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SISYPHUS ROLLED THEIR BOULDER UP A HILL. THEIR LIFE HAD BEGUN LONG BEFORE THE MAN WHO BORE THEIR NAME - THEIR AFTERLIFE WOULD CONTINUE UNTIL THE END OF TIME OR THE END OF TYRANNY [WHICHEVER CAME FIRST]. BY NOW, THEIR FACE WAS A MANIFOLD, EVERY PIECE OF ITS FLESH THE VISAGE OF A DIFFERENT INDIVIDUAL WHO HAD CHALLENGED AND LOST TO THE NATURAL ORDER. THEIR ARMS HAD GROWN SIMILARLY MULTITUDINOUS, YET STILL THEY COULD NOT OUTWIT THE INFAMOUS STONE.

ONE OF THEIR FACEPIECES NOTICED A LICHEN UPON THE STONE. "THE ONTOLOGICAL AND ECOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS ARE FASCINATING," THOUGHT THE PIECE TO ITSELF.

BUT THE TWO HOLOBIONTS ROLLED DOWN THE SLOPE. TOGETHER.

Comparison

 

2 different localities from same county. The bottom one's near Azusa River Wilderness Park's entrance; the top, a short distance beyond the Mount Wilson Trailhead entrance. The Azusa specimen is the same one pictured on a previous post.

I'm running a common-garden experiment to see how much of their phenotype variation is genetic and how much is environmentally induced.

Edit: oh god I think the top one's apical notch has died, looks like it's time to get a new sample. 

Not that it's incapable of making new notches (but when the preexisting one dies the new ones come out on ventral branches, and I can't figure out a 100% objective way to distinguish ventral branches induced by clonal regeneration from ventral branches of a genetically different specimen that happened to have been hiding underneath as a spore or something. Sometimes two overlapping specimens are appressed + affixed to each other so tightly they look like they're part of the same flesh even though they aren't.)

Another intriguing observation

 

I discovered the drought-stress phenotype of Marchantia polymorpha (above) is uncannily similar to the normal wild phenotype of a lot of aridland Marchantiophyta. In particular, note the dying sides and unusually large fraction of dead rear here; compare to Asterella images from my previous posts.

In a way it's kinda unsurprising, but on the other hand I suppose it's pretty weird Asterella evolved to look (and possibly act) half-dead by default, know what I mean?