The Colorado State Open Thread is provided for your viewing, reading and entertainment pleasure. Perhaps you might even learn something about our squarish (and my favorite) state. By this time next week, I will be entertaining friends taking a break from their red state to our east. Two years ago, one of them had not been to Colorado in her life, and now they’re coming on an annual basis (only thirty years since I started inviting them to enjoy Colorado).
The images above were taken in and around my home in Estes Park at an elevation of about 8350 feet. I mention the elevation because altitude does play a small part in whether or not life undergoes radiation from cosmic sources, primarily the Sun, but also from space. You have probably heard that it’s easier to get sunburned at elevation than it is at sea level and you may have also heard that people who fly frequently (pilots, flight attendants, even frequent fliers) can absorb more radiation than people who keep their feet firmly planted on the ground.
We’ll get to the flowers on the left in a moment. You’re more likely to recognize the mutations in the two images on the right. The two right-most plants have four leaves apiece. “I was looking over, a four-leafed clover...” They were in patches of clover that I found while walking my dogs. I tend to like looking at patterns like these, because I can pick out where extra leaves might be found. Often, they’re just leaves that stick up into a three leafed clover that’s tall, making a false appearance that there are four leaves together, but occasionally, I find that there are four growing together. Usually, it helps that they’re the same shade of green, but they don’t often have the same shape for all four leaves. Over the years, especially at my parent’s house in Kansas (yes, a much lower elevation, so less radiation) I have found clover with five and even six leaves growing from a single stalk. I used to pluck them and then press them in between sheets of wax paper and then try and seal them in with the heat of an iron. Now, however, I take photos of them and let them continue to grow and hopefully procreate, to make more clover with extra leaves. Of course, there’s no way of knowing if the fourth leaf is a genetic benefit or detraction (or sign of a fatal mutation) so it’s all speculation on my part.
On the left, many of you will recognize our state flower, the Columbine. In my habit of counting leaves, petals and such, I noticed that the large flower in the picture has more than the usual five petals/leaves. In the plant world, they almost all have patterns of two, three or five petals or leaves for their flowers. There will be exceptions, but as you wander about, start counting. You will see that, like the other two Columbines, for example, Columbines usually have five petals and leaves. Clover generally have sets of three, with occasionally four or five or even six. Two petal arrangements can be found, but remember two can also be found in arrangements of all even numbers, so two, four, six, eight, etc. The odd Columbine in my garden has the flower divided into six parts, and I’ve not seen that before. Yes, you can have flowers with lots of petals, like dandelions, chrysanthemums, lupines and on and on, but while I haven’t sat down and played “She loves me, she loves me not...” in many years, I’d be willing to bet that the flowers can be broken down into some multiple of two, three or five, if for no other reason than there are few prime numbers once you get above five and far more opportunities to have a multiple of the lower number than not. Sure, you can have seven, eleven, thirteen, seventeen and nineteen, but I’ll let you do the counting and report back to me. Even when there appears to be one major petal (e.g. a Callalily), botanists still find ways that the flower has two halves, or even two parts that may be unequal, but still are considered two parts of the flower so they still have two, three or five portions. It gets down into biology, botany and the like, but it’s still one of Mother Nature’s way of making plants happen.
Patterns of two, three and five also can be found in tree leaves. Pine trees that are of the “Yellow pine” family have two or three needles in a cluster (I’m more familiar with three, as in the Ponderosa pines) but they also come with five needles in a cluster “White pines” which include the limber pines out here and also the white pines of the eastern US. Those white pines tend to have softer needles than the hard, stiff Ponderosa, but I’m not familiar enough to really start drilling down into the different pine trees. Some knowledge fades with age and with sedentary geography. As for firs and spruce and juniper — again, do the counting as you go around the stem where the needles grow and let me know. Even broadleaf trees like the Aspen, maple, oak and such, follow similar patterns that you can see if you look.
All of this discussion on flowers and the number of parts in the flowers and leaves is in the hope that you might occasionally look a little closer as you walk about our pretty state, whether it be in wilderness, manicured parks or even your own yard. I hope you might notice things in a slightly different light.
I did mention that I was going to the Renaissance festival in Larkspur between Colorado Springs and Castle Rock this last Saturday and we had a great time. Plenty of costumes, lots of food and drink and the weather was not too hot and not too rainy; just enough of both to make it pleasant.
Please feel free to comment below. You can talk on any subject — this is an Open Thread after all. Suggested topics:
- Do you feel happy or sad that Shooter’s Grill has now closed, freeing Ms. Boebert from having to pretend to manage a restaurant so she can go to Washington full-time?
- Do you think Colorado will have a Democrat or Republican as the first Representative from the new 8th Congressional District?
- Will Michael Bennet and Jared Polis both keep their jobs in November?
- Will Grand Junction adopt a measure to allow psychedelic mushrooms? They’ve turned in enough (they say) signatures on petitions for this November’s ballot.
- Since I know we’ve at least got a couple of bird nerds reading this — coloradosun.com/… An extremely rare sighting of a yellow rail in Colorado sets bird-nerd world a twitter.
- A mass shooting in Denver with five or six victims. By Police!
- Conservation groups offer alternate plan for Colorado wolf reintroduction that limits killing after livestock losses
- Ron Hanks and Tina Peters both lost their races for Republican nominations for November’s races. By large margins. Both were endorsed by TFG. Both are now demanding recounts because reasons. Coincidence? I think not — but what do you think?
The floor is yours...