Rich and Strange Aeons

Growth continues, and I've discovered microclimates. I'd put some bunches by the window for sun, and others a food inward for lack of room. Given that the heavily cut inward bunch has almost caught up to the lightly cut window bunch, I'm thinking that being close to a 13 C window at night was the dominant (and negative) growth effect. Currently all are inward, with the formerly window ones on the inside of the formation, to see if they even out.

It is mysterious why some individual plants spurt forth vigorously and others, in the same bunch, just wilt.

Roots are also growing, the glasses are getting crowded. I wonder if I should trim them, or if that would traumatize them.

This definitely seems a way to at least double the amount of scallion you get for your money. Webpages said you could get 3 or 4 growths before they give up.

I changed their water today, in case mineral depletion is an issue.

It's been really hot and humid in Boston the past week. It had been cooler, enough so that I broke down and bought a new box fan, despite the uncertainties of my future, and it did good work in my bedroom. But now the weather has gone the other way, and fanw's donated air conditioner is slaving away not just at cooling my room (which it is good at) but most of my apartment (not so good, given both insufficient power and terrible air circulation... still, it does help, as a few seconds on my "balcony" demonstrate.)

My A/C is not asked to cool my second bedroom, aka storage room, aka solarium for my plants. I checked in on those plants just now, and yeah, I let things go too long; the room is an oven, and the soils are dry. Still, they're holding up:

The spathiphyllum is looking droopy and kind of pale, but most of the leaves are green, or a sunburnt yellow, not dry and brown, which is actually pretty good show for it. It has been watered and put on my desk, where it's only 30 C and the sun is filtered.

The basil is still alive, which is amazing given that I bought the annual last summer; it's rather lanky, as the two living stems are making a show of being beanstalks, but it was even putting forth little flowers earlier. It has been watered and put in my bathroom for now, because hey, humidity? I should probably research what it likes about that.

The jasmine has gone really weird: one half is completely wilted and pale yellow, like ghost leaves, the other half is a vigorous green. I don't remember how it was oriented, maybe one part got too much sun? Or not enough? It is draining in my sink, since it lacks a drainage dish, I'm not sure where I'll put it. Probably in my living room with the others.

And finally, the terrarium. I posted about this last year; time has not been good to it. It did quite well for a while, with the rainbow plant finding its way through one of the wholes and growing outside of it. Finally I cut that off; then, worried about water lost to transpiration, I added some. Then I taped over some or all of the holes, for better recycling, also to keep things from growing through. When I next checked, it had all gone moldy. I untaped the holes but still. :( Then the plants died and the mold dried out. But then, later, something managed to sprout again! So that was cool.

But tonight, even that was dead and brown. I finally opened the terrarium again, for the first time since setup, and the soil/matrix was completely dry. I guess its magic recycling powers were defeated by the sheer heat. But I remembered not using all of the seeds, so I added some water and broke up the soil, then added the seeds... and cuttings of jasmine and spathiphyllum, because I didn't have many seeds, actually. It's now in my living room, closer to light than the spathiphyllum.

The spathi and the jasmine are still looking better than when I first rescued each of them from the garbageway. The jasmine only flowered a bit this year, like three blossoms... which still managed to put out a whole lot of fragrance.

But first, unrelated stuff:

I was going to drop off some mail, and passed a postman sitting in his truck. "I don't suppose I could just give--" "Sure you can." And I handed it over. One fewer rush hour crossings of Mass Ave!

Coming home, I saw a Drain Doctor van outside. And now I hear mysterious chunking sounds from the bathroom ceiling. I suspect he's working in the apartment upstairs. Amusing to ID that out of a medium-large apartment complex.

A while back, I saw advice about looking at things and imagining drawing them. Even though my drawing skills are rudimentary and I haven't tried physically drawing any of the things I've looked at since, applying this advice has been useful for focusing visual attention, especially on details. Tracing outlines with my eyes, counting elements, paying attention to colors. "If I were drawing this, what would I need to know... aha."

Similarly, though I don't remember all the tree stuff I've read so far, and there's obviously far more I don't even know yet, there's already a change in how I look at them: now that I've run through a few ID keys, I have an idea of what to look for. "I have no idea what this is, but these are the things I'd want to look up." Or as today, "I'm not sure this is a honey locust, but it sure has similar pinnate leaves without a leading leaf."

And, today's haul! I think I found a ginkgo: certainly it was something with a very fan-shaped leaf, though I didn't see any top notches.

And... a day or two ago I learned that 'sycamore' seems to be a somewhat generic term for star ("stellate") or maple shaped leaves. There's a sycamore maple, which is really a maple, but there are also unrelated trees with similar leaves, like the American sycamore, distinctive for mottled exfoliating bark, and 'naked' light gray or white upper branches, and spiky spherical seeds.

