Sorting Used Books

I sorted used books for Friends of the Library at two of our county libraries this month.

The first library was not one I had been in before and the sorting was done in a small windowless room lined with shelves --- table in the middle with bins underneath --- a narrow walk space around the table. The door is left open; otherwise, it would be very claustrophobic. There was one bag of donated books that was in bad shape (water damage, detached covers, a musty smell); most of those went into the recycling bin. The other volunteer and I quickly sorted everything and boxed up over 10 boxes to go into storage for the next book sale. It was a good experience but not the place I want to do book sorting very often.

The second library was one that is close to where I live and one I had worked in before. The room is without windows but is large…plenty of room to move around and the boxes of books are kept in the middle of the room.

There aren’t as many puzzles being donated these days so I didn’t find any while I was sorting to buy from the library for my dad’s assisted living home.

Milestones

Last week marked two ‘milestones’ in my Missouri Master Naturalist (MMN) volunteering:

My tree educational trunk capstone project (part of the MMN training) is finished (or at least at a good stopping place). I had intended to leave it at the Springfield Missouri Department of Conservation for storage…and I savored the fall foliage from my car when I got there. The fall has lingered this year without a hard frost to hurry the end. By the end of the morning, I was taking the trunk home along with some additional educational materials since there is a plan to use the trunk for outreach sessions in January and maybe the Osage orange would be dry enough to add to it by then. I’m still thinking about it as ‘finished.’

I also started a new project: creating a collection of soft pith stems in a bucket (suggestion from Wild Bee Lab Facebook Page). I’ll check it periodically to see if any bees use the stems for nests. My initial collection includes pokeweed, forsythia, bush honeysuckle, and goldenrod. Yes – some are non-native but if the bees use them, I’ll be even more vigorous in getting rid of the non-natives around my yard and doing this with the stems rather than burning them in my chiminea.

Project FeederWatch

My husband signed us up for Project FeederWatch and we are counting our feeder birds together – 2 days a week, an AM and PM time each day for a total of 2 hours. We have comfy chairs situated at a large window and leave our binoculars within reach. I do the logging into the app on my phone as we observe – no paper involved at all. This is the view from our window. I moved the chairs from around the table before our latest count. It’s a very calming activity. I usually have a cup of hot tea at my elbow.

We’ve had several rainy days. The light was poor enough that we opted to take the screens off the window (no bird strikes there so far). It made photography a little easier too.

A squirrel has come through may times while we’ve counted; it only stopped at a feeder once (didn’t manage to get anything) since there were plenty of acorns around and it’s the squirrel’s time of year to bury them!

The most numerous birds are sparrows (white throated and white crowned) and finches (gold and house). There are a couple of juncos but we had more last year so maybe they have not all arrived in our area yet from their breeding areas to the north. There are occasional titmice, chickadees, and a red-bellied woodpecker. The grackles are also occasional….they are too big to get much from our feeders; one or two come around to try but don’t stay long fortunately.

Our holly tree has berries, but we haven’t had any hard frosts yet…haven’t seen any birds eating the berries.

Our Missouri Yard – November 2024

We haven’t had any extremely cold weather yet. Some trees have lost their leaves but not the oaks. We already are well above the monthly average for rainfall so are recovering somewhat from the drought through the summer and fall…just as we are bracing for winter.

The violets are reduced in volume but still mostly green. They have been a great plant for extending the flower beds on the east side of our house into the yard (I have several feet of ‘grass’ that is so thick with violets that I haven’t mowed it for at least two months!).

I have an area that is full of pine needles and clippings (grass, boxwood, yew) that I will plant with hostas next spring – as soon as my established clumps of hostas begin to sprout and can be easily divided. The rhododendron looks great…lots of buds for next spring’s blooms. The grapevine that I’ve draped over the stubble of a crape myrtle is turning yellow. I’m not sure what I will do with it next year. I don’t want it growing into the rhododendron but there is not a lot of space where it can go otherwise.

The seeds are falling out of the chives. These plants were started a few years ago from seeds I got from my mother’s garden. There is an oak seedling growing in the lambs ear. The closest oak tree is a pin oak, but the squirrels might plant acorns from further afield. The parent of a maple seedling might be one of the maples in our front yard…although it is on the other side of the house from where this seedling is growing.

The spicebush that I bought and planted about a month ago is showing some fall color…hope it comes back in the spring.

