Flower Shop Mechanic

Hello. I'm Grace. I'm some 20 year old, my sexuality is uncertain, I'm so confused about everything. I like a lot of stuff Also I am barely ever on here.

[willabee]

observing popcorn

[wifehaver103947]

[kuvaton]

[saint-batrick]

environmental storytelling.

[phallicthimble]

[botanyshitposts]

a couple months ago someone sent me an ask asking if I’d ever heard of Boquila trifoliolata and I was like ‘no way. this can’t be real’ and i looked it up and it was and I forgot about it until just now when my supervisor and I got sidetracked and I looked it up again to prove to her that it’s real and found out that not only does this plant vaguely mimic the leaves of whatever plant it’s vining on, it does it when it climbs on fake plants too so any theories about how it does it that include gene transfer or chemicals or touching it in any way are just out the window and those were like, the only theories the original researchers had about how it might be doing it. so anyway I am screaming and crying and whatnot

[elephantbitterhead]

The more you read the better this gets – from Krulwich, Nat Geo 2016:

Boquila feels more like a cuttlefish or an octopus; it can morph into at least eight basic shapes. When it glides up a bush or tree that it’s never encountered before, it can still mimic what’s near. And that’s the wildest part: It doesn’t have to touch what it copies. It only has to be nearby. Most mimicry in the animal kingdom involves physical contact. But this plant can hang—literally hang—alongside a host tree, with empty space between it and its model, and, with no eyes, nose, mouth, or brain, it can “see” its neighbor and copy what it has “seen.”

(Artifical plant modeling & c. discussed in White & Yamashita, Plant Signaling & Behavior, https://doi.org/10.1080/15592324.2021.1977530)

[that1girlarreis]

Don’t like this at all! Thank you!!

[alithographica]

One theory from that above White & Yamashita paper is that Boquila does this using plant ocelli—a very basic type of eye! If you’re interested in a brief infodump about ocelli: Many animals have ocelli, like jellyfish and insects. Here’s a picture of a wasp head—you can see its two main eyes to the side, and those three dots in the middle are ocelli.

(Photo cred: Assafn, Wikipedia)

These ocelli don’t form sharp images, but instead probably detect light and shadow for sleep patterns, directionality, flight stability, etc.

Some reptiles and amphibians also have a light-sensitive third eye called a parietal or pineal eye! It’s similarly right on top of their heads. Again, they’re not forming complex images, but instead use general light information to regulate other things. It’s also why even tame reptiles may bolt if you reach at them from directly overhead, out of range of their normal eyes—that third eye sees an incoming shadow and goes HAWK, RUN.

So with that in mind, plant ocelli…Basically they think the upper epidermal cells have evolved to have a particular convex dome shape that focuses light. I don’t know what proportion of cells are ocelli, if it’s just some or all, but basically the leaf itself IS the “eye”.

Plant ocelli were first proposed over a century ago but they haven’t been well studied since then. Cyanobacteria (a photosynthetic bacteria) focus light. Arabidopsis thaliana has been documented to recognize other Arabidopsis plants…basically when competing for resources, if the Arabidopsis recognizes it’s competing with other Arabidopsis plants, they’ll cooperate and move leaves so that they don’t shade each other, ensuring each plant has access to nutrients. But if the competing plant isn’t Arabidopsis, screw ‘em, they’ll shade it. Crepy & Casal narrowed this down to a light-based response, not just chemical identification, so it’s possible Arabidopsis is visually identifying friend from foe. At any rate, that’s about the extent of plant ocelli research that I was able to find. So this Boquila thing is cool and weird.

What we don’t yet know is how precisely Boquila is seeing the world. Boquila is clearly getting some level of resolution in order to be able to copy shape, size, AND color. Unlike an insect’s 2-3 ocelli, it has tons, so even crude data over a lot of inputs might lead to a pretty good picture. The paper also says the mimicry gets more accurate over time, so there appears to be some learning involved. I would also love to know if it has some equivalent of depth perception! If the target plant is near vs. far, does Boquila produce the same appropriately sized mimic leaf? Does it adjust? They’re going to keep studying it so hopefully we have some answers in a few years!

Anyway here’s a picture of the variation of Boquila mimic leaves.