So, a few feet beyond the suspected ginkgo, I notice a bunch of "maple" leaves, and then that they're hanging off of bone-white branches, and then that this tree doesn't have any of the 'helicopter' maple seeds that I've seen quite a lot of under other maple trees. Hmmmm. Found a few more like that, and then some undeniable maple trees -- helicopter seeds ahoy! -- that had more conventionally barky upper branches.

Wednesday while on a walk I had the impulse to start trying to ID trees. Pulled out my phone, looked up tree key websites, and got to work. It was somewhat successful. I don't remember everything I IDed, but I thought I found some sort of beech, a black locust, a thornless honey locust (which I confirmed with a resident emerging from the building behind), some sort of elm, maybe a dogwood? maybe a pear? and I think a couple others. Also something that so far has stumped my (California) botanist friend S, and reddit's /r/whatsthisplant, the first five photos at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mindstalk/albums/72157669140836646 (the next 3 are some conifer, and the rest another; I thought they were pine, now I think fir.)

The various toothed leaves were annoying, as my key asked questions I had trouble answering. "Is this single or double? How fine a line counts as a vein?"

I've kept it up! Poked around a bit yesterday, including the conifers mentioned above, and today, on the bike path. I may have found a northern catalpa, though S seemed skeptical; it's got the right big heart-shaped leaves, though the shape of the tree didn't match catalpa photos. It might match northern catalpa photos.

Today's big project became "try to distinguish the three non-larch types of conifer". At this stage I don't care about getting precise species, I'd be happy if I can go "that's a pine" or "that's an elm." (I can already do 'maple' and 'oak'; there's a lot around here, which explains my allergies. With enough diversity that I probably *could* zoom in on species, but not yet, apart from the flagrantly obvious Japanese maple, in its purple-red leaf cultivars.)

So right, conifers. Websites made it sound easy, if you can get close to the needles: pines have 2 3 or 5 emerging together, the others just individual needles; firs are 'friendly', soft and long, spruces spikey and short. Also flaky vs. furrowed barks, and that seemed to match the pine/fir needles I perceived. (No spruces.)

Though later with some short trees I wondered "is this a fir needle, or the "flattened leaves" I saw on my key and couldn't figure out?

I also looked up how to find the mythical pine cone seeds. New theory: what I think of as pine cones, with big wooden flakes, are after the cone has opened and dumped its seeds or been plundered of them by squirrels.

It's tempting to go to the Arnold Arboretum tomorrow and go look at labeled plants, though it's also really not what I should be spending time on right now. (Walks are one thing, half-day trips another.)

It's been fun, and a lot faster reward than taking up bird ID: trees are *right there*. So are other plants, I imagine I'll expand... IDing the various flowers I stop and sniff would have the advantage that they can't grow out of range; many of the taller trees don't present their leaves for examination.

Today I also got in a bit of unexpected squirrel watching: there was a squirrel lying on a branch, making odd sounds, reminiscent of though not the same as the squirrel mating sounds I grew up with (and can still imitate if asked.) It seemed focused on something but I couldn't tell what.

Obvious icon choice is really obvious, this time.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/10/science/10plant.html
http://journals.royalsociety.org/content/6241377640t332n7/?p=026d9c9a04aa495f95d5a7489464c5cf&pi=1

If the sea rocket detects unrelated plants growing in the ground with it, the plant aggressively sprouts nutrient-grabbing roots. But if it detects family, it politely restrains itself.

Some plants, for example, have been shown to sense potentially competing neighboring plants by subtle changes in light.

But even the scientists studying the plant were surprised at the speed and precision with which a dodder seedling could sense and hunt its victim. In time-lapse movies, scientists saw dodder sprouts moving in a circular fashion, in what they discovered was a sampling of the airborne chemicals released by nearby plants, a bit like a dog sniffing the air around a dinner buffet.

Then, using just the hint of the smells and without having touched another plant, the dodder grew toward its preferred victim. That is, the dodder reliably sensed and attacked the species of plant, from among the choices nearby, on which it would grow best.

“When you see the movies, you very much have this impression of it being like behavior, animal behavior,”

“Plants do send electrical signals from one part of the plant to another,”

Although those signals have been known for 100 years, scientists have no idea what plants do with them.

Other cases of plants not being "plantlike": the sensitive plant, of course stuff like the Venus fly-trap, more recent stuff about plants sending chemical signals, when browsed, that summon predators of the browser, or notify nearby plants to start making chemical defenses before they're browsed.