It is obvious we haven’t had a hard freeze yet this year. There are ‘intimate landscapes’ with fall colors everywhere.

I am trying to ‘leave the leaves’ this year rather than mow them. There were two piles that had been created by the wind in my front yard so I gathered them up into the wheelbarrow to move to my compost spot where the hostas will go. Otherwise I am leaving the scattering of leaves on the yard. I might have to move some oak leaves that fall into our yard once our neighbor’s tree drops its leaves. Overall, the wind had done most of the ‘raking’ of leaves either away from my yard or into areas where they can stay.

The Virginia creeper on the west side of the house has already lost its leaves but the plants near our front door are spectacularly red.

The aromatic sumac has lots of buds. I hope it makes seed clusters next season.

The Ozark witch hazel is probably too small to bloom in January but hopefully it will in a few years. I found a small tree growing under the holly trees. The leaves are rough…maybe a hackberry? I am going to leave it be for now…just as I am all the redbud seedlings!

I still have work to do before it gets too cold: pulling/digging out Japanese honeysuckle primarily.

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 16, 2024

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Drought Expands Across the U.S. – We are finally getting some rain…but we are in the ‘extreme drought’ area of southwestern Missouri; it is going to take a lot to get back to ‘normal.’ On October 29, abnormal dryness and drought affected over 78 percent of the American population—the highest percentage in the U.S. Drought Monitor’s 25-year-long record.

Cholera, Zika and West Nile: The deadly diseases that sweep in after hurricanes – Damage to infrastructure has been the big focus of reporting in the US, but diseases are ramping up.

  • Florida health authorities released a warning in early October of a likely spike in Vibrio vulnificus infections, urging residents to avoid wading in floodwaters.  Vibrio vulnificus is a bacteria which can cause the breakdown of skin and soft tissue, sometimes leading to amputations.

  • West Nile cases rose in Louisiana and Mississippi following Hurricane Katrina.

  • Studies found that flooding in Louisiana following hurricanes Rita and Katrina led to an increase in the airborne fungi Penicillium and Aspergillus, which can cause allergies, respiratory infections and pneumonia.

  • Research into the aftermath of hurricanes Maria, Irma and Michael, shows that a significant number of people in Florida developed new chronic health conditions such as asthma and allergies in the six months following the disasters.

Satellite Imagery Shows Breadth of Flooding in Spain - Valencia saw a year’s worth of rainfall in just eight hours, with floods destroying buildings, disrupting trains, and leaving more than 100,000 homes without power.

What animal societies can teach us about aging - Humans are not the only animals to change our social behavior as we age. Red deer may become less sociable as they grow old to reduce the risk of picking up diseases, while older house sparrows seem to have fewer social interactions as their peers die off.

The world’s oldest tree? Genetic analysis traces evolution of iconic Pando forest - By sequencing hundreds of samples from the tree, researchers confirmed that Pando, a quaking aspen tree (Populus tremuloides) in Utah, is between 16,000 and 80,000 years old. Pando consists of some 47,000 stems that cover an area of 42.6 hectares in Utah’s Fishlake National Forest. Because of the way the plant reproduces, this collection of aspens is technically all one tree, supported by a single, vast root system. Pando is triploid, meaning that its cells contain three copies of each chromosome, rather than two. As a result, Pando cannot reproduce sexually and mix its DNA with that of other trees, and instead creates clones of itself.

Have we found all the major Maya cities? Not even close – Using lidar to survey 50 square miles revealed evidence of more than 6,500 pre-Hispanic structures, including a previously unknown large city complete with iconic stone pyramids.

Stunning Shortlisted Photos From the 2024 Close-Up Photographer of the Year Contest – My favorite was “Chicory” for the color…and that I knew what it was!

Low-level lead poisoning is still pervasive in the US and globally - Chronic, low-level lead poisoning is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease in adults and cognitive deficits in children. Factors such as menopause and hyperthyroidism release lead sequestered in the skeleton, which causes a spike in blood lead concentrations. The solution to protecting people from lead poisoning is to identify and eliminate environmental sources of lead: eliminating lead acid batteries, replacing lead service lines, banning leaded aviation fuel, reducing lead in foods, abating lead paint in older housing, and further reducing lead-contaminated soil and other legacy sources.

