linnaeus – The Artful Amoeba http://theartfulamoeba.com A blog about the weird wonderfulness of life on Earth Tue, 11 Mar 2014 16:22:24 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.5.31 So, Twinflower, We Meet At Last . . . http://theartfulamoeba.com/2010/08/11/so-twinflower-we-meet-at-last/ http://theartfulamoeba.com/2010/08/11/so-twinflower-we-meet-at-last/#comments Thu, 12 Aug 2010 05:11:43 +0000 http://theartfulamoeba.com/?p=3499 An event of tremendous biological import took place in my life last weekend. And no, it wasn’t the 300 lb. black bear that wandered through our camp (although that was of tremendous import in that particular moment). No, an event I’ve been hoping and waiting for for many long years took place. I finally found the twinflower, Linnaea borealis.

Examine the buttonhole.

I have been looking for this flower for years, not least because it was Linnaeus’s (as in Carolus “Father of Taxonomy” Linnaeus) favorite flower in the world. Nearly every painting you see of him shows him clasping or otherwise displaying a pair of the dainty blossoms. They were on his coat of arms.

For years I’ve gazed at them in my flower books, hoping and waiting and trying to be patient for the day. That day was Saturday. My mushrooming buddy Johnny was there to see it, and he patiently endured five minutes of me exclaiming over the low mat of little pink flowers. I tried to sniff for the “light vanilla scent” one of my books advised me they would have, but I could detect nothing. I don’t care. They are awesome.

Twinflowers are in the Honeysuckle family, the Caprifoliaceae (Kap’-ri-fo-lee-ase’-ee-ay). The Honeysuckle family is notorious for producing flowers in . . . you guessed it . . . pairs. The sweet honeysuckle blossoms of southeast Tennessee I remember from my youth came in pairs; the kids used to say you could pluck them and suck the nectar, though I don’t recall ever being successful at that. At the foray this weekend, someone came up to me to ask me about another plant he’d found with glossy twin black berries mounted on shiny red bracts; it was the bracted honeysuckle, or black twinberry, yet another member of the family. It was a Caprifoliaceae kind of weekend.

Twinflower is unusual because it grows in a low green mat rather than a woody shrub, like most honeysuckle. I even found a clump this weekend growing right on top of a tree stump (pictured above. You can also see the pixie stick form of Cladonia lichen mingling with the twinflower as if they were at a cross-kingdom cocktail party). Twinflower is, as its name implies, circumpolar in the northern hemisphere, which is why both Linnaeus and I can enjoy them, despite the fact that I’ve never been to Sweden, and he never experienced the Rocky Mountain High.

]]>
http://theartfulamoeba.com/2010/08/11/so-twinflower-we-meet-at-last/feed/ 2
Who Are You Calling a Slime Mold? http://theartfulamoeba.com/2009/08/14/who-are-you-calling-a-slime-mold/ http://theartfulamoeba.com/2009/08/14/who-are-you-calling-a-slime-mold/#comments Fri, 14 Aug 2009 13:43:48 +0000 http://frazer.northerncoloradogrotto.com/?p=995 One of my three science heroes: Carolus Linnaeus

The father of taxonomy, one of my three science heroes, and the inventor of the index card: Carolus Linnaeus. In his buttonhole is his favorite flower, the twinflower, subsequently named Linnea borealis in his honor. Note the powder on his coat from his wig. Painting by Alexander Roslin.

That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, claimed Juliet, but could she say the same for a nameless rose? Perhaps not. In case you missed it this week, fellow Cornell alum and science writer Carol Kaesuk Yoon produced a lovely article in the New York Times adapted from her new book on the decline of taxonomy that is well worth your time.

Taxonomy — the science of naming and classifying organisms — and the study of obscure organisms have been dying long slow deaths, as any taxonomist can tell you. Funding for such projects has often been usurped for molecular, pharmaceutical, or biotechnical work. And of course, these projects are important.

But so is taxonomy, and Yoon argues that the discovery and naming of life is a deep-seated biological urge among humans. Cultures everywhere sort living things into the same basic categories and feel the same urge to give them two-part names. Briar rose, it seems, is even sweeter. This urge is apart from any value we might derive from discovering among new organisms new pharmaceuticals or modes of operating a cell that could inspire us medically or biotechnically (and believe me, the number of crazy ways you can operate a cell is mind-boggling. Click on any group here to get an idea).

More startlingly, she describes research showing it is possible for people to suffer brain injury that makes them unable to recognize anything living, while remaining perfectly capable of recognizing a toaster or stapler. In my conscious mind, I barely remember that something like a carrot is living at all, it’s so far removed from its natural setting. Consciously, I classify it more as food. But people with this disorder cannot look at a carrot and tell you what it is because it is living, regardless of whether you or I or they would consciously think of it that way when naming it. What an amazing finding! Regardless of our difficulty as scientists at deciding on the boundaries of life (see viruses), something deep and innate in human brains does so instantly and unconsciously, and uses it to classify and store new ideas in the index of our minds.

If taxonomy has been declining among scientists, it has virtually disappeared among the general public. Tomorrow I’ll share a small revelation I had in this regard when I stumbled a few weeks ago upon a 19th-century second grade reading primer.

]]>
http://theartfulamoeba.com/2009/08/14/who-are-you-calling-a-slime-mold/feed/ 2