“Botany Rules” available! I combined the first six posts on how to use common and scientific plant names from my blog (khkeeler.blogspot.com) as a pamphlet. It is now available as a free download. Just click on the link. Go to Botany Rules Download. It will ask for your email. I send updates approximately every […]
New video featuring big sagebrush, Artemisia tridentata, icon of western grasslands. Link to video A Wandering Botanist: Big Sagebrush Karen Fournier of Starstream Productions filmed it with and for me. The link will show it to you on Vimeo.
Here is a link to a video about one of my favorite plants, Yucca glauca, called soapweed yucca or small soapweed. It’s a conspicuous plant of the plains, slow-growing and tenacious, with pretty white flowers and a famous relationship with the yucca moth, Tetigula, which both pollinates it and eats its seeds. Link to video […]
Here is a video about prickly poppy, Argemone polyanthemos. Prickly poppy is a conspicuous plant of the western Great Plains. It is annual that comes up from seeds each spring and therefore is more abundant and visible in wet years than drought years. Here is the link to the video: A Wandering Botanist: Prickly Poppy […]
Today I uploaded a new video. It’s just the end of sunflower season, enjoy! A Wandering Botanist: Sunflowers filmed with me by Karen Fournier of Starstream Productions. Follow the link above to see it on Vimeo.
I continually read books about plants travel and history. So here are some reviews and recommendations: Ghosts of Evolution by Connie Barlow. In 1982 Dan Janzen and Paul Martin published an important paper in Science called “Neotropical Anachronisms: The Fruits the Gomphotheres Ate.” In that paper they argued that the extinction of some 64 species of big animals–mammoths, […]
We have wonderful early summer Colorado wildflowers blooming right now. If you live in Colorado or can visit –don’t miss the chance to get out and see them! We had a wet spring after a very wet fall. The plants of Colorado are usually limited by the amount of water available, so they are flowering […]
What plants that should be on a Must See List? Here are the first 10 plant wonders that I have seen that I thought of when I asked the question– 1) Tundra at 400′ elevation in the Arctic Circle in Sweden. So far north that the high mountain tundra doesn’t require a high mountain. Plants […]
Here are fascinating articles about plants and travel I enjoyed and wanted to share. I will add more as I find them March 30 The turf of football stadiums — living and very complex Denver Broncos are as obsessed about their turf as their players by Susan Clotfelter The Denver Post 01/09/2014 Weird Travel Experiences […]
I’m trying to create a botanical “Must See” list: Plant Wonders of the World. The first Plant Wonders of the World that leaped to mind were not individual plants but the great ecosystems of the world, plant communities. So I’d recommend seeing all the great land ecosystems. Boreal forests – See great coniferous forest stretching […]
Books and videos and the internet are all excellent for learning about our world, but there are things you have to go to, they can’t come to you. And the whole thing–sight, sound, smells, taste, touch–you can only experience for yourself. Oceans and mountains, for example. Of course, what you […]
One common reason to travel is to visit family and friends. We often view the journey necessary for visiting family and friends as an annoyance, but it can be a positive part of the experience. If you go more than 100 miles, the plants are likely to change because the environment changes. Urban areas and […]
Reasons to travel include to visit people who live somewhere else. So I set out from near Denver to see old friends in Lincoln, Nebraska. The trip, crossing eastern Colorado and Nebraska, is almost exactly 500 miles, downhill and into a region of higher rainfall. Denver and the Colorado Front Range are at elevations over […]
Why travel? Whether you’ve never gone more than 50 miles from home or have seen 50 countries, the question remains. Why travel? It is disruptive, expensive and sometimes very uncomfortable. One answer is because the world is large and diverse. You go somewhere new and you experience unexpected things. Back when it wasn’t clear […]