Battle Of The Plant Taxons @plant-taxonomy-showdown - Tumblr Blog

Algaes and gentleferns, the fight is on!

As those of you who have been following @battle-of-the-taxons know, the winner of their kingdom contest was Fungi. Congratulations Fungi! However, these brackets don't just get to choose a winner, they also provide lots of opportunities to learn more, and share more of what we already know, about every participant in the competition. And to show our love for them. I know a lot of us have a deep appreciation for plants and want a chance to talk up our favorites. Therefore this blog was created: To continue the battle for tumblr's most favorite organism -- going one traditional taxonomic level at a time, from kingdom to phylum to class to order to family to genus to species -- as it might have gone had Kingdom Plantae won.

Hosted by Ray @rotationalsymmetry -- I have never done this before (also, I'm not an expert, just an enthusiastic amateur) so please be kind.

Similar brackets:

The original, the fungal: @battle-of-the-taxons

Amazing animal kingdom spin-off: @animalshowdown

The newest bracket/oldest kingdom, bacteria: @bacteriashowdown

~ Please someone do protists please please please ~

Not directly related but an animal taxonomy thing: @taxonomytournament

Tournament status:

Paracryphiales won the only battle in Order Round One. Order Round Two, with eight battles, will begin soon.

Order Round Bracket

Order Round Polls

All Order Round Propaganda and Polls

Notes/technical details ("behind the scenes" tag)

Last day to vote reminders are tagged "reminders" and all propaganda is tagged "propaganda" for people who want to filter those out. Lemme know if you want anything else tagged.

rvllybllply2014

Merry Christmas

theehorsepusssy

headspace-hotel

It's the other way around.

Solanaceae contains a lot of toxic plants, including datura (genus Datura) angel's trumpet (genus Brugmansia) mandrake (genus Mandragora) henbane (Hysocyamus), and various others. All members of the family contain alkaloids that in certain doses can be toxic, for example solanine, is why you shouldn't eat green potatoes: the parts of the potato that have turned green from light exposure contain concentrations of the toxin that can harm you.

In the case of many nightshades, though, their toxicity is actually WHY we consume them. Tobacco is cultivated for its nicotine, which is a neurotoxin that protects the plant from bugs. Likewise peppers are cultivated for their capsaicin, which causes pain and irritation to mammals that try to consume the fruit. And of course, datura has been used as a hallucinogenic drug. Many of the toxins derived from nightshades are important medicines, such as scopolamine and hysocyamine, and nightshade plants were used medicinally by indigenous people of the Americas and Australia as well as in ancient and medieval Europe and Asia. Fun fact, atropine (the toxin in belladonna) is actually the antidote to poisoning with VX nerve gas.

It just goes to show that humans really like poison.

#totally going to get back to this. eventually.

#have some xkcd while waiting for the poll battle to resume

Update: Sorry things are taking a while! Order Round 2 will still happen, it has merely been delayed. I have been learning some extremely fun things about hollies and nightshade vegetables that I can't wait to share.

Paracryphiales won Order Round 1! It moves onto Order Round 2, which will be starting this weekend!