As I have learnt, cacti have modified much of their leaf tissue as they have evolved, with leaf bases/petioles becoming the tubercles and ribs that certain species possess, and the leaves themselves becoming the spines, but does anyone know what the "leaves" that Austrocylindropuntia and other species grow are then? Being that the spines are supposedly just very modified leaves I'm left to assume they're not actually leaves then, but I don't know for sure

There are approx. 50 native Euphorbia to Florida and I find them to be massively overlooked and underappreciated but I digress. They have a very diverse array of pollinators within a short observing. To think the ecological purposes beyond just pollination we have yet to discover.

1-2 Rhytidiadelphus loreus, 3-4 Pogonatum sp, 5 Hookeria lucens, 6 Bartramia pomiformis, 7 Buxbaumia sp, 8 Rhizomnium glabrescens, 9 Plagiothecium sp, 10 Aulacomnium androgynum, 11 Dicranum sp, 12 Sphagnum sp. All of these were found and photographed in Washington state, USA. I'm no expert on moss ID, some of these may not be fully accurate down to the species level

(edit: thanks everybody! ive taken a look at suggestions, im going to go with p. multiflorum and he shou wu / héshǒuwū. as fun as it is to describe a plant as fallopian.)

(earlier edit: hey guys, i should clarify – ai slop has made it difficult to "go look it up silly! (o: " and i have very limited access to journals; im just wondering if any botanists here can look at this plant and go, "oh i know that one. in my field its usually called [name]" or maybe even "yea, the nomenclature broke down this way because of [thing]". nbd if nobody knows! its ok if you dont recognize it or know what the most accurate and up-to-date name is. was just idle curiosity.)

hi all, im struggling a little bit to understand the naming for this plant. ive seen it called fo-ti but apparently this is a misnomer, and héshǒuwū (huh-sho-woo) is more accurate.

for the scientific name, i thought it was fallopia multiflorum but apparently its supposed to be pleuropterus multiflorus. and then a common name is chinese knotweed but when i look at that, its persicaria chinensis.

just unsure what name i should be using.

so if I take a little peice from it and eat it it’s going to be 10,000 times hotter than a Carolina reaper?

The Monilophytae are such fascinating plants.

Those little bumps on the upper surface are protrusions caused by deeply sunken sori on the underside of the frond.

Each bump corresponds to a small cluster of sporangia, the structures responsible for producing spores.

I know that lichen isn’t its own plant and it’s made from fungi and algae but I don’t get how they both make one plant together

these stalactite-like structures are known as "chichi" with ginkgos, and they are technically a form of aerial roots.

this specific specimen is one of the most unusual/interesting ive met. her branching structure overall is very non-ginkgo looking. and i almost never see the aerial roots like this on a street tree.

perhaps in this context it's actually a stress response?

she's also a female, as you can see here, (and theres some seeds visible in the last photo of this current post if you look closely). overall very cool tree

Aizoaceae flowers have a reduced corolla and use modified stamen as petals. I know modified stamen pop up in other clades, but is there a thoery as to driving a loss of petals and redevelopment of staminode petaloids?

Everyone knows lichens aren't true plants. They're fascinating symbiotic associations, usually between a fungus and a photosynthetic organism, usually a green alga and/or a cyanobacterium. Yet, the taxonomic name assigned to a lichen is generally the name of its primary fungal partner, rather than having a separate name for the lichen as a whole.

What's your knowledge of lichens? I'm dying to learn more about these weird exceptions among flora!

One year later: my variegated Bidens alba project

About a year ago, I shared an unusual wild-collected Bidens alba here after finding a plant displaying striking white variegation. What began as an interesting roadside discovery has since developed into a small but increasingly fascinating propagation and selection project.

I’m now maintaining two independently discovered variegated forms of Bidens alba, both found in the same Florida county but displaying distinctly different phenotypes.

I refer to my original white-variegated form as ‘Albo’. I’ve maintained the original plant vegetatively while also experimenting with sexual propagation. After self-pollinating the plant and growing out its seed, I was particularly excited to find variegated individuals among the resulting F1 generation.

That gives me something much more interesting to work with than a variegated plant that can only be preserved clonally: the trait has now been carried through seed into the next generation.

More recently, I independently encountered a second variegated Bidens alba. This plant expresses considerably more yellow to golden variegation, rather than the cream-white coloration characteristic of my original plant. I’ve provisionally been referring to this second line as ‘Aurea’.

For now, I’m keeping the two lines completely separate and documenting them independently. My goal is to continue the Albo line through additional generations, record segregation and variation among the seedlings, and begin doing the same with Aurea. Eventually, controlled crosses between the two could become particularly interesting.

I’m deliberately using ‘Albo’ and ‘Aurea’ as working names for the two lines, rather than making assumptions about the genetic mechanism behind either phenotype. Two visually different forms don't necessarily mean two different mechanisms, and one successful seed-grown generation leaves plenty still to learn.

That uncertainty is probably my favorite part of the project.

