A recent find from The Plant Initiative @Plant_Init on twitter – an approximately 25 minute podcast from the Australian Radio National titled If trees could talk … what do you think they’d say to us? Not that I’ve listened to it all yet. Some of the speakers include Peter Wohlleben (his The Hidden Life of Trees was the first book we read), David Chamovitz (we read his What a Plant Knows), and Monica Gagliano (we’ll be reading Thus Spoke the Plant in 2023) – so, old friends and new.

When we read Sumana Roy’s book, we learned about the Melborne initiative that allows people to write letters to trees. Some links related to that, as well as other topics, may be found in the summary of How I Became a Tree.

It certainly seems like our “Down Under” neighbors are engaging with some of our tallest neighbors, the trees.

Another thought-provoking article from The Conversation. (A plug for them – do subscribe and support them – the articles are wide-ranging and written by people who know what they’re writing about. Their ‘byline’ is: academic rigor, journalistic flair)

There’s a lot of advice about, well, pretty much everything on the internet these days. And plenty of friendly apps that can help you figure out what’s going on, what’s going wrong, and what to do about it. Some of the information can be thought-provoking and exciting (oh hey, of course, why didn’t I think of that)l and some is helpful and some, unfortunately falls on the not-quite-right to downright-bad end of the spectrum.

The suggestions in this article by Nick Goitz, an extension educator at the University of Connecticut, address four things he has commonly seen that raise red flags for him. Read the article to get all the details. I’ll just point out one bit that is plant advice I also always give people: check the source. Blogs, assorted articles, and youtube videos MIGHT have good information but sites that are associated with academic institutions (.edu), particularly extension agents and botanists, and with professional nurseries will have the most current scientific knowledge about the topic.

If you see something intriguing somewhere online (and I’ve posted some fun youtube videos here), just look further to be sure any advice will actually help rather than harm the plants in your life.

Orchid mantis, Hymenopus coronatus. Igor Siwanowicz. Source: https://theconversation.com/secrets-of-the-orchid-mantis-revealed-it-doesnt-mimic-an-orchid-after-all-36715

When I first saw the image, I thought – this has to be photoshop at its finest. But no, there really is a praying mantis that is commonly known as the orchid mantis, Hymenopus coronatus. The image here, by Igor Siwanowicz, was shamelessly copied from an article in The Conversation. 

The article was published in January 2015 with a title of “Secrets of the orchid mantis revealed – it doesn’t mimic an orchid after all.” The mantis in this image doesn’t look exactly like the orchid although some other images I’ve found surfing the web certainly do. The article discusses some then new research that suggests that mimicry that’s close enough is good enough: these mantises apparently mimic a “generalized” flower.

While flowers, and orchids are prime examples, are known to mimic insects, according to the article, the orchid mantis is the first known insect to mimic a flower.