We had a huge mimosa tree in our front yard at my old house, and it was magnificent when the BRIGHT pink flowers fell and it looked like a neon pink ice rink. Incredible.
A suggestion for a new Crash Course series: Crash Course Law. Speaking as someone currently in a legal studies program, there's a lot you could talk about--contracts, what a tort is, how bankruptcy works, and so much more.
The evolution of seeds in plants is always so fascinating to me! In certain ways, it mirrors the evolution of amniotic eggs in tetrapods that occurred shortly after, in that it allowed plants to cut ties with water for reproduction and expand into new habitats, just like the amniotic egg. Very excited to see where the series goes next!
2:44 - As a zoologist I compare everything to animal evolution but I never realized that the evolution of gymnosperms was basically the equivalent of reptiles evolving watertight (ish) eggs. It makes a lot of sense though.
It's pretty intimidating walking through a field of jewelweed and not knowing what they are until they start shooting in your face 😂 then you try to run and explode more of them in all directions... There is no escape
So plants, like humans, have evolved different ways of living in different environments. But each is just as valid, and important to this world we live in.
i had no clue cycads were considered endangered :0! My grandparents have had a few in their front yard for years. (though i’m not sure whether they’re still there since they live out in hurricane country. as of the last time google street view came around there were still at least 3 though!)
I was not expecting the seed pods of the purple salvia in my front yard to explode. It was an especially dry summer and I decided to drag the hose around and give the plants some extra water. The plant started crackling like tiny little fireworks.
Not really a "fact" at all, huh. You assume it by operating on other assumptions, not observations. Just looking at a fossil does not give anyone enough data to make coherent claim like that.