Ghost Forests Creep Into North Carolina - Large swaths of cypress and pine forests along the southeast Atlantic coast have died, shed their bark, and become pale, leafless snags that line the waterways like gravestones. In the period before winds topple the snags over and shrubs cover them up, researchers call the eerie ecosystems “ghost forests.” One place that is it happening is Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge…and I realized I have been there! We visited in April of 2015. It was the first place I saw river otters and two vultures (different species) sharing a meal. There probably were bald cypress dying in 2015, but it is even more evident now.

Trees cool better than reflective roofs in vulnerable Houston neighborhoods - Heat islands occur in cities where structures such as buildings and roads absorb the sun's heat more than natural landscapes such as trees and grass. The researchers considered three different heat island mitigation strategies: painting roofs white to increase solar reflectance; planting vegetation on roofs to increase evaporation through the plants; and planting more trees, which increases evaporation and provides shade.

Wm. H. Edwards’ Butterflies of North America

As we head into winter – I am thinking about butterflies…how I didn’t see as many (or any species) this past summer. Maybe it is the drought in our area, and they will be more numerous next year. I hope so.

Edwards’ volume is the first of three he produced in the 1870s. The illustrations were done by Mary Peart and hand colored by Lydia Brown and often include more than simply the adult butterfly in the later volumes. They are well worth browsing.

The butterflies of North America

 I’ve not thoroughly browsed the other two volumes yet but I think I found them on Internet Archive as well: Volume 2, Volume 3.

Sustaining Elder Care – November 2024

I have two book/puzzle sorting days at my community library before I go off to Dallas again…I am hoping to find some more 300-piece puzzles to take for my Dad. I think he is probably running a bit low and maybe my sister is bringing some older ones back that he hasn’t done recently. We don’t have as many 300-piece as we do 500…and those 500-piece ones are getting too hard for him.

The past month has been more stressful in terms of elder care than I anticipated. There is a disagreement between us daughters about whether he is having pain when he eats and he needs his food ground up. Observations of him eating are not consistent. We have asked the dentist he saw last to make an assessment….since to make the change in mealtime routine for the assisted living staff will require a doctor’s order.  On the plus side – I don’t think my dad is aware of the turmoil. Most of the interaction among my sisters and I is via text; I’ve stopped looking at the messages about an hour before bedtime to try to reduce the impact on my sleep. It’s also caused me to start thinking more about what I want my relationship with my sisters to be separate from our shared interest in our father’s well-being.

McDaniel Park

The last field trip of the Identifying Woody Plants class was to McDaniel Park – a convenient commute from the campus. It had a lot of invasive plants (Japanese honeysuckle, Winter creeper, Bush honeysuckle, White Mulberries) but some native species too --- lots of good review. Unfortunately, I had forgotten my bridge camera so only had my phone for photography.

One of the review trees was Osage orange – Maclura pomifera – Moraceae. None of the trees had fruit under them. Had it been picked up or were they all male trees?

A new species was Rose of Sharon - Hibiscus syriacus – Malvaceae.  I was as fascinated by the insects on the seed pods (Hibiscus Scentless Plant bugs?)as I was the plant. This is a plant I am familiar with…not native but widely planted. The seeds are hairy!

The River birch - Betula nigra - Betulaceae is an easy one to id from the bark and catkins.

Did you know that poison ivy seeds are white? It was something I learned this semester…not sure why I had never noticed before.

Arcuately veined and opposite fall leaves of a silky dogwood – Cornus obliqua – Cornaceae.

And the variability of Sassafras leaves – Sassafras albidum – Lauraceae. For some reason, I got stuck years ago on ‘mitten’ leaves but the leaves are not always like that!

Our teacher collected seeds and twigs for the lab next week and that included Winged sumac – Rhus copallinum – Anacardiaceae.  I am intrigued that it is used to make tea. We previously saw smooth sumac but there were no seeds on those plants.

I couldn’t resist taking some pictures of fall foliage and a recently cut tree trunk (the tree was around 50 years old).

The field trip was a pleasant fall afternoon – a good finale. I am realizing I that  will miss the weekly classes and am solidifying my plan for the spring semester.

13th Anniversary of my Blog

This is the 13th anniversary of this blog space. It all started when I made the firm decision to retire and started a daily blog…a few months before my career formally ended. It was a way for me to guarantee a little bit of structure in what loomed as a time of my life without many external requirements on my time.

