nettle

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Yesterday as I was walking through the bush collecting seeds, I was suddenly caught by a strange vine that ensnared my leg.

While it may look like your traditional vine, a climbing stem with many leaves attached, its a fern, and the entire "vine" is just one gigantic leaf stretching from the forest floor to the tree canopy.

Mangemange is a fern native to new Zealand. Its from the genus Lygodium.

Its stem (rhizome) grows along underground, almost like a long root. Every few meters a new leaf (frond) spouts from the rhizome.

The leaves emerge from the ground twisting and turning, desperately trying to find something to latch onto. At the same time pinnae form on the leaf stalk (rachis). Pinnae look a bit like normal plant leaves but they are actually just leaf segments. The pinnae provide the energy for the frond to grow even longer.

Once a target tree is found, the frond starts wrapping around it, slowly climbing upwards, making new sets of pinnae every few meters.

Continuing climbing, the frond often reaches the forest canopy. Once in the canopy, fertile pinnae start growing and spores are produced. The spores are then carried away in the wind, to new lands unseen.

And once again a new mangmange can climb to the sky.

This is the first post in a series of posts, that I'm going to make about weird and wonderful ferns and fern allies. If you have any weird ferns (or weird fern allies) that you would like me to write about, feel free to suggest them. Or post your own or wonderful/weird ferns in this community!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

It emerged from fortunate accident alongside a stream in the middle of a forest

 

Here's my current record for most ferns growing on top of each other!

A tree fern called a ponga (Alsophila tricolor) forms the base, growing on this tree ferns trunk is a hen and chicken fern (Asplenium bulbiferum).

Hen and chicken ferns grows little bulbils (baby ferns) on its fronds, when the bulbils are old enouph, they drop off to become a new hen and chicken fern.

These bulbils make up the final layer of ferns of my fern stack, making it a magnificent 3 layers of fern.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Very difficult to know with it being so small and not in flower, as it may grow bigger. However as the leaves are so thin and silvery I'm leaning towards the genus Tillisandia (Air plants). Unfortunately Tillisandia is generally identified by its flowers (influorecence)

"[tillisandia] is distinguished from other genera by inflorescence with one or more spikes with distichous arrangement (distichous flower arrangement), or rarely reduced to a spike with polystichous arrangement, or even isolated flowers" source

And to identify its species is also almost always done by flowers, though I find if you are familiar with a plant you often can identify them based on other features. It doesn't look like any of the tillasandia I know so that's not much good.

Tillisandia is the largest bromeliad genus and I really don't know more sorry.

I can tell you it's not an orchid like the bot thought tho :). (though you already knew that)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Ideally yes, but in the real world this would be infeasible. Things can't be tailored to one person specifically. there are so many countless factors that could lead to a headstart and it would be impossible to account for all of them.

Instead we find the ones that are the biggest factors and focus on them. Race is a big factor. But race is not the only big factor, and ideally all the biggest factors should be accounted for.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

I am confused how your analogy is different to the original one? the original one was also not affected by prior races.

A headstart would never be fair if gone untreated.

that's why the final results are calculated to eliminate the affect of anyone's headstart.

I think I must have misunderstood something with your comment. If you dont mind could you explain what I missed?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago (3 children)

The analogy would be more accurate if everyone started at a random time, but darker-skinned runners started later on average.

Yes, they started an average hour later meaning when an hour is deducted from the darker skinned People's times, the results are more fair overall.

And even though for some indivules it is unfair, the starting situation is allready unfair and this alteration is a net positive for fairness.

It is not just skin colour that has effects on the starting time of course.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Don't worry I wouldn't have thought you were arguing, I'm glad you asked.

Woman's rights required huge societal reform, from being a mans property to being one's own self. I know we aren't all the way there in terms of woman's rights, but we have come a long way. (let's not go backwards now)

I was also thinking that the current capitalistic system is also much better than a system where power is based on bloodline like in many old Monarchy's but then I realised that if money is power, and money is inherited its not much different.

However one of our main societal reforms is using reason, logic and ethics over the supposed word of god. I have nothing against the notion of god (other than that it is objective truth), what I do take issue with is using God to manipulate people, people who think they must have faith in the word of god for them to be good people.

This puppetering of god by those in power and the blind trust of those below caused thousands of atrocities; the burning of witches, the rape of people, hundreds of conquests in the name of spreading gods word, and so, so many wars.

This again is not fully resolved in many countries. Such as Israel, were blind faith in the twisted words of god, twisted by a corrupt pollitition, has caused tens-of-thousands of innocent deaths.