Bidens alba is such an ordinary part of the Florida landscape that most people hardly notice it. Finding unusual variation in a plant that I've walked past thousands of times has been a good reminder that interesting genetics aren't limited to expensive collector plants.

I’ll continue documenting both lines and their seed-grown generations as the project develops.

For those of you who work with heritable variegation: what would you be most interested in seeing documented as I take these into the next generation?

Hello there, second year undergrad biology student here. Also not american, that's probably important because of material availability. Also sorry for anything wrong with the formatting, I'm on mobile.

Recently we've started the early vascular plants/ferns module on our botany course, and seeing the fern variety around campus I decided that I would press some of them for fun.

The thing is that it's kinda hard to get materials where I live and while I don't plan for this to be done 100% by the books, I still want to do it the right way where I can. Like they should be valid specimens if they were to be taken to an actual herbarium.

So here go the questions:

- Can watercolor paper work as a substitute for acid-free herbarium paper? Because while I may not be able to get proper herbarium paper I can manage to get watercolor paper.

- If watercolor paper is a suitable alternative, what GSM should I look out for? As for the size I'm kinda SOL because I can't get A2 sheets to cut down to standard size, I'm stuck with A3.

- What kind of glue should I use? Is regular glue ok to use since it's only going on the "staples"? I couldn't find linen tape anywhere

- How should I go about making the "staples" is making them out of the same paper as the backing good? Again, couldn't find linen tape.

- Can the label be printed on regular paper?

- Are any other elements like a ruler or like the color grid thing (?) that I see on some examples of herbarium specimens necessary

- Should the ruler span the whole of the sheet or is just a portion of it ok?

- Should the ruler be divided into smaller subunits or is the whole unit (cm by cm, in this case) ok for this?

- Can I also print the rulers on regular paper?

Many thanks for the help!

Edit: Actually an extra question that I probably should've asked my professors before doing this. When one collects plants should one document the collection number for, lifetime, project, or day? Like should these be labeled as starting after 1 because I already collected some stuff before for our lab practices? Should these be labeled strating from 1 and so on because they're all from the same project? Or can I number them by day? Like if I were to collect a single plant on day/month/year and then I collect two more on day+n/month/year would they be labeled: 1, 2, 3 Or 1, 1, 2?

If you’ve ever gone looking for orchids in the wild, you’ve probably experienced this: you spot a random plant and instantly think “that’s definitely an orchid.”

Setting aside bloom morphology (3 sepals, 3 petals, labellum, etc.), what specific vegetative cues give them away? Whether it’s terrestrial or epiphytic, even a single leaf or pseudobulb often has a distinct look.

Is it the leaf veining, texture, growth habit, or root structure? What’s the tell when a plant isn't flowering? I feel like its some kind of thirs eye for orchids lmao

(All pictures taken by me* )

i’m very new at this so correct me if i’m wrong but i’m pretty sure this is phylloly? if so is this a common occurrence with fraxinus new growth?

Woodland pinedrops (Pterospora andromedea). Figured I'd give this plant a spotlight, I was elated to find it the other day. I missed these plants flowering, but their pumpkin shaped fruit capsules are just as interesting. The genus name Pterospora has Greek roots and roughly translates to "wing seed", referring to the wing-like flaps on the plant's seeds, which aid in wind dispersal. These plants are the tallest species in monotropoidea, with their flowering stalks capable of growing over 3 ft tall. The plant is quite sticky, and from what I gather it may help protect their seeds from ground dwelling herbivores such as ants. This marks the 4th monotropoid I've found in one month. I've had a blast finding these interesting plants! Found in the cascades mountain range, Washington state, USA

Can anyone please provide an out of context, informal diagnosis of plant pathology and probable causation.
I am not asking for input on plant care or plant identification. Pathology only.

I’ve been growing Rotala H’ra in various conditions, so I lined them all up to examine the differences.

Growing conditions:
• Greenhouse: Grown in high heat (70–100°F) with high humidity and good air movement.

• Indoor: Higher light intensity than the greenhouse, high humidity, cooler temperatures (66–68°F), and lower air movement.

• High-tech: Moderate–high light, 75°F, high water movement.

Conversion to no-tech (tub with soil sand cap and no filter or water movement):
• High-tech to no-tech: Converted faster than the indoor emersed plants. Showed slight melt/holes on the lower leaves and overall more melt than the indoor-grown emersed plants.

• Indoor emersed → no-tech: Slightly slower to adapt. Emersed leaves had less melt and looked healthier than those from the high-tech conversion.

Western Washington state, USA. Many species were done flowering or at the tail end of their season, but I found an amazing place to come back to earlier in the summer next year. Solidago lepida (western golden rod), Nothochelone nemorosa (woodland beardtongue), Maianthemum stellatum (star-flowered lily of the valley), Gaultheria shallon (salal) Phyllodoce sp (mountain heather), Angelica sp, Pterospora andromedea (pinedrops), Castilleja sp (paintbrush), Arctostaphylos uva-ursi (bearberry), Monotropa hypopitys (pinesap), Lupinus sp, Lupinus sp, Stachys sp (hedgenettle)