Work had dominated so much of my time – way more than my college education during the first decade of my career…more than my daughter’s 1st 20 years in decades 1.5-3.5 of my career. My husband has been a constant through it all  - both of us putting considerable time into our careers. Mine ended without a glide path (intentional on my part)….his was a glide that finally ended a few years after my retirement. We both were aware of developing new ways to fill our days with a mix of activities that we chose – sometimes very different from things we did while our careers were active.

Writing a daily blog has had a positive impact on furthering my artistic side…and sometimes spurring me to action.

Previous anniversary posts: 12th anniversary, 11th anniversary, 10th anniversary, 9th anniversary

Ritter Springs Park

Another fall foliage outing we enjoyed a week or so ago….

Ritter Springs Park is north of Springfield. We took a scenic route to get there and then hiked to the lake and back. I was with my husband and daughter who were intent on hiking rather than photography….so I didn’t take many pictures.

There were lots of oaks and hickories…hackberries…sweet gum. I picked up several cones from the Norway Spruce that was near the parking lot; they will make a fourth type of pinecone in my tree educational trunk!

The water level at the lake was low but still flowing out into the stream below the dam. There were dead leaves in the shallow water beginning to decay…lots of food for the macroinvertebrates in the water.

I read on the park’s web page that there is a summer camp there. I wondered how they handled the campers when thunderstorms come though since there is only a pavilion (not a building).  Otherwise, the place has a lot to offer for a summer camp.

Pumpkin Art

My son-in-law hosted his annual pumpkin carving event last week for his research group. I am always impressed with the artful carvings the undergraduate/graduate biology students produce – or maybe my son-in-law is an excellent pumpkin carving coach! (click on the image below to see a larger version)

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 09, 2024

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Old Growth – Mitch Epstein photographs of very old trees.

The true story of a famed librarian and the secret she guarded closely – Belle da Costa Greene, the first director of New York's historic Morgan Library and Museum.

Inside Turkey’s Mysterious Ancient City That Once Sheltered Thousands—Underground - The Derinkuyu underground city is a sort of gargantuan anthill, except made by and for humans—up to 20,000 of them at a time, in fact. The city descends 280 feet into the earth, divided into eight levels. Upper levels were primarily used for living and sleeping, while lower levels were used for storage, even housing a dungeon. The far-stretched system of interconnected rooms was carved out of the Cappadocia region’s tuff rock. People didn’t live in these underground quarters year-round, however, as they were mainly used for shelter during times of conflict or extreme weather.

Climate change will affect food production, but here are the things we can do to adapt - Farmers can pick crop varieties best suited to different climate condition...production can shift to places with more optimal temperatures…planting and harvest times can shift as the seasons shift…focusing on the right irrigation, fertilizer, pesticides synchronized to climate change. We have the chance to build a more productive and resilient food system, but it’s not guaranteed that we will. It depends on whether the seeds, irrigation, and adaptation practices will be available. That will require real and sustained investment from governments, donors, and private companies.

Toothbrushes and showerheads covered in viruses ‘unlike anything we’ve seen before’ - We live in a richly microbial world. Interactions with bacteria and other microbes in our homes are an integral part of our human biology.

The monarch butterfly may not be endangered, but its migration is - Migrating monarchs don't fly at night, so they spend their evenings in bunches on trees or shrubs, known as roosts. The study relied on 17 years of data from more than 2,600 citizen scientist observations of monarch roosts along the butterfly's migration route. The researchers found that roost sizes have declined by as much as 80%, with these losses increasing from north to south along the migration route. The evidence shows that when monarchs are reared in a captive environment, either indoors or outdoors, they're not as good at migrating.

World’s Rivers Are Driest They - In 2023, the hottest year on record, the Mississippi River and Amazon River basins were at all-time lows, while the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Mekong rivers, which all have their headwaters in the Himalayas, were also unusually dry. Across nearly half the globe, rivers were drier than normal.

The worrying puzzle behind the rise in early-onset cancer - Over the past 10 years, rates of colorectal cancer among 25- to 49-year-olds have increased in 24 different countries, including the UK, US, France, Australia, Canada, Norway and Argentina. Perhaps the most obvious explanation points to the role of obesity and metabolic syndrome, conditions which have been associated with driving cancer risk through increasing inflammation throughout the body and causing the dysregulation of key hormonal pathways. Or maybe changes in sleep patterns is part of the explanation. Combined with shifts in lifestyle, many cancer scientists believe that a key driving force for these illnesses is the consequences of various toxic changes within the gut (from microplastics). Antibiotics might be involved too. The bottom line…it’s a looming public health crisis.

