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The Book Stop (outstanding!) and morning at Starr Pass. #botany2026 day 1.

"Guess what? The universe doesn’t revolve around us. And guess what? We’re only here for a short time, whereas some things have been here for a really long time. That ought to encourage us to take the long view as we think about our relationship to the natural world." e360.yale.edu/features/pet...

The Life Story of The Oldest Tree on EarthRevered for its beauty and its longevity, the ginkgo is a living fossil, unchanged for more than 200 million years. Botanist Peter Crane, who has a written what he calls a biography of this unique tre...e360.yale.edu

Moose, Miami University Hefner Museum of Natural History, after-hours visit (by me; the moose is a permanent resident), November 2025.

Heading to Botany 2026? Join @amsocplanttaxon.bsky.social in a special lecture by Diné botanist Dr. Arnold Clifford as he presents the story of the Carrizo Mountain Herbarium (CMH), the Navajo Nation's largest herbarium. Monday, August 3, 7:00-9:00 PM details at: mailchi.mp/f7208188714a...

Massive, beautiful sugar / black maples felled by Monday's storms. Maple Grove Forest Preserve, Downers Grove.

The phrase "'time goes by'... is profoundly misleading. It implies that time rushes past like the wind, leaving no trace. It would be truer to say that time accretes. It gnarls, and then it gnarls around its gnarls, endlessly." @robertmoor.com's In Trees keeps giving w/ each close read. A delight.

A few weeks in July, Maple Grove and Lyman Woods, Downers Grove. botanistsfieldnotes.com/2026/07/21/j...

July 19, 2026: mid-summerbotanistsfieldnotes.com

woodland sunflowers coming into bloom this week. @mortonarboretum.bsky.social East Woods.

Jumpseed flowering, Maple Grove this morning.

Broad-leaved wild leek (Allium tricoccum) in flower today, hot lunchtime walk through Maple Grove.

Looking for collections experience? Love plants? Living in the Chicago region? If YES! then be an @mortonarboretum.bsky.social short-term research technician position in the Herbarium and Forest Ecology Lab's wood collection. Msg with questions, apply today: careers.hireology.com/themortonarb...

... the crack of those round shells Like a hardwood mallet hammering a wedge Into the moment, splitting it ever open Up ahead, letting it travel with us... ... whatever was to happen next Anitipated as half-consciously As the smack of the next mailed walnut On the roof... -- Seamus Heaney

Does the tree then have consciousness, similar to our own? I have no experience of that. But thinking that you have brought this off in your own case, must you again divide the indivisible? What I encounter is neither the soul of a tree nor a dryad, but the tree itself. -- Martin Buber

Starting the week with one of my favorite slime molds, just out in Maple Grove: Arcyria cinerea.

He tried to tell his freshmen the simplest things--why a deceptive cadence makes a listener ache or how a triplet rhythm creates suspense or what makes a modulation to a relative minor broaden the world--and found he didn't know. -- Richard Powers, Orfeo, p. 309

Last night in Lyman Woods, a few hours before the thunderstorms: wood mint, poke milkweed, heal all, giraffe spots.

Writing clearly matters, changes what we think and care about and spend time on. Pay attention to it. If it is worth committing to paper or the screen, do it clearly and well. (to myself, not sermonizing) Take in great sentences by: Anne Fadiman, Mary Oliver, Zadie Smith, @robertmoor.com ...&&&...

"Until Trump’s second term, American aid cost just 23 cents for every $100 of gross national income and saved a life approximately once every 10 seconds. Seems like a bargain to me."

Please read this and write at least one letter today. Thank you @beebrookshire.bsky.social for this piece!

Goings-on in the woods Thursday and Friday last week, @mortonarboretum.bsky.social East Woods and University of Chicago Warren Woods Ecological Field Station. botanistsfieldnotes.com/2026/06/30/j...

June 26, 2026: Warren Woods, East Woodsbotanistsfieldnotes.com