Peter Moonlight

A 5 day old news article, presenting a statment by Birmingham airport that there are no queues as fact. In reality, the queues are awful.

Meanwhile, in the real world, we just missed out flight because of a 1 hr queue to check in a baby seat followed by a 2 hr security queue at Birmingham airport 🤬

The bicycle played a rich role in Ireland’s past. Now it is key to our future | Cian Ginty Cycling was once a mass participation activity. Ben Healy’s dazzling Tour de France performances can help catalyse a revival, says editor Cian Ginty

The bicycle played a rich role in Ireland’s past. Now it is key to our future | Cian Ginty

🏰🤝🏰

Asplenium ssp pachyrhachis

Reckon so - especially as it lends credence to my lobed maidenhair spleenwort Asplenium trichomanes subsp pachyrhacis at Knaresborough Castle after several years fruitless checking of specimens (thanks to @bsbiscience.bsky.social for the tip!) #UrbanPlants #WildflowerHour

Rock Sea Lavender, Limonium binervosum (G.E.Sm.) C.E.Salmon

English Stonecrop, Sedum anglicum Huds.

Sea Plantain, Plantago maritima L.

Rock Sand Spurrey, Spergularia rupicola Lebel

Do they count as #UrbanPlants if growing on the wall of a derelict seaside castle? #WildflowerHour

Who cares, especially when Limonium binervosa is so cool 😍

A herbarium specimen in Trinity College Dublin, clearly showing the "ghost" of a leaf of a Melastomataceae

That has got to be the best "herbarium ghost" I've seen.

Sea Spurge, Euphorbia paralias L.

Sea Bindweed, Calystegia soldanella (L.) R.Br. ex Roem. & Schult.

Sticky Stork's Bill, Erodium lebelii Jord.

Scotch Rosa, Rosa spinossisima L.

A seaside quartet from Brittas Bay, County Wicklow, for #WildflowerHour
The Sticky Stork's Bill was a new one for me 💚

PhD: Plant-Soil Field Ecology / Ecophysiology -> tinyurl.com/k2ymn5mv
PhD: Computational methods to use our plant-soil image data -> tinyurl.com/4hbcwa8v
Research Assistant/Technician -> tinyurl.com/ydvbpj6n
(links will be updated to my university website once online)

A glass Irish Lucozade bottle, of unknown age.

Niche, but can anyone on Bluesky date a 1980s (?) Irish Lucozade bottle? This one turned up under a floor in a historic building, and we'd love to know when someone was last down there.

I really hope someone tracks how many arrive early and how many arrive late.

A #RandomActofCrochetKindness by Andrea, found somewhere on a train on the east coast today. Looks like a fly agaric (Muscaria amanita) to me, and is now happily in its natural mossy habitat.

www.scielo.br/j/hoehnea/a/...

A graph showing the price per pound for different vehicles and types of cheese. There are a surprising number of cheeses in the top half, such as Roquefort.

This is the best graph I've seen in a while 📊

Figure 2. Morphological aspects of Begonia chucantiensis sp. nov. A plant habit B fertile branches C detail of fertile branch D leaves viewed from the adaxial side and staminate flower E leaves viewed from the abaxial side, staminate flower and fruit F stipules G front view of staminate flower H pistillate flower I lateral view of the fruit. Images A, B, D, E C. Mitre-Ramos. C, F, I L. Guillén. G, H J.L. Guerra.

I am delighted to have been involved in the description of Begonia chucantiensis in @phytokeys.pensoft.net. This was collected by Juan Carrión and colelagues, who contacted me to see if we could describe it together. doi.org/10.3897/phyt...

Well the cool thing was all the "non-Boraginaceae Boraginales" were at the start of the Boraginaceae. Those Systematic indices from the early 1800s were pretty good!

Great to see you on here Tim! Just finished updated the TCD herbarium index to include 9 Boraginales families 🌺

Figure showing morphological diversity in Boraginales. (A) Codonaceae (Codon royenii L.). (B) Wellstediaceae (Wellstedia cf. dinteri Pilg, Namibia, Ugor via iNaturalist https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/194363877 CC-BY-NC 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). (C-N) Boraginaceae. (C) Echiochiloideae (Echiochilon fruticosum Desf., xx-0-BONN-15043). (D) Boragineae (Anchusa azurea Mill., Greece). (E) Lithospermeae (Echium arenarium Guss., Greece). (F) Lithospermeae (Cerinthe major L., Greece). (G) Trichodesmeae (Trichodesma boissieri Post, JO-0-BONN-35154). (H) Omphalodeae (Omphalodes nitida (Willd.) Hoffmanns. & Link, xx-0-BONN-14659). (I) Rochelieae, Eritrichiinae (Lappula consanguinea (Fisch. & C.A.Mey.) Gürke., xx-0-BONN-39580). (J) Myosotideae (Trigonotis formosana Hayata, xx-0-BONN 29917). (K) Cynoglossinae (Cynoglossum creticum Mill., Greece). (L) Cynoglossinae (Lindelofia longiflora (DC.) Baill. xx-0-BONN-27824).

🌍 Boraginales, a diverse order of ~2,700 species, has long puzzled botanists with shifting classifications. Now, this study uses Angiosperms353 phylogenomics + fruit & flower traits to propose a clearer family-level structure. (2/8)

An updated phylogeny of Boraginales based on the Angiosperms353 probe set: a roadmap for understanding morphological evolution

🌿Check the newly published article ‘An updated phylogeny of Boraginales based on the Angiosperms353 probe set: a roadmap for understanding morphological evolution’ in @annbot.bsky.social by Maria-Anna Vasile et al.🧵(1/8)

👉 doi.org/pgvm

@petermoonlight.bsky.social
@timboeh.bsky.social

Birds are dinosaurs
Whales are hoofed mammals
Bugs are crustaceans

Isn’t nature wonderful?

Front cover of the Madrid Code.

Check out this new #AJB commentary by Nicholas Turland!

From the Shenzhen Code to the Madrid Code: New rules & recommendations for naming #algae, #fungi & plants

doi.org/10.1002/ajb2... #botany #plantscience

Roommates would be a good name for Euphorbia. Male and female flowers in the same inflorescence but not the same flower.

Ironically, my love/hate relationship with taxonomy is difficult to classify

Oops. Calcicola, not calcola 🙈

And to whoever stole the flowers from our Tulips, screw you. 😡

Could the real Diastema racemiferum please stand up? This species is only found in semi-deciduous forests east of the Andes. In life they are pretty easy to tell apart (flower colour, glandular hairs, etc) they are pretty tricky once dried to a herbarium sheet.

Introducing Diastema calcola J.L.Clark & Moonlight, just described in the Gesneriaceae. This species is found on limestone in S. Ecuador and N. Peru and Vulnerable under IUCN Criteria. Genetic and morphological work shows that while superficially similar to D. racemiferum, it is distantly related!

It is tulip season in Dublin

Alas my photo of a "do not stand under coconut trees during hurricanes" sign, taken after a hurricane and surrounded by coconuts, is on an old phone :(

To be honest, I already have. I walk down the middle of the road at every opportunity.

Can we start with Nassau St? It would be gorgeous filled with trees, benches, and the odd open air cafe.