The tutor shares an identification that needed patience. Early this spring, I began noticing a plant that stood apart. Like so many other wild plants, it grows on vacant properties and path edges. However, this plant has some peculiarities: It …
Lifestyle: plant identification: red dead-nettle Read more »
‘Tis the season for yard work: let the identification of spontaneous plants continue. I don’t call plants that arrive in the yard, weeds. I call them “spontaneous plants,” since they grow here of their own decision. (Spontaneous plants is not …
Lifestyle: plant identification from field guide: common groundsel Read more »
The tutor shares yet another field find. Commonly, thumbing through a field guide, I notice a species on a page and think, “I wonder if I’ll ever see that one.” So it was with western bitter-cress, of the mustard family. …
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The tutor mentions another field discovery. The same day I noticed the western trillium (see here), I noticed another flower on the river bank: the pink fawn lily. The pink fawn lily has some telling features. It has long, thin …
Lifestyle: plant identification from field guide: pink fawn lily Read more »
The tutor shares a nice woodland find from the weekend. For a naturalist, this time of year is amazing. Every week, new birds are evident. Plants that, a month ago, were hard to identify – or even notice at all …
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The tutor mentions a few points about diatoms. In my Feb 4 post I introduced protists, which constitute a kingdom of eukaryotic, mainly single-celled organisms. Protists are divided into plantlike and animal-like ones. Diatoms, from phylum Chrysophyta, are among the …
The tutor gives a few facts about glycolysis. Glycolysis happens in the cytoplasm of the cell. It takes a glucose molecule (C6H12O6) and reacts it to two pyruvic acid (C3H4O3) molecules. The process involves inputs and outputs of water and …
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The tutor makes some comparisons between protists and bacteria. Members of Kingdom Protista are generally single-celled organisms that live in water. They form a significant part of ocean plankton. Bacteria are typically single-celled as well, and are found virtually everywhere …
Biology: protists (Kingdom Protista) vs bacteria (Kingdom Monera) Read more »
The tutor visits the distinction between the similar-sounding structures rhizoid and rhizome. Rhizoids are simple structures that resemble roots but are are more primitive. They provide anchorage and some absorption of water and nutrients. Fungi and mosses have rhizoids in …
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The tutor comments about the reproductive pathways of zygospore fungi, including black bread mold. With a zygospore fungus, such as black bread mold, the part you see above the surface comprises sporangia (singular: sporangium), which release spores. Spores have n …