain of your identifications because in some of these cases a mistake could be your last.
The Phytophactor’s haploid contribution to botanical blogging featured those under appreciated plants the bryophytes: liverworts, hornworts, moss, and sphagnum moss. In an unorchestrated demonstration of great minds thinking alike the very same week, Meristemi posted a blog about those conquistadores of land: mosses. Following along on this under appreciated plant mini-theme was Foothills Fancies' blog on lichens, those ancient little symbiotic organisms that seem to be able to grow anywhere, and may in fact have been among the earliest dwellers upon land.
This was far more fun, far more interesting, and far, far more informative than watching the Oscars. Now the Phactor would like to thank everyone, and, oh, my gosh this is too exciting, and of course thanks to my parents, my lovely wife, the creators of the WWW, Al Gore, and of course, those green stars of the show.

Berry Go Round submissions

Just a reminder, to the Phactor, and everyone else, if any of you spot a nifty plant related blog, do call it to my attention by email or via BGR submission because February is coming to an end, and it'll be round up time in just one week, and just because it's a short month, we don't want BGR to come up short. Thanks to everyone who has already sent something around.

31st Berry-go-Round - An August Harvest of Plant-related Blogs

Ah, yes, missed the BGR submission deadline again. End of August is the 31st for the 31st BGR, not some arbitrary day prior, but no one to blame but myself. Still the kind purveyor of Seeds Aside included one of my posts . Surely this debt will have to be repaid. And while August was a bad month for the Phactor's gardens and plants (finally rained last night!), the harvest of plant related blogs was plentiful so pop over and have a look.