(Photo cred: Gianoli figure)

👁 🌱 👁

[botanyshitposts]

I’m looking forward to the results of your gourd experiment! My mother accidentally did something similar with her garden, resulting in what we’ve been calling the ‘zumpkin’

It’s hard enough that we haven’t managed to cut it open to look at the insides, and although it has been almost a year since it was picked it shows no signs of leaving this world.

ooohhhh! 1. obsessed with the little artistic speckles and the fact this is just a long eternal pumpkin. it’s so pretty. my only question would be what it tastes like and how on earth it lasted this long

2. this reminds me of something that I never considered until I started this project, which is that one reason people also love gourds and squashes is because they come pre-contained in a hard rind (if it’s a winter squash) and therefore you can store and eat them over the winter (thus the name ‘winter squash’) so long as you cure them in the sun right and store them in a well-ventilated cool (but not cold) cellar space. the book ive been reading on this notes taste, color, what the squash is used for, and notes if people grow them because of how long they can be stored. i read on one website that if you cure pumpkins correctly they can store up to 3-6 months in a cellar. some varieties can store longer than others, and some soft-rinded summer squashes can mature into hard winter squashes if you leave them for long enough on the vine.

i knew about the history of native americans using bottle gourds as containers for food and water thousands of years ago, and i knew about the three sisters and native mexican tribes and how to this day squashes are considered an essential crop if youre going to live off the land, but somehow i had never put two and two together about this, but I don’t know what I expected, honestly? like how to use squashes long-term for food was probably just common knowledge from when they were domesticated right up to industrialization when grocery stores became The Place Where Food Comes From and storage of produce several months in advance straight from the vine was no longer the 'normal' thing to do in urban and suburban areas (in america). like, apparently some of these bad boys are so devoted to the long-term cellar cause that putting them in the refrigerator can SHORTEN their shelf life, and somehow this delights me? like to this day, thousands of years later, the ideal gourd storage unit requires only the right information about how to cure it in the sun and a cellar constructed in the ground for insulation. that's how long people have been doing this for.

i want to know everything about this now. i have so many questions and nearly all of them are based on my understanding of How Food Works as a suburban white guy coming from a background where Food Comes From The Store And Is Instantly There In Any Amount When I Want It As Long As I Have Money. how many squashes do people grow to feed a family? what happens if a harvest fails, or something happens in storage and you lose some squashes? what is/was the optimal squash size portion-wise, like what if you're cooking and you have a squash that's way more than you need? does the 'bigger is better' rule of american agribusiness/capitalist plant breeding still apply, or do you want a range of sizes or even smaller gourds? how many kinds of squashes do you grow? etc. it seems like so much planning ahead and logistics, and that's not even the only food that gets stored for winter... i would panic constantly starting in like, july. i can see why harvest time gets so many festivals in so many cultures looking at it from that perspective. holy shit. (book recommendations about these sorts of things would be appreciated!)

im becoming increasingly convinced that squashes and gourds are the pinnacle of human plant domestication tbh, like that’s just like…. a perfect crop. sure beans and grains and corn are important and whatever but food in a colorful biologically produced hard orb you can put in your Orb Cellar for eating over the long winter..... definitely an apex vegetable on so many levels. absolutely at the top of the ladder in terms of things humans have domesticated. you cannot beat that.

[adhd-alien]

With ADHD, a lot of what we do or go through can be misinterpreted - by others but also by ourselves if we get told something often enough.

This is the first part of my series hoping to clear up wrong assumptions and to help you find the words to communicate and share what it looks like from your side.

Keep in mind that this isn't supposed to excuse any and all behavior or diagnose anyone, but more of a communication aid.

Special thanks to Tabby and Ellis to endure my over-caffeinated ramblings!!

[adhd-alien]

“You are so random!!” ahaha, right…. Part 2 of my series about things people frequently misinterprete about our actions and behaviors! I hope this will help someone communicate better with their loved ones. Part 1 here Here is my patreon!

[teaboot]

My old man once said to me, "your thoughts are so random and unconnected. We were just talking about the carnival- how did you get started on wasps?"

So, I told him, "they're not unconnected- we were talking about going to the carnival, and the carnival is on the same fairgrounds they used to use for the rodeo, and one time at the rodeo my brother spilled sprite on himself and a bee went up his shirt and stung him, and bees die when they sting, but wasps don't, and I was wondering why, so I asked you."

And he said, "that makes no sense," and for the life of me I can't understand how anyone thinks of anything if not by this exact process

[randomslasher]

The best part of ADHD thinking (which this is) is when you weren’t paying 100% attention to where your brain went and then you realize you’re thinking about something, like the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and you have to try to trace your own thoughts backwards because the last thing you remember thinking about was potato soup.

[moonbeamdagger]

[adhd-vibes]

it’s the middle of the night and i am now ready to start The Task!

