one nice plant per day!

this blog is dedicated to showcasing the incredible diversity in the plant kingdom ⬦ run by a seasonal botany & ecology technician ⬦ header & pfp are my photos ⬦ main: @cabinet-of-ecologies

[dailybotany]

About the blog:

I couldn't find enough active blogs dedicated to posting about plants, so I decided to make one! We have such a lovely community of naturalists and ecologists here on tumblr and if there's one thing I will not stand for, it's seeing plants being left out (just ask any of my wildlife ecologist friends who've had the misfortune of sharing classes with me!)

I can't promise an actual daily schedule, since I am a full time college student + I work a fluctuating number of part time jobs + extracurriculars and adulting, but I will try to keep a fairly regular posting schedule going.

Submissions are welcome! Asks are welcome! I'm more than happy to share your cool plant photos, try to ID your mystery plants*, or hear fun facts you've learned. If all my hopes for this endeavor are realized, I hope to see this become a collective creation fueled by community enthusiasm, where we all learn from each other!

About me:

You can call me Raincoats, since that's been my habitual internet pseudonym for ages now (long story), and my pronouns are he/him (🏳️‍⚧️).

Currently, I'm in college, studying Ecology with a focus in botany/plant ecology. I work in my university's herbarium and field monkey for whoever will have me whenever I can.

Tips for successful ID submissions:

Multiple pictures! If possible, this should include: overall plant form, close-up shot of the top and bottom surface of leaves, branching pattern (twigs/small branches if it's woody, leaf arrangement if it's herbaceous), and a picture of the mature bark/stem.

Description of habitat!

General geographic range

* Fair warning: The further you get from temperate and boreal eastern North America, the less familiar I am with the flora. That said, I will do what I can to ID and provide any insights or resources I can on whatever y'all send me!

[expressions-of-nature]

Spring Flowers of Khakassia by Marina Fomina

[dsudis]

Maybe... can have shit in Detroit?

Historic wild rice restoration underway in the Detroit River: ‘Living tribute to the First Nations'

Historic wild rice restoration begins in Detroit River as tribal partners work to bring back sacred grain that disappeared from ancestral wa

[atlanticflyway]

Piping plover (Charadrius melodus) with chicks sheltering from the sun under seaside goldenrod, May 2026.

[northernpintail]

Camas is blooming

[bonesbeetle]

the abbreviation should be ssp for "several species" but they decided to go with spp or "species pecies" instead

[salmon-n-hazel]

Forget me not

My print shop: INPRNT

[sadclowncentral]

seething about the fact that i will never experience photosynthesis in my own useless cells. i bet it feels so good when the light of the sun both warms you and fuels you at the same time. a bone-deep satisfaction mixed with a heated sugar-rush and endless brightness. not that i would fucking know

[wachinyeya]

Cherry Crops Kept Safe from Diseases Thanks to Tiny Kestrel Falcons in Michigan

By keeping rodents and small fruit-eating birds out of the orchards, kestrels were found to be an effective means of pest control.

By Andy Corbley -Jan 27, 2026

A study run by Michigan State University in the state’s upper peninsula has discovered that encouraging American kestrels to nest in cherry orchards also reduces the presence of food-borne illnesses that can be passed via the fruit to consumers.

By keeping rodents—but particularly small, fruit-eating birds out of the orchards, kestrels were found to be an effective means of pest control.

“Kestrels are not very expensive to bring into orchards, but they work pretty well,” said Olivia Smith, lead study author and assistant professor of horticulture at Michigan State University. “And people just like kestrels a lot, so I think it’s an attractive strategy.”

The hypothesis of Smith and her colleagues was that by keeping fruit-eating birds away, fewer avian pathogens would reach the shelves of the grocery store. This proved largely correct, as kestrel-guarded orchards showed an 81% decrease in instances of crop damage, including missing fruit and fruit with bite marks, and a 66% decrease in bird droppings on the fruit trees.

“I’ve noticed a difference having the kestrels around, hovering over the spring crops,” Brad Thatcher, a farmer based in Washington state who has housed kestrels in the fruit and vegetable areas on April Joy Farm for over 13 years, told Inside Climate News. “There’s very little fecal damage from small songbirds at that time of year versus the fall.”

There are no shortage of problems for cherry and fruit farmers these days, from wild weather swings to labor shortages. Perching birds are just one more issue to deal with, and they’re quite the issue, causing some $85 million in losses every year among major growing states like Michigan and California.

Growers attempt to prevent the fruit loss in a variety of ways, including chemical repellents, lethal shooting, trapping, hanging nets over their trees, visual and auditory scare tactics, and even deforesting the area surrounding the orchard.

Not only were the kestrels found to be more effective at keeping the birds away, but the detectable levels of Campylobacter, the most common foodborne pathogen spread by bird feces, were lower on branches in orchards with kestrel nest boxes (0.97% compared to around 10%).

On Michigan Cherry Farms, Small Falcons Are Improving Food Safety - Inside Climate News

Kestrels are already abundant on local cherry farms, but a new study suggests their presence might lower the risk of food-borne illnesses ca

Falcons reduce pre-harvest food safety risks and crop damage from wild birds

[tiny-forests]

moss mfriday #3: Glacier Mice

[image credit]

That's right - it's glacier mice. One of my favorite things maybe on the entire planet. Let's talk about these freaky fuzzy little rats!!

Glacier mice are balls of moss that live in large herds like this in a few select glaciers. They are moss all the way through, with a center consisting of dead moss matter, implying that they begin as small growths of moss and simply accumulate over time, like snowballs. However, their outside surface is alive and well on all sides. Glacier mice have been observed, through tagging and tracking, to roll across the glacier like a majestic herd of wildebeest, exposing all of their sides to the sunlight. They trundle along at a pace of about 2.5 cm per day. That's 30 feet in a year! They're really schmovin'! Certainly further than most mosses can claim to travel.

What's really exciting, though, is that they all move in the same direction, and we're not sure why or how. Scientists experimented to try and attribute their coordinated behavior to wind, sunlight, and the direction that their grazing ground slopes, but to no avail. They speed up, slow down, and change direction in unison, based on some mysterious moss code that we haven't cracked yet.

Cross-section of a glacier mouse. Note the dead moss matter inside, and the short gametophytes on the outside, adapted to harsh winds and sunlight. [image credit]

We have figured out how they roll, though - while the moss ball sits on the ice, it insulates the ice directly underneath it, protecting it from melting. This forms a little pillar of ice that the moss eventually rolls off of. The insulating power of glacier mice also gives it the wonderful ability to host all kinds of microorganisms that otherwise wouldn't survive the glacier's harsh conditions, and their ability to move makes it possible for microorganisms to spread from one habitable spot to another. They're like a bunch of little tardigrade passenger ships, braving the dangerous glacier to go where no water bear has gone before!!

Glacier mice have been found to consist of several moss species, most of which must reproduce asexually in order to survive in the dry climate. They've been observed to live for at least six years, but are projected to live much, much longer. I love them. So much. I hope they know that I love them!! I LOVE THEM!!!!

[source][source][source]

[ospreyonthemoon]

Oh.... the glacier mice...

[rebeccathenaturalist]

Can I just show my appreciation for one of my favorite mosses, Menzies' tree moss (Leucolepis acanthoneura)? I would like to be a little beetle trundling along under the awnings of green phyllids.

[herpsandbirds]

[geopsych]

Tulip tree blossoms on the ground. My theory is that squirrels like to break them off sometimes and watch them drop. I always fund some on the ground during their bloom. And these two are still opening and not fully colored yet.

[fox-bright]

do not taste plants if you don't know what they are

do not identify a fruit as edible just because it tastes sweet

hope you didn't eat any fucking seeds, bro

[fox-bright]

And today, we have this winner:

I saw the photo in my feed and went ohh, dude, no, we do not handle yellow rocks with our bare hands until we know for sure what they are. And I know that orange...

In comments, they continue:

and that's where I started cussing at the computer monitor. But someone else had got there first:

So just as a reminder, folks. If you don't know what it is, don't put it in your fucking mouth!

[fox-bright]

YOU GODDAMN STUPID MOTHERFUCKER

[francescointoppa]

Frutti di Ribes Uva-spina (Ribes uva-crispa L., Grossulariaceae)

[cryptonature]

The most powerful world figure living today pales in comparison to moss. Pick a criteria. Legacy. Longevity. Fame. Impact. Moss wins.

[botanyshitposts]

a really funny thing about working with seeds in a day to day capacity is that you really need the seeds to stay in one place at any given moment, and the seeds disagree. so it’s just like, seeds end up on the floor. seeds end up on the desk. seeds appear in the crack between the glass plate of the microscope stage and its surrounding metal casing. seeds are around the dumpster outside. sweeping up seeds, patching up bags of seeds, picking seeds off your clothes and from between keyboard keys, very carefully transferring seeds into containers less likely to cause catastrophe should the seeds breach containment, like it’s just an uphill battle built into the work. almost as if the seeds are hyperevolved to disperse themselves or something