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arica rae's avatar

'petros saxifaga' is the don quixote of geology. and those equisetum eating silica bills! 💀👏💀👏💀

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John Farnsworth's avatar

As I was reading your third graph, I truly thought you'd lost it. Lusus indeed. A good laugh, one day early.

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Ralph Dawes's avatar

Ha ha. A foni story. Thank you, David. It occurs to me that this could be a clever and amusing way of avoiding the challenge of explaining the origins of tafoni, which is a question that seems far from resolved. In its way, rockpeckers could be as good an explanation as some of the others that have been published.

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mlk's avatar

To borrow a phrase from Gary Paul Nabhan, you have demonstrated the characteristics of a fraxinus sapiens

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David B. Williams's avatar

Always happy to be called a Smart ash. Fraxinus = ash genus. Sapiens = wise.

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Craig Seasholes's avatar

I was shocked you didn't cite Professor Leo Lionni's magnificent "Parallel Botany" in your sources. Here's a link to Kirkus Reviews article on this ground-breaking volume that should be on every RockPecker's bookshelf https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/leo-lionni/parallel-botany/

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David B. Williams's avatar

Wow, that sounds brilliant. If it wasn't so darned expensive, I'd buy one but the available used copies ain't cheap.

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