Lovely post! It reminds me of the Isabella Steward Gardner quote, "My garden is Riotous, Unholy, Deliriously Glorious! I wish you were here." And, her devotion to nasturtiums was equal to yours! I didn't know about the ants and the fava bean nectary. I wonder what the coloration is all about? I didn't think ants could see color, but there's got to be something to that red. Hmmm....
I am teaching a zoology course, and I came upon some work on acacia-ant interactions that involved those sorts of extrafloral nectaries you mention! The scientists have found some very cool stuff about the sometimes mutualistic, sometimes antagonistic, sometimes ambivalent relationship between ants and plants! https://blog.myrmecologicalnews.org/2019/05/08/interview-with-veronika-mayer/
That is so cool. Thank you for sharing this. Extremely, extremely up my alley. So awesome:
"So I gradually got more and more involved in ant-plant research. It is really incredible how two completely different organisms can live so tightly together and have such adaptions to the other partner. Later I realised that there are not only ants but also many other organisms involved, like coccids and fungi and bacteria and I started to investigate fungi-ant-plant interactions. And this is the topic I am currently working on, and meanwhile not anymore as side-project. With each closer look the fungi-ant-plant interaction is becoming more and more complex but also more astonishing. It will surely keep me busy for quite some years."
I'm with you messy interesting gardens all the way. Here in Australia we are heading into autumn and I am pulling out old plants for new beds. The spent red shiso was next on the list to go but ... for the past two days several Crimson Rosella ( parrots) have arrived to eat the seed. So the shiso stays.
Lovely post! It reminds me of the Isabella Steward Gardner quote, "My garden is Riotous, Unholy, Deliriously Glorious! I wish you were here." And, her devotion to nasturtiums was equal to yours! I didn't know about the ants and the fava bean nectary. I wonder what the coloration is all about? I didn't think ants could see color, but there's got to be something to that red. Hmmm....
I am teaching a zoology course, and I came upon some work on acacia-ant interactions that involved those sorts of extrafloral nectaries you mention! The scientists have found some very cool stuff about the sometimes mutualistic, sometimes antagonistic, sometimes ambivalent relationship between ants and plants! https://blog.myrmecologicalnews.org/2019/05/08/interview-with-veronika-mayer/
That is so cool. Thank you for sharing this. Extremely, extremely up my alley. So awesome:
"So I gradually got more and more involved in ant-plant research. It is really incredible how two completely different organisms can live so tightly together and have such adaptions to the other partner. Later I realised that there are not only ants but also many other organisms involved, like coccids and fungi and bacteria and I started to investigate fungi-ant-plant interactions. And this is the topic I am currently working on, and meanwhile not anymore as side-project. With each closer look the fungi-ant-plant interaction is becoming more and more complex but also more astonishing. It will surely keep me busy for quite some years."
I love a careless, messy, exuberant garden. Forcing plants into rigid order seems like it's counterintuitive.
It's certainly not the way plants grow on their own!
I'm with you messy interesting gardens all the way. Here in Australia we are heading into autumn and I am pulling out old plants for new beds. The spent red shiso was next on the list to go but ... for the past two days several Crimson Rosella ( parrots) have arrived to eat the seed. So the shiso stays.
Will the livestream of the plant event be recorded for folks who can’t join live?
Angela! I forgot to check on this. I'll let you know. It was awesome. Our experts were really pretty incredible.