Berry-Go-Round #33 Is Up!

Berry-Go-Round #33 is up over at 10,000 birds, with great links to everything from Pinedrops to Cornflowers* to British Soldier Lichens. Go check it out, especially if you’d like a boost of color and life on this gray Utah Fall day.

*Cornflowers are stunning. I saw these over the summer close to some yards up in Pinebrook, knew they were exotic, but didn’t know what they were till Mara’s post.

November’s Berry-Go-Round (#34) will be hosted right here at Watching the World Wake Up. I hosted BGR previously, back in January 2009, and it was a lot of fun, exposing both readers and me to a wide range of cool plant-related posts, as well introducing me to several great new (to me) blogs.

For you plant-bloggers out there, if you have a recent or upcoming post you’d like included in the next BGR, I’d love to hear from you. If you’re a long-time plant-blogger, participation is an excellent venue through which to let old and new readers alike know what you’ve been up to. If you’re a new plant-blogger, it’s a great way to introduce new readers to your blog. Email submissions to me at adventureREMOVECAPSbotanist@yahoo.com (preferred), or you can use the BGR submission form.

All plant-related submissions are welcome, but of particular interest might be what plants are up to this time of year. November is a time of year when we- well, those of us in cold Northern climes where human beings were never actually meant to live year-round, anyway- usually sort of forget about plants. The leaves have all turned and fallen, we rake ‘em up, bag ‘em and hope it snows soon to cover our ugly brown yards so that we can get down to the serious business of shopping and overeating for the holidays. 5 or so months from now, when green things start popping up again, we’ll be like, Oh hey there are plants here…, but of course they’ve been there all along, and it’s amazing that these creatures that totally dominate the world can be so dormant and out-of-mind for so long across such huge expanses of it.

Special Submission Incentive: First 15* post-submitters (whose posts I include**) also will get a Fabulous WatcherSTICKER