New research reveals how large-scale adoption of electric vehicles can improve air quality and human health - Computer simulations show that aggressive electrification of the U.S. vehicle fleet, coupled with an ambitious rollout of renewable electricity generation, could result in health benefits worth between US$84 billion and 188 billion by 2050. Even scenarios with less aggressive grid decarbonization mostly predicted health benefits running into the tens of billions of dollars.

New study explores how universities can improve student well-being - Six guiding principles for improving student well-being:

  • Embedding well-being into curricula for broader, more accessible adoption.

  • Having each initiative only focus on one or two aspects of well-being, making it easier to create instruction that can also be more immersive.

  • Tailoring initiatives to the student body and university culture.

  • Securing buy-in from faculty.

  • Ensuring new offerings are accessible and don't create additional financial burden for students.

  • Employing an iterative assessment framework at the beginning to make it easier to change or scale up a program.

A Hand-book to the Order Lepidoptera

William Forsell Kirby was an English Entomologist that authored a 5-volume Handbook to the Order Lepidoptera in 1896 and 1897. I am featuring the 1st volume as this week’s ‘book of the week’ because I was so pleased to find it. I had somehow browsed the other 4 volumes back in 2016! Enjoy the 4 sample images….and follow the link to see many more.

A hand-book to the order Lepidoptera - volume 1

The links to the other 4 volumes are: two, three, four, five.

Valley Water Mill Park

The MSU Identifying Woody Plants class went to Valley Water Mill Park last week. It is northeast of Springfield MO and includes a variety of habitats: upland forest, bottomland forest, wetland, glade, prairie, savanna, and lake/stream. It’s a place I will want to visit again.

We saw a lot of trees we had seen before and some new ones too. The fall is changing the way we go about identifying the woody plants we’d seen before.

The bald cypresses are losing their needles…and there were trees at this park with knees (the previous ones were growing in locations where they did not produce knees). The knees make them easy to ID.

The buttonbush had lost its leaves, but the round seed heads make it easy enough to ID.

There were lots of sycamore leaves on the ground…many were huge and, sometimes, still green.

A Wahoo was obvious but our teacher said there was aphid damage too which is frustrating.

Poison ivy berries…new-to-me…good to know.

Black cherry bark – of a young tree and an older tree.

Some new species:

A bittersweet – no leaves but lots of fruit.

A chestnut – ID from the bur alone down to genus.

Japanese honeysuckle. This is one I recognize easily but I hadn’t noticed the seeds before.

Coralberry. This might be one I add to my yard someday – although I don’t know where yet.

Black haw or cherry-leafed viburnum is even more likely to find its way into my yard. It might make a good planting in the bowl left from a tree in my front yard that was removed before we bought the house.  It is a shrub that does well in shade so it might work to fill in between the two maples and provide flowers in the spring and fall/winter food for wildlife.

The lake was low even though there had been about an inch of rain the previous night. The area has been in drought for so long that it is going to take time to replenish the water level. There was evidence of beaver (many of the trees have wire cages around their base for protection.

Valley Water Mill Park might become one of my favorite places in the Springfield area.  My husband and I will probably make a ‘field trip’ there and walk the whole loop around the lake. I also filled out the form to volunteer for their education/outreach programs.

Garrison Springs Community Forest

There were still some leaves on the trees when we visited Garrison Springs Community Forest in Ozark, Missouri last month. It is a newly opened natural area snuggled into the developed area of Ozark. The vegetation makes it feel much further out; the ‘noise’ of the place is only the gurgle of water from 3 springs and the sounds of birds singing and leaves moving in the breeze.

Our area had gotten very little rain the past few months, but the springs still were flowing, and robins were bathing along with the newly fallen leaves.

A daddy long legs (harvestman) crossed our path as we headed back to the car. We stopped to get a picture.

This place is small but not that far from where we live…a place to visit again for a quick nature fix…and to see the improvements as they happen in the next few years.

Sprouting an Acorn

I picked up some acorns back in September – pin oak (neighbor’s oak) and white oak (from Identifying Wood Plants field trip). Some of each were wrapped in damp paper towels to sprout. Only one sprouted! It was a white oak which was not too surprising since they are known for sprouting in the fall (didn’t learn this until I had the acorns in the damp paper towels).

