Kicking the plastic habit - What about Silicone or Rubber? In my previous post, I neglected to mention two other materials that might replace some plastic use - silicone and rubber. Are they any better? The short answer is yes, but with some important qualifications. Neither is made from fossil fuels, and so that is a plus.  Both are less toxic to us and our environment, and neither breaks down into fine particles like microplastics. 'll deal with silicone first. Silicone is a rubber-like material that is actually made from plain old silicate sand (SO2), as is glass. There are many ..read more

 I was recently on the expedition class Viking Octantis for a cruise along the Chilean coast. The ship staff included a team of scientists and naturalists who were actively investigating environmental changes in the oceans while engaging and educating the ships passengers.  One lecture dealt with the issue of plastics in the oceans, which now pollute even Antarctic waters and coastlines. That sobering lecture was the inspiration for this essay. We live in a plastic world. Plastics are durable, inexpensive, and convenient. From plastic water bottles, packaging, and shopping bags ..read more

Aloe erinacea superficially resembles a  cactus, but closer examination reveals  that the plant consists of closely-spaced, spirally-arranged succulent leaves with spines along the edges. In cacti, leaves  are done away with altogether, or adapted as spines.  The picture at the right is a member of the genus Aloe. We all know the most common member of this genus, Aloe vera,  grown as a garden ornamental, as a source of skin ointment, or for its edible leaves. The species pictured, Aloe erinacea, with its compact, rounded overall shape and prominent spines ..read more

Blackberries grow on prickly vines or brambles,  and are members of the Rose Family (Rosaceae).  As I was picking mulberries from a tree in my back yard the other day, I was reminded of the similarity between blackberries and mulberries. They are strikingly similar in appearance.  Like most dark fruits, they are both rich in nutrients and protective phytochemicals. For the consumer, the primary differences are the somewhat milder, less sweet flavor, and the annoying little green stems of of mulberries. Depending on the climate, one or the other may be easier to gr ..read more

  Coconut palms commonly grow along tropical coastlines in a zone of salt-tolerant vegetation, but not directly in saltwater. Coconuts may fall onto the beach and be carried away by high tides, but not usually directly into the water.  Coconut palms have a distinctive, arching growth form, which is somewhat unusual among palms. Most solitary, tree-like palms grow straight upward rather rigidly. The reason for the coconut palm's graceful arch has led to much speculation online, some of it rather goofy, such as that they lean out over the shoreline ..read more

 As plant life evolved, several major breakthroughs allowed them to greatly expand their footprint across the globe. These breakthroughs were major macroevolutionary shifts brought about by a series of small microevolutionary adaptations. The essential characteristics of Plants are each associated with one or more of these major breakthroughs. Such events are described in more detail in Plant Life: a Brief History, I present here a brief synopsis of those major events: The earliest known fossil cyanobacteria formed layered colonies that slowly built pil ..read more

 A weed is sometimes defined as a plant out of place - or more often an overwhelming mass of plants popping up where we don't want them. It's a definition based on our futile attempts to to remake a landscape into something a human vision of tidiness. To be fair weeds are often exotic plants - invasive species from another continent freed from their usual constraints of competitors and predators. And so, weeds are also bad for our natural ecosystems, not just to our landscaping vanity. Weeds are mostly plants that are really good at spreading into disturbed habitats. They multiply rapid ..read more

Vining plants have an amazing ability to grab onto a  trellis, fence, or a twig on another plant by curling around it. It's an adaptation that allows the vine to grow rapidly upward using other objects for support. This gives them a distinct advantage over tree or shrub saplings that need to build their own woody support as they grow upwards. But how does it work?  The process is called thigmotropism, or touch-induced growth response.  Specialized organs called tendrils, or sometimes the stem of a young plant itself, can sense contact with a nearby object and al ..read more

In this Bearded Iris  the leaves are folded and flattened, forming a fan perpendicular to the tip of the rhizome. Many members of the Iris Family exhibit a peculiar, fan-shaped arrangement of their leaves. Leaves that are lined up on two sides of the stem in a single plane are called 2-ranked, or equitant.  Such an arrangement of leaves is not uncommon, occurring in the Traveler's Palm, Ravenala madagascariensis, for example. In the Traveler's Palm, leaves are equitant, but have conventional, spreading blades, with exposed upper and&nbs ..read more

The sepals of a rose bud are green and photosynthetic like fully developed leaves, and like the one on the left, sometimes even appear to partially subdivided like full leaves. From an evolutionary point-of-view, it is generally accepted that the parts of the flower originated as modified leaves. Though there is controversy about the nature of the earliest carpels and stamens, the leaf-like nature of petals and sepals is abundantly evident. Sepals are generally the most leaf-like, no doubt because they are the most recently evolved of the flower parts, and may have originated sep ..read more