Apr 11 2012

Botanical Wednesday: Mmm, peatey

Categories:

Organisms

by PZ Myers

(via NatGeo)

(Also on Sb)

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23 comments

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1

A. R

11 April 2012 at 6:44 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I smell Tweed and Whisky!
2

Catnip, Not a Polymath

11 April 2012 at 7:39 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Well, that’s better than Vegemite!
3

Olav

11 April 2012 at 7:40 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Speaking of peat. This article may interest some readers: http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2011/09/peat-and-coal-fossil-fuels-in-pre-industrial-times.html
4

eclectabotanics

11 April 2012 at 7:45 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I should save this image for my son, Petey, to use as his profile picture.
5

davidnangle

11 April 2012 at 7:55 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Careful now! Or Hobbits go down to join the dead ones, and light little candles of their own.
6

Stardrake

11 April 2012 at 8:04 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

A picture of a bog?

Think of the chilllldrrreeennnnn!
7

McCthulhu - resentful that McHastur is taller.

11 April 2012 at 8:15 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

AGGGGGGH!!! Someone blew into the bong and got the weed all wet!
8

julietdefarge

11 April 2012 at 8:33 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Why all the holes in the scum? Maybe made by gas bubbles rising from rotting vegetation? Our Southern algae-covered ponds are often solidly green, and I can attest that they do emit plenty of gas.
9

aspidoscelis

11 April 2012 at 8:46 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

julietdefarge – You may want to reconsider the scale here… this isn’t pond scum. It’s hard to be certain of the exact scale, but those “holes” are pools of water somewhere in the vicinity of 3-10 feet across.
10

quoderatdemonstrandum

11 April 2012 at 8:49 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Great, now all I can think about is a dram of Laphroig and it’s only 14:45 in the UK.
11

Glen Davidson

11 April 2012 at 9:31 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Well this blog is pretty much bogged down today.

Glen Davidson
12

generallerong

11 April 2012 at 10:21 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Meanwhile, up in the shoreline muskeg of Alaska…

DeathMarsh
13

edwardgordon

11 April 2012 at 12:22 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

My review of Pharyngula is complete. You can view it at Veridican.com if you like. It’s a good one.

I intend to check back frequently here and at the Freethoughts blog. Thanks for having me.
14

Don Quijote

11 April 2012 at 12:32 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Aces of peat.
15

Antiochus Epiphanes

11 April 2012 at 12:46 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I’ve been mired down all day with authoring a play on the word “Sphagnum”–I guess moss people wouldn’t get it anyway.
16

birgerjohansson

11 April 2012 at 1:41 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Anoxic peat bogs can preserve organic material for thousands of years. For instance, In the Umeå museum we have the world’s oldest ski, more than 4000 years old. (I don’t know if this is more or less than the Dagorlad battlefield)

And this is why I never try to lose a body in a peat bog. Peter Stormare in “Fargo” had the right idea.
17

DLC

11 April 2012 at 1:56 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

“if you value your life or your reason, never go onto the moors after dark!” — Stapleton, The Hound of the Baskervilles
18

Don Quijote

11 April 2012 at 2:05 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Re my comment at 14:

I have done a very silly thing and made a comment at the behest of an English aquaintance without understanding the significance of it first.

I should like to apologize pofusely for it and if I could, withdraw it.
19

Rich Woods

11 April 2012 at 2:38 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

@Don Quijote #18:

I’d just be happy if you could explain it, please.

Signed,

An Englishman (and certainly a little slow today)
20

Don Quijote

11 April 2012 at 3:15 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

@Rich Woods;

I will explain it although it embarrasses me to do so. Apparently it comes from either a joke, film or TV show (I’m not sure which) where a pirate has a parrot that says “aces of peat” instead of “pieces of eight” because it is dyslexic.

Normally, I would not write things that I’m not fairly sure I understand. I could plead that I was on the outside of a good lunch with some excellent wine and brandy but it is no excuse. The answer is, of course, stay away from the keyboard after drinking.
21

RFW

11 April 2012 at 7:41 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

The scale of the scene seems impossible to determine from that one photo. The vegetation could be a couple of species of moss, but it could also be grayish trees poking up above a thick canopy of lesser trees, or ditto, replacing “tree” with “shrub”.

The only real clue seems to be the reflected scenery in the water, which I presume to be a backdrop of dead trees. There’s a small sphagnum bog near here where you can see dead trees killed by waterlogging of the roots. (This particular bog was probably created by the road interfering with the downhill flow of water.)

So, does anyone know for sure what the scale is?

An interesting example of self-similarity in a landscape.
22

Xavier Ninnis

11 April 2012 at 8:02 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

@Glen Davidson, Antiochus Epiphanes

No ~~moss~~ mas, for the love peat, no mas!
23

aspidoscelis

12 April 2012 at 9:34 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

RFW – If you’re familiar with plants, it’s not hard to have a general idea of the scale here. Mosses under magnification (and especially sphagnum) just don’t look like that. Visible vegetation is mostly grasses & sedges. The vertical lines visible in some of the pools are, AFAICT, probably not reflections of dead trees, but more likely dried stems of some emergent aquatic plant.

If you’re feeling bored, you can try to match up the particular pattern of pools with aerial photographs. Look about 4/5 of the way up the western side of Fraser Island, Australia.