The sprouted acorn is now in a modified soft drink bottle with some soil…in the window of my office. The pictures below show the young white oak over the past 7 days.

The plan is to keep it indoors through the winter and plant it outdoors after the last frost next spring. It could be the only white oak in the neighborhood!

Missouri Master Naturalist Training – Week 9

The last session of the Missouri Master Naturalist Training was one lecture followed by graduation and ice cream cake!

The lecture was on invasives. Most of the invasive plants I was familiar with (from Maryland)…except for Sericea Lespedeza which is a warm-season, perennial legume. It is something that was introduced intentionally then escaped and is now widespread – outcompeting native plants. Frustratingly – its seeds are still being sold and attempts to stop that at the state level have failed.

There were some trunk sections of young ash trees killed by Emerald Ash Borer. The widespread death of ashes in Missouri is happening now…just as it did in Maryland several years ago.

The good (so far) news on the invasive insect front is that Missouri does not have Spotted Lanternfly…although it is probably only a matter of time since the insect is in Illinois and Kentucky.

Graduation included a magnetic name badge and a certificate (and some goodies that included milkweed seeds). I splurged and had 2 pieces of ice cream cake!

I am going to miss the rigor of the class but am relaxing a bit – savoring my Identifying Woody Plants class at the university that continues into December!

Zentangle® – October 2024

I made considerably more tiles in October than I did in September – acclimating to my increased activity level taking two classes (Missouri Master Naturalist training and Identifying Woody plants field class). I enjoyed the usual square and rectangular tiles – skewing somewhat to black tiles.

I did 6 tiles using simple tree leaf/fruit coloring pages for the ‘string.’ I found the pages to include in the educational materials I was collecting about our native trees for younger audiences. It was a fun experiment. I think I will make a version of the pages that has just the outline of the leaves (not the venation) to increase the variety of ways the spaces could be filled.

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The Zentangle® Method is an easy-to-learn, relaxing, and fun way to create beautiful images by drawing structured patterns. It was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. “Zentangle” is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc. Learn more at zentangle.com.

Gleanings of the Week Ending November 02, 2024

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Astonishing Photo of Millions of Monarch Butterflies Wins 2024 European Wildlife Photographer of the Year Contest – Starting out the gleanings list this week with beautiful images from nature.

Iceberg A-68: The story of how a mega-berg transformed the ocean - Scientists following A-68's birth and demise were able to track just what such giant icebergs do to the surrounding ocean. For its short, transient life as an iceberg, A-68 became a frozen lifeboat for a wide range of species. Over its three-and-a-half-year journey since it broke away from the Antarctic ice shelf, A-68 lost 802 billion tons of ice as it thinned from an average thickness of 770ft (235m) to 551ft (168m). Over a three-month period at the end of 2020 and start of 2021, it dumped an estimated 152 billion tons of fresh water into the ocean – that is equivalent to almost 61 million Olympic-sized swimming pools. At the peak of its breakup, around 1.5 billion tons of fresh water was gushing into the ocean every day. The crushing weight of the freshwater from A-68a as it melted may have helped force carbon-based material down more quickly, to depths where it was less likely to be eaten.

Salmon Make a Long-Awaited Return to the Klamath River for the First Time in 112 Years, After Largest Dam Removal in U.S. – Four dams blocked the salmon’s migration between the Klamath basin and the Pacific Ocean…but now the dams have been removed, and the fish are returning. The first salmon in the river since 1912 were spotted less than two months after the last dam was removed.

Avian architects: weaver birds in Africa have unique building styles – The African white-browed sparrow weavers build nests that look like pompoms in acacia trees. Some families build roosts that are very long, with long entrance and exit tubes; others will build roosts that are much shorter, with hardly any tubes. Essentially, it looks like different white-browed sparrow weaver families have different architectural styles. Researchers excluded all environmental and genetic explanations for the differences in the structures built by different families. Maybe, like humans, some species of birds have their own architectural traditions passed on across generations through social interactions.

Huge! A Roman Engineering Marvel Reaching Across a Spanish City - In Segovia, the Romans built an aqueduct that stands as arguably their greatest architectural legacy from six centuries in Spain. After drawing water from the Frio River, the aqueduct runs underground for some 10 miles before appearing in Segovia as a grand, elegant beast that strides for nearly 2,400-feet across the town. Comprised of more than 20,000 blocks of granite and erected without a lick of mortar, at its highest point the aqueduct reaches more than 90-feet high with narrow, double arches. It remained in use until the late 1970s.

