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?

Sphaerocarpos spontaneously materializes in my angiosperm tray

 

Was it originally a sporecluster buried in Santa Fe Dam's dunes? Or was it one from the Sphaerocarpos I cultured last year, dormant until a piece of lint floated it into my tray? Who knows!

Also of note is the fact that its bubblesacs are not deflated; apparently getting them to stay swollen in captivity isn't too hard if the humidity is low enough. But I transplanted it into a sealed cup (so the mosses don't smother it) so I expect they'll deflate soon. Whatever?