Botany

A wonderful guide for long car rides.

Apologies for the silly clickbait headline.

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/986772

Let's see how many interesting facts about beans we can bring together.

Pythagoras’s aversion to beans, though, always got a lot of attention, even from ancient writers. According to Pliny, Pythagoreans believed that fava beans could contain the souls of the dead, since they were flesh-like. Due to their black-spotted flowers and hollow stems, some believers thought the plants connected earth and Hades, providing ladders for human souls. The beans’ association with reincarnation and the soul made eating fava beans close to cannibalism. Aristotle, writing earlier, went much further. One possible reason for the ban, he wrote, was that the bulbous shape of beans represented the entire universe. Nevertheless, other Greeks ate plenty of fava beans, and Pythagorean beliefs were mocked. The poet Horace tauntingly called beans “relations of Pythagoras.”

"The conservation of the genetic resources of old trees is crucial to their ecological role but is extremely difficult, especially for oak species (Quercus spp.) displaying recalcitrance in seed and vegetative propagation methods. Our study aimed to assess the regenerative potential of Quercus robur trees of different ages (up to 800 years) during micropropagation. We also aimed to determine how in vitro conditions can influence in vitro regeneration responses.[..]"

I just found out that mine is Coleus. Genus of Cuban oregano and a ton of other cool plants like the Hausa potato and Livingstone potato. Apart of the family Lamiaceae, which is the same family as mint and deadnettles.

Pretty cool and simple practical experiment

Photography tip that I recently learned: Easiest way to get a black background is to take the photo at night, making sure that there is a large distance between the object and any wall behind it. If the flash is unable to reach the wall, then you have a dark background. Final adjustments done with rawtherapee can make it completely black.

For this photo I placed the potted plant on a table and then aimed the camera towards the longest corridor in my apartment (which is not very long).

The flowers have since produced seeds, and some of these seeds are seedlings at the moment. One of the seedlings is a mutant with three embryonic leaves instead of two (a tricot)!