But for the most part, developed countries have left gods word as secondary advice, and have not tried to manipulate the people by puppeteering their creator.

This is (imo) a crucial step for a more transperant society. Were you don't feel you are challenging your creators ideals, but just the ideals of a snob in a suit.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

Tell me if I'm wrong but I would like to clarify something based on what Rhynoplaz said above that I feel they meant,

to clarify: I believe the CRT and DEI can exist while having nothing to do with historical events.

(P.S. I don't know how the DEI and CRT work currently, this is my own opinion on a hypothetical best solution. (Open to ideas if I'm wrong))

The DEI and CRTs purpose is not not about putting everything in reverse, giving the darker skinned man a time cut for every future race because of all the 100s of past races he had to wait.

it is simply about the situation now, the current race, the current job application.

the DEI and CRT should ideally only be about removing the bias of the judge for that specific event, so that the final scores represent each person's actual time, there is not retribution, there is no repayment for past wrongs, it is only about making the current event, the current job market, fair for everyone.

So that when the scores for that specific day are finalized everyones time is what they actually ran.

The CRT finds what makes the specific event unfair, and the DEI fixes it so everyones time is what they actually ran.

It is only removing the current bias in the Official.

Poverty is a completely different (though somewhat related) issue.

Dealing with poverty isnt about removing the bias, it is about rebuilding the very constructs of our society into a place that does not rely on some working 24h to put food on there plate while others sit around ruling those below.

Capitalism does not exist without poverty, if everyone's rich, nobody is.

The only solution to this while keeping capitalism is to ensure every person has access to their human rights free of charge, but then our rulers would complain that these people living free of charge are lazy and sapping up your precious tax payer dollars that you worked your but off for.

no government organization can fix poverty, the entire current system for every current country is flawed, in order to get rid of poverty we must rebuild these systems from the ground up.

We've done it before and made the lives of millions better. and we can do it again.

Edit: changed words in the second and third paragraph referring to the CRT and DEI Ideally have nothing to do with past events. Instead I believe it is fine for the CRT and DEI to learn from historical events and use that learning, but the actual actions will be determined by the current situation not the past. -sorry for the edit I just felt it is more clear what I think like this

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 days ago (4 children)

I mean when writing an essay you should really be sourcing from the original source not Wikipedia, good thing Wikipedia lists the original source the info came from so you can just use that. (Unlike some websites the teacher said were better then Wikipedia which were just full of unchecked bullshit)

But for everything else Wikipedia is great

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Can play games on them to, including clones of pacman, Doom, Super Mario land and pong.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 days ago

I also have to thank some of my later science teachers for re-sparking my fascination in the scientific world, three of them were excellent teachers and made the class so entertaining you couldn't not be fascinated.

[–] [email protected] 41 points 4 days ago (4 children)

I got a question right on an electronics quiz about finding the resistance in a curcuit (I have verified I was right).

My science teacher who didn't know how to do it in the first place and was just looking at the (incorrect) answer schedule said I was wrong. I just said "I don't think so but ok" even though I knew I was right as I did not want to argue. As she was walking away I explained to my friend why I was right, my teacher overheard me and came storming to the table saying:

"WHEN I SAY IM RIGHT I AM RIGHT! AND WHEN I SAY YOUR WRONG YOU ARE WRONG!"

At the top of her lungs.

I was just a kid so it put me off science for a bit tbh.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Don't finish one thing before you start another. instead keep a special list of things you want to do and loop between them, as you get board of one move onto the next one. As long as you are determined to get everything done. And make sure the list is short enough so that you can actually get things finished after a couple of loops.

I find this makes getting things done much more enjoyable for me, and stops me procrastinating. just make sure none of the tasks on the list are procrastination's in disguise.

And of course, rest when you need it. proper rest, not exhausting yourself thinking you're procrastinating. Just rest, then carry on.

 

Dendrobium cunninghamii, in Puketi Forest, New Zealand. In full bloom :). Its indigenous Maori name is Winika and a Maori canoe (Waka) is named after it

"In the fork of the tree grew a type of orchid known as ‘te winika’ which blooms with masses of white and green star-shaped flowers, evoking the huia feathers worn by high ranking rangatira (chiefs). This led to the auspicious name being given to the waka taua, that served Maaori royalty for many purposes, from transport to ceremonial duties."

-50 years of majestic waka at Waikato Museum Source

Image by me

Edit: grammer and written better

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