Life-saving spongelike 'bandage' rapidly stops hemorrhaging and mitigates risk of infection - A liquid gel comprised of siloxanes (silicon and oxygen) that is delivered via a special two-chamber syringe which rapidly expands into a spongy foam upon exposure to each other within the wound in under one minute. The sponge applies pressure to restrict the hemorrhage at the delivery site while also serving as an antibacterial agent because of the silver oxide in it.

Learning in the Environment: The Importance of Expanding Outdoor Education Across the United States - Although environmental discussions are expanding in schools, students often lack the opportunity to interact with the natural world through outdoor education, including place-based learning located in nature. The widespread decline of green spaces, especially in densely populated areas, restricts youth engagement with the environment. Interacting with the outdoors helps students to understand not only the environment itself but the role they can play in protecting it.

Chickpeas: Sustainable and climate-friendly foods of the future - Chickpeas are a drought-resistant legume plant with a high protein content that can complement grain cultivation systems even in urban areas. I have discovered that roasted chickpeas is my favorite ‘crunch’ topping for soups and salads!

Photo Contest Celebrates Excellence in Architectural Photography – I haven’t done much architectural photography…but maybe it is something to consider…when I am not able to do nature photography (which is my favorite).

Grasslands live in the climate change fast lane - The rapid shifts in grassland communities involve not only the gain of some hotter, drier species but also the loss of some cooler, wetter species. These shifts might have negative consequences such as dominance by non-native species and loss of biodiversity.

eBotanical Prints – October 2024

Twenty more books were added to my botanical print book collection in October - available for browsing on Internet Archive. These 20 books covered a range of botanical topics: berries, fruits, nuts, plants for sale as well as plants of particular places (Mexico, Korea, New Zealand). They were published between 1830 and 1942.

The whole list of 2,983 botanical eBooks I’ve browsed over the years can be accessed here. Click on any sample image below to get an enlarged version…and the title hyperlink in the list below the image mosaic to view the entire volume.

Enjoy the October 2024 eBotanical Prints!

Rio Mayo plants: a study of the flora and vegetation of the valley of the Rio Mayo, Senora * Genty, Howard Scott * sample image * 1942

Hymenophyllaceae - eine botanische Abhandlung * Presl, Karel Borziwogo * sample image * 1843

Symbolae botanicae, sive, Descriptiones et icones plantarum novarum aut minus cognitarum * Presl, Karel Borziwogo * sample image * 1830

Icones Plantarum V31 * Hooker, Joseph Dalton; Hooker, William Jackson * sample image * 1922

Icones Plantarum V32 * Hooker, Joseph Dalton; Hooker, William Jackson * sample image * 1933

Icones Plantarum V33 * Hooker, Joseph Dalton; Hooker, William Jackson * sample image * 1935

New Zealand Berries * Harris, Emily Cumming * sample image * 1894

New Zealand Flowers * Harris, Emily Cumming * sample image * 1890

New Zealand Ferns * Harris, Emily Cumming * sample image * 1890

Illustrated catalogue of fruit and ornamental trees, shrubs, vines, roses, etc. * May Brothers * sample image * 1887

Rose buds and holly berries * Bennett, Harriet M. et al (illustrators) * sample image * 1888

Bush-fruits; a horticultural monograph of raspberries, blackberries, dewberries, currants, gooseberries, and other shrub-like fruits * Card, Fred * sample image * 1898

Betten, Robert: Beerenobst 1908  * Betten, Robert * sample image * 1908

The Book of the Grape * Ward, William Henry * sample image * 1901

The Small Fruit Culturist * Fuller, Andrew Samuel * sample image * 1887

The Nut Culturist * Fuller, Andrew Samuel * sample image * 1896

Practical Forestry * Fuller, Andrew Samuel * sample image * 1884

Flora Sylvatica Koreana Pt 1 Aceraceae; Pt 2Betulaceae * Nakai, Takenoshin * sample image * 1915

Flora Sylvatica Koreana Pt 7 Rosaceae; Pt 8 Ericaceae * Nakai, Takenoshin * sample image * 1918

Flora Sylvatica Koreana Pt 8 Rhamnaceae; Pt 9 Oleaceae * Nakai, Takenoshin * sample image * 1920