[adhd-vibes]

right after i watch this short video

[strawberryswinger]

if being hard on yourself worked, it would have worked by now

[bakwaaas]

[flikkerij]

forever torn between “if this object isnt always in the same spot i’ll never remember it” and “if this object stays in the same place for more than 24 hours it’ll just become background and i’ll never remember it”

[woundliqour]

[aggressivewhenstartled]

This is why I get meal kits. Do I need them? No. Can I easily make them myself? For way cheaper? Yes. WILL I??? No.

Other tips: if you are going to buy things that aren’t pre-taxed, you need to make a habit of always doing the prep AS SOON AS YOU GET HOME. it will NEVER HAPPEN if you don’t.

Get the bulk pack of steaks! But you are never gonna eat them before they go bad. If you freeze them in individual ziplocks as soon as you unpack you probably will?

Get the celery, but you need to cut it ALL UP and store it in the fridge in water or it will rot.

And don’t do all tgese at once, get like, one or two prep things a trip. You aren’t gonna get it started if it’s a huge task.

[my-darling-boy]

Starting some silly autistic comics because they vibe (his name is Apple Sauce)

[insomniac-arrest]

You know how everyone’s perception of dinosaurs shifted when the public was introduced to the fact that they probably had feathers? I’m feeling that way again except this time about lips.

T-Rex without lips:

(the much more likely) T-Rex WITH lips:

[the-majestic-cheese-turtle]

list of things i’ve done to make my home more ADHD friendly

1. waterproof clock in the shower

2. laundry baskets in the bedroom, bathroom, and laundry room

[the-majestic-cheese-turtle]

3. trash can with automatic motion sensing lid (same price as one of same size with footpedal!!!!)

4. organizer hanging on bedroom door for odds and ends that have no “belonging place”

5. wall hook for hoodies/jackets worn frequently so they don’t end up on the ground or bed or thrown over the back of a chair

6. clear bins so that things can be stored but aren’t invisible (the old can’t-see-it-so-it-doesn’t-exist problem)

7. all tupperware is the same!!! no mismatched/lost lids

8. all socks are the same!!!! no wasting time looking for matching socks

9. shoeboxes in drawers to split sections for different types of things

9. something i plan to do soon: label the cupboards by what’s in them (see #6)

[the-majestic-cheese-turtle]

11. cheap 3D printed wall hooks for headphones so that they have an always belonging place*

12. little bin or box for remote controls in the living room (mine goes under the coffee table)

bonus tips that help me!

13. limit dishes that are easy to get to so that i have to clean them immediately after eating

14. reduce impulse buying by using grocery pickup online orders (can see total easily before checking out)

15. listen to podcasts or audiobooks while doing boring chores

————

*wall hooks are good for all kinds of things! You can also use them for stuff like PS4/XBox controllers, hats, loosely wrapped long cables, that awkward-to-store ring from Ring Fit Adventure, etc. etc.

[glowbat]

I’m kicking off pride month with doodlin my best girl 

[mueritos]

some people on insta said i should post my workout routine since i mentioned how im so happy with the results, so here’s my little workout guide for my fellow trans folk! I focused on getting a more masculine body because obviously that’s what I want. I’m so happy with the results, this workout is saving my fucking life!!!! I can’t get on T soon so this has really been keeping my dysphoria in check. I barely get body dysphoria, i love how my clothes looks on me, i love feeling confident for once in my life!!! HOWEVER Don’t go overboard with working out my friends. Do not work out in a binder, you MUST take days off to let your muscles heal, and you CAN’T starve yourself! Fitness is all about health and diet! Take care of yourself. This is also MY workout routine, you may not get the same results as I have! Every body is different. 

EDIT: ahh I really didn’t expect this thing to blow up….A few people have brought it to my attention that some of the nutrition here could be wrong/not work for everyone. I apologize if I caused any harm. I think I stressed enough that you shouldn’t starve yourself to lose weight. That’s very dangerous, and if you’re prone to such habits I suggest don’t count calories, etc, and just make sure your diet is very nutritious. I just provided a way to lose weight that my doctor told me about. You don’t need to lose weight if you don’t want to. Obviously if you’re already thin there’s no need to make a goal to lose weight; that’s dangerous. Also, some of this may or may not be helpful depending on your body type. I was underweight before working out so I have no idea how it would affect someone overweight! Please don’t hold this post to such a high standard; this was just my own routine and things I do to stay in shape, I obviously can’t cater to everyone. I literally didn’t expect this post to blow up like it did, this was literally just for a few people. Sorry for any harm it caused!

[megs-ils]

Bad day

i just love doing dramatic shots, can you guess who the villain is? :3