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?

The ventral surface of Asterella can iridesce

 

Who knew? 

Here is its dorsum by the way (I assume the yellow crumbs are pollen from some bush or someth- edit: wait a minute, just realized the thing has macroscopic spores! I shook a sporophyte repeatedly and they kept falling out.)

Followup to below

I've been seeing large aggregations of various synanthropic native and invasive aphidophages (golly gee, what a lot of adjectives) in the wilderness, but only near weedy mustard megaclusters. Presumably they are murdering various mustard aphids.

More "pristine" habitat remains low in insect density, with a few exceptions.

Random observation

 Despite the co-occurence of drought-relieving rains and plentiful host plants (many mass-blooming), insects (aside from A. mellifera and a few other ecologically aggressive spp.) continue to be sparse at both Millard Canyon and Sante Fe Dam Recreation Area. I don't think it has to do with pesticides either.

A few hypotheses:

- Low insect density may be natural (this is less unreasonable than it sounds; there are high numbers of self-fertilizing native plants present, and the Eleodes of the dam are suspiciously violent towards conspecifics).

- The rains may not have been enough; insect populations there only rebound after many consecutive nondrought years.

- The rains were enough but habitat destruction is so bad that rain is no longer a population-limiting factor.

"Three papers on insect tameness": a followup

 One paper on insect obliviousness.

https://doi.org/10.3390%2Finsects9040179

Their findings make sense, considering how a number of non-lepidopteran bugs in the hobby have trouble finding food in large cages.

Navarretia hamata has also decided to be pretty

 

Flower 1 opened Feb 15. Flower 2 (directly above it in this image) opened today, and in fact did so exactly 30 minutes or less after I took this photograph!

The other two hamata currently in my tray have no visible flowers as of this writing. All three've bolted some time ago, though.

Note 2 self: how to rule out atractyl?

Crassula connata has decided to be pretty

 

But pretty botany pictures are rather boring. Also, note that the small size + redness are due to it being a heavily-insolated wild plant; my other specimens are green and resemble miniature bushes.

The pictured individual eventually turned green too after being transplanted.

New microwort

 

More about it later; I'm too depressed to post my paragraph.

Update: it died a week or 2 later.

Sphaerocarpos is p much fully metamorphosed

 

It's also way larger than it was only a month ago, though this isn't obvious in the pic.

I regret calling my gemmaless gametophytes noniridescent

Left some in a bag for several days cause I was depressed, and they turned slightly metallic (well, either that or the gemmiferous one infested its container, which is very unlikely).

Remind me to not make sloppy assumptions.

Edit: perhaps I may have mistaken their standard satiny sheen for iridescence. Remind me to not make sloppy assumptions.

Sphaerocarpos metamorphoses into its high-humidity form

 

Photograph taken on 1/6, but metamorphosis had began way earlier. Hard to believe it's the exact same individual specimen as the one in the previous post, isn't it?