Sunlit Green and Growing Things

Mostly my photos of moss and stuff

[viralfrog]

[pangeasoftware]

[melbagirl]

Saw some interesting stuff on my hike today.

[justmossythings]

Don't think this car has been driven for a while

[morganathewitch]

Moss and clover, Skottvång Sweden.

[mmw8054]

[lichenaday]

Cladonia imperialis

I hate Ernst Haeckel with the deepest loathing, he was a terrible human being. He is famous for this and other historical lichen illustrations:

And you may recognize C. imperialis from the left-most figure. When I first saw this drawing, I noticed that he has taken some artistic liberties with some of the species I recognized. And I had wondered for years looking at his illustration how much creative liberty he took when drawing that guy on the left, since I hadn't ever seen it. But credit where credit is due, it looks pretty darn similar to the pictures and preserved specimens pictured here. SO terrible person, descent artist, I can give him that. Still hate him, though. This fruticose lichen has verticillate (arranged in whorls) podetia with spreading to recurved scyphi (cup- or goblet-shaped projections on the podetial stalks) proliferating from the center of lower scyphi in 8-17 tiers, up to 31 cm tall (likely the tallest terrestrial lichen in the world!). It is green-brown to brown in color with a darker, melanotic base and smooth surface. C. imperialis is native to the mountains of southern Brazil, and grows taller in higher-elevations regions.

images: source | source | source

info: source | source

[publicdomainreview]

Born #onthisday in 1799, the English botanist Anna Atkins. As well as being considered by many to be first woman to create a photograph, her stunning 1843 book of algae cyanotypes is thought to be first book illustrated with photographs: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/cyanotypes-of-british-algae-by-anna-atkins-1843 #OTD

[wolveswolves]

Ethiopian wolf (Canis simensis) by Will Burrard-Lucas

[herpsandbirds]

Common Green Forest Lizard (Calotes calotes), male, family Agamidae, Kerala, India

photograph by Aparnas Wildlife Clicks

[redlipstickresurrected]

Luis Xertu (Mexican, b. 1985, Mexico City, Mexico, based Rotterdam, Netherlands) - Two Men on a Branch, 2024, Paintings: Plants, Acrylics on Canvas

[oilpalette]

Dunkler Stern, 2023 by Sven Kroner (German, b. 1973); Acrylic on canvas

[thunderstruck9]

Sven Kroner (German, 1973), Dunkler Stern, 2023. Acrylic on canvas, 180 × 130 cm.

[justmossythings]

Just thought you guys might like to see pics from my trip to the petrified forest near Calistoga, CA

All those mossy logs are made of stone! You can see the fronds of licorice fern, which grows from crevices in rock. These trees were alive 3.4 million years ago when a volcanic eruption knocked them down and buried them in silica-rich ash, resulting in their fossilization.

For contrast, here's what was growing on some regular, non-petrified wood.

And here's "Petrified Charley", the man himself :

[nearandmar-deactivated20241226]

Gustav Klimt, The Park, 1909

[radstudies]

Cressida Campbell (Australian, b.1960)

Nasturtiums, 2002

[princerevelucide]

theres NONE left. i drinked it all

[stemboards]

theres NONE left. i drinked it all stimboard 🌱

[keseral]

Thank you for reminding me that I had a drink I had not drinked.

[unsubconscious]

Iri B., Glass #2 Oil on canvas, 60 x 80cm

[hollowedskin]

Seeing a lot of posts like "umm why does everyone love bees and hate wasps, bees are bastards and they sting you why are they the only insect anyone actually cares about, why does everyone hate wasps when they're the same as bees"

Well you see, everyone ALSO used to hate bees. Like. You guys are just too young to remember when everyone who wasn't an apiarist or a gardener or an ecologist was militantly aggressive towards bees Because They Sting You. People would burn their hives and kill them all when they were found, not call a bee guy to relocate them, they'd stomp bees in the clover if they saw them. They actively hunted down and destroyed hives.

The reason "everyone loves bees" isnt an arbitrary whimsical choice because they're cuter than wasps. It's because bee lovers made a HUGE effort to encourage people to see bees as valuable pollinators and friendly little guys that just want to defend their hive. They taught people to see bees as cute and fluffy! There were awareness campaigns about the value of bees, there were advertisements, there were little documentaries and articles teaching people how to readjust their views on bees so that the hatred of them didn't cause complete ecological and agricultural collapse.

Bee lovers used to be in the exact same position that everyone who loves other insects is - you say that you like this creature and everyone in a 10km radius comes crawling over to tell you all the ways they personally would kill them.

The fact that it's so common now for people to think bees are cute fun little guys doing an important job is a fucking monumental victory and it was hard won, and it's as recent as in the last 20 years. When I was a kid in the 90s, everyone hated bees except ecologists and bug guys.

If you want this for wasps too (which i also want) you gotta put the work in to change people's perceptions.

[bogleech]

True, I remember a kid in my 1991 grade school class even believed bees "steal" pollen from flowers. I also remember lizards, toads, and bats all still being loathed by everyone I met.