Smiling in Yellow

Passing through the mall at lunchtime today, it was crowded as it so often is. But today was different from other days. Today was Daffodil Day, and perhaps it was nothing more than the cheerful yellow fabric daffodils pinned to most people's shirts, but the crowd seemed happier. Afterall, it is difficult not to smile at the crowd of bright yellow flowers and smiling faces, even when one is not ordinarily a fan of crowds. 

Outside, in people's gardens and city parks, clusters of living daffodils replace the replica's provided in the malls and shopping centres. Their heads bobbing with the breeze; their golden faces basking in the warm sunlight and smiling beneath a deep blue sky. They share with us their glad message that Winter has been left behind for another year and celebrate with us the arrival of the warmer days of Spring. Isn't it amazing that they (and other plants too) can tell just from slight increases in temperature and photoperiod (day length), imperceptible to us without measuring devices, that Spring is on her way, to sprout and be ready to bloom at her arrival? 

Members of the Amaryllis family, daffodils belong to the genus Narcissus. The exact number of species is debatable, ranging from 26 to 60+ depending on the species definition used. Part of this confusion is a result of hybridisation and breeding by garden enthusiasts/horticulturists. Daffodils are native to Europe, North Africa and West Asia, but are now grown around the world.

Not surprisingly, daffodils have a long history of cultural significance. In the mythology of ancient Greece, it is said Narcissus saw his reflection in a pool of water and became so entranced with it, he fell in and drowned (apparently other versions of the story say he was so transfixed that he starved to death) and from his remains the god's formed the daffodil, which sprang up at the site where he died. Perhaps this is where the genus name comes from.

The daffodil also features in ancient Chinese legends as a symbol of wealth and is associated with the New Year in the Chinese and Kurdish cultures. It is the national flower of Wales and also has associations with Easter in some Northern Hemisphere countries. 

How can one's eyes not smile at the sight? How can one's heart not rejoice in their company?

Signs of Spring

It is still almost a month until spring is officially here, but there are signs that she is quietly taking over from winter.

My mother reported the birth of the first baby goat of the year on her farm a couple of weeks ago, and it won't be long before it is joined by a few other kids and a whole lot of lambs.

Photo courtesy of Anne Grassham of Fleecewood Farm

But even here in the city, there are signs spring is slowly setting to work too. I was woken this morning by birdsong. The days are slowly getting warmer and the first of the spring flowers are beginning to appear. These are some photos I've taken in the past week or so...

(Does anyone know what this red flower is? It is a woody shrub that flowers late winter/early spring before the leaves come out. I've seen it around all my life, but don't actually know what it is... O_o)

And this afternoon I found some real evidence of spring - real daffodils (as opposed to the little mini varieties above that always flower earlier).

My New Room Mate

WARNING: This post contains graphic images of spiders. People with spider phobias may not wish to view the rest of this post.


Have you seen a spider with its prey, and been compelled to watch with fascination and intrigue, perhaps with a degree of disgust or a measure of fear thrown in? Or perhaps you've watched with curiosity, a spider weaving its delicate web and wondered how such a little creature could engineer such a beautiful death trap?

A couple of days ago, I noticed I had a little friend living by my window. He (or she) is much smaller than previous room mates I've had, such as this lovely fellow who kept me company a few years ago when I was in Nigeria: 

I was sitting on my bed, with my back leaning against the wall, reading a book one evening. This guy had been sitting quietly at the top of the wall, next to the ceiling, and I hadn't given much thought to his presence. All off a sudden I see movement out the corner of my eye, and turned to see him almost fly down the wall and stop, next to my head. Recovering from the surprise, I noticed he'd just caught a moth. I sat and watched him with fascination and a sense of awe, that I'd been privileged to be a witness to his hunt and subsequent feed.

While I do not know what sort of spider my Nigerian room mate was, my new little friend is a jumping spider. Jumping spiders belong to the family Salticideae, and are incrediably bright for being such little creatures with miniscule brains.

There are two major categories of spiders. There are sit and wait spiders. These are those that build webs to catch their prey, and they typically just sit out of sight near their web until some unsuspecting insect flies into it and gets caught up in the threads. Other spiders are active hunters. Both my Nigerian room mate and jumping spiders are active hunters. They still produce silk, which they might use as a saftely line (as with the jumping spiders) or to make their nests or egg sacs etc, but they do not construct webs to catch prey. Instead they are like the lions of the invertebrate world and actively stalk their prey.

As jumping spiders are active hunters, they have great vision with their eight eyes and spatial mapping abilities. Web building spiders have special tapping signals that the males tap out on the female's web, to tell her that he isn't prey but a potential mate. Some jumping spiders even mimic these tapping signals, pretending to be a potential mate, enticing the female out, where instead of finding a mate, she gets eaten! Spiders can be smart! They are incredible creatures. 

Anyway, I'd like you to meet my new little friend :)

Don't you wonder what those dark eyes are seeing and what is going on in his little brain? If you are in Christchurch, you might enjoy this seminar by Ximena Nelson, a scientist who studies jumping spiders.

Ghost droppings

While taking a walk recently, I was fortunate enough to come across this interesting native:

The Maori call them tutae kehua which translates as 'droppings of ghosts', presumably after their unusual 'ghostly' appearance and their smell.

What is it really, you ask?

It is Ileodictyon cibarium, more commonly known as the basket fungus. It belongs to the family Phallaceae, the stinkhorn fungus family. So you guessed it – they smell! (Well apparently... I can't say I've ever actually sniffed one, but I've never noticed them smelling particularly when walking past, or stopping to take the above photos for example. Perhaps, I have just happened to find them at good times, or when the wind is blowing the other way or something ;) ).

When you see regular mushrooms and toadstools, the actual 'mushroom' or 'toadstool' that you see is only the reproductive organ of that particular fungus. The rest of the fungus organism consists of a mass of fine (often invisible to the naked eye, though not always) thread-like structures known as hyphae. The hyphae excrete digestive enzymes, breaking down food sources in the soil (or other substrate, e.g. a log) which the cells are then able to absorb. Like the mushroom or toadstool of other fungi, the 'basket' of the basket fungus is its reproductive organ.

A reproductive 'egg' is produced on or just below the surface of the ground, containing the 'basket' all folded up, along with its spores. In case you feel so inclined, this 'egg' is edible. The 'basket' then pops out of the egg, and as it doesn't have to grow per se, it can appear very rapidly. The 'basket' is lined with a smelly slimey substance containing the spores (the dark brown splotches on the inside of the basket in my photos above). This slime is attractive to flies and some beetles and they come to check out the source of this delicious rotting smell. Inevitably, these insects will get some of the slime (with its spores) on them, and then as they leave, they take the spores with them, dispersing them to new locations. When a spore is deposited in a suitable spot, then a new basket fungus will grow :)

Winter Wonderland

Winter is definately here. I am a little late in getting this up here, as the snow fell about a week and a half ago, but I hope you enjoy anyway :). It only snows occasionally in the city I currently call home so when it does it is always a little bit exciting. I love to go outside in it and watch the flakes fall and settle on my jacket. This time the flakes were big and it was like someone had ripped open a giant goose down duvet and emptied the contents over our world.

 I love the way it tranforms the world. It snowed all day, but the following morning dawned bright and clear and I found many gems of beauty when I went for a walk to explore my frozen world.

I don't know how many worms these blackbirds found that morning though...

I Spy With My Little Eye

Sometimes I think about how beautiful the world is. I feel blessed to live on such a beautiful planet and to have eyes that allow me to witness that beauty. The human eye contains four different photoreceptors: rods that detect the presence of light (i.e allow us to see in black and white and detect movement) and three types of cones that allow us to see in colour. Each cone type detects a different colour - red, green or blue. All the colours we see are the result of different combinations of those cones being stimulated simultaneously by the light entering the eyes. As humans, our eyesight is one of our more developed senses - one that we rely heavily on each day, or at least I know I do. Yet, Louie Schwartzburg compares our visual range to a single octave of the musical scale.

Many animals have the capacity to see light frequencies we cannnot. For example, honey bees can see ultraviolet, and many flowers have patterns on their petals that are not visible to the naked human eye that become visible under ultraviolet light, that aid bees in locating nectar and pollen. We already admire flowers for their beauty, but imagine being able to see the additional beauty visible to the bees. But there is one creature that makes me marvel even more at its visual capabilities...

The Mantis Shrimp 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:OdontodactylusScyllarus.jpg

This shrimp-like creature is not actually a shrimp, but a group of crustaceans belonging to the Order Stromatopoda. They are predatory creatures found in shallow tropical and sub-tropical seas around the world. The mantis shrimp is noteworthy for several reasons, including its viciousness and strength, its complex signaling behaviours and its extraordinary eyesight.

The eye of the mantis shrimp has at least 16 different photoreceptors, of which 12-13 are cones for detecting colour. Moreover, they are capable of seeing polarised light. If the world looks as amazing as it does through our human eyes, imagine how amazing it would look through the eyes of the mantis shrimp...

Autumn's Palette: Why Leaves Change Their Colour

Trees and plants use pigments in their leaves to trap light energy, which they then use to produce sugars. The main pigment used by most plants to capture light energy is known as chlorophyll, and gives leaves their green colour. When deciduous trees are preparing for winter, they allow the chlorophyll in their leaves to break down into amino acids which the tree recycles and stores, ready to use in the growth of new leaves in the spring. As the chlorophyll breaks down, it allows other pigments present in the leaves to become visible.

The yellow and orange colours are the result of pigments known as carotenoids. Carotenoids are present in leaves all through the growing season, but their colour is usually masked by the green chlorophyll. 

The reds and purple colours are the result of pigments known as anthocyanins. These are not present in the leaves all year around, but are produced in the autumn as the plant is recycling its chlorophyll and allow the plant to capture light energy for a little bit longer.

                                                                  

Combinations of these pigments add further to the range of colours to be found in autumn leaves and produce autumn's palette.

In addition to vast array of colours (the only colours that are missing are the blues, but on a nice clear autumn day, the sky makes up for that), I love the array of patterns the different colours make on individual leaves - each one is uniquely different and rarely a single shade. Here are a few for you to enjoy :)