The Guild of Scientific Troubadours

The Guild of Scientific Troubadours

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botany

SONG: The Temples Resurrect These Fallen Trees.

25 June 2025 grant 0

SONG: “The Temples Resurrect These Fallen Trees”. (OGG version here.)

ARTIST: grant.

SOURCE: Based on “Thousands of endangered trees preserved for centuries inside… Read the rest “SONG: The Temples Resurrect These Fallen Trees.”

Scientific illustration of the mushroom Lepiota echinella, also known as Cystoderma echinellum, small, brown found on the forest floor, seen in cross-section and whole in various stages of growth.

Science Art: Lepiota Echinellus, 1887

24 February 2025 grant 0

You probably shouldn’t eat these.

This is an illustration of a Lepiota mushroom from the Bulletin de la Société botanique de France. The genus includes quite a few toxic species, … Read the rest “Science Art: Lepiota Echinellus, 1887”

Scientific illustration of a star algae, geometric green with a purple outline, against the black expanse of a peat bog.

Science Art: La Esperanza Del Río, Micrasterias Truncata, Turberas De Peñayerre

17 February 2025 grant 0

This is a star algae, Micrasterias truncata, as photographed very recently and uploaded to the Flickr Commons collection, “Encyclopedia of Life images.”

The description… Read the rest “Science Art: La Esperanza Del Río, Micrasterias Truncata, Turberas De Peñayerre”

Scientific illustration of a root seen through a microscope, all purple and magenta in round geometries. In the 1970s, this looked like the future.

Science Art: Cross Section of a Young Root, by Roman Vishniac, c. 1978.

22 December 2024 grant 0

This is an image from “the birth of photomicrography.” It’s also an image from the fondly remembered Omni magazine, an issue from 1978 which I found on archive.org. … Read the rest “Science Art: Cross Section of a Young Root, by Roman Vishniac, c. 1978.”

The birds, the bees, the… wolves?

6 December 2024 grant 0

The journal Ecology has some unusual research about wild pollinators. They’ve found that famous species like honeybees and hummingbirds who spread pollen by daintily zipping … Read the rest “The birds, the bees, the… wolves?”

Scientific illustration of a primoridal landscape, particularly ferns, palms, conifers, all vivid green against sparkling blue water and a white-clouded sky.

Science Art: Main floristic types from the Maastrichtian, F. Guillén, 2012.

29 May 2024 grant 0

This is a likeness of the southern bit of South America as it was near the end of the Cretaceous, right before the event that drove the dinosaurs to extinction. The Maastrichtian Age was a geologic… Read the rest “Science Art: Main floristic types from the Maastrichtian, F. Guillén, 2012.”

Plants have desires … and the agency to meet them. So are they smart?

24 May 2024 grant 0

NPR was one of several outlets covering the release of writer Zoë Schlanger’s new book The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life… Read the rest “Plants have desires … and the agency to meet them. So are they smart?”

Scientific illustration of Punica granatum, the "Punic apple" or pomegranate.

Science Art: Punica Granatum, 1829

31 December 2023 grant 0

This tasty-looking fruit is from a medical text – Medical Botany: or, Illustrations and Descriptions of the Medicinal Plants of the London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Pharmacopoeias;… Read the rest “Science Art: Punica Granatum, 1829”

Scientific illustration of a fossii flower, the flower of a cycad.

Science Art: A Fossil Flower (Cycadeoidea ingens), 1924.

19 March 2023 grant 0

This is a photograph of a model from the Field Museum of Natural History, representing a cycad flower reconstructed from a fossil.

The fossil came from the Cycad National Monument, established… Read the rest “Science Art: A Fossil Flower (Cycadeoidea ingens), 1924.”

Scientific illustration of smut growing on seeds and tiny flowers, seen very close up

Science Art: Flower of Polygonum persicarium distorted by Utricle smut and following figures, by J.E. Sowerby, 1872.

24 October 2022 grant 0

This is a bunch of smut. Mostly, it’s smut in the genus Ustilago growing on plants in the same genus as knotweed and buckwheat. The long flower in the middle is Polygonum hydropiper… Read the rest “Science Art: Flower of Polygonum persicarium distorted by Utricle smut and following figures, by J.E. Sowerby, 1872.”

The largest plant in the world stretches over 180 km and is 4,500 years old. And fish like it.

25 June 2022 grant 0

The University of Western Australia has singled out a seagrass, Poseidonia australis, in the waters of Shark Bay, Western Australia, as the world’s largest plant:

UWA student researcher

… Read the rest “The largest plant in the world stretches over 180 km and is 4,500 years old. And fish like it.”
Scientific illustration of plant life under the microscope

Science Art: Bole cross section of common hazel (Corylus avellana), by Annika Karusion, 2011

12 June 2022 grant 0

This is a microscope’s view of a plant’s stem, uploaded to Wikimedia Commons as part of the Estonian Science Photo Competition of 2011, which I can only assume was the forerunner… Read the rest “Science Art: Bole cross section of common hazel (Corylus avellana), by Annika Karusion, 2011”

Tomato plants have a kind of nervous system.

21 July 2021 grant 0

New Scientist reports on research at the Federal University of Pelotas in Brazil, where Gabriela Niemeyer Reissig and colleagues have found that tomatoes being eaten by insects send electrical… Read the rest “Tomato plants have a kind of nervous system.”

Scientific illustration of cypress roots and cypress knees in a southern swamp

Science Art: Cypress root system exposed 4 feet deep by wave action…, 1915.

6 June 2021 grant 0

Today, Folklore Twitter is celebrating #SwampSunday, so I thought I’d slip this stately scientific illustration into my queue. This is what’s going on underneath that dark,… Read the rest “Science Art: Cypress root system exposed 4 feet deep by wave action…, 1915.”

Scientific Illustration of a Taft avocado, from the USDA Pomological Watercolors

Science Art: Persea: Taft, by Royal Charles Steadman, 1914.

7 March 2021 grant 0

Scientific Illustration of a Taft avocado, from the USDA Pomological Watercolors Click to embiggen

It’s an avocado, an aguacate, also known as an alligator pear in English and a “lawyer pear” in Dutch. This is a Taft variety, an ancestor of the Lula … Read the rest “Science Art: Persea: Taft, by Royal Charles Steadman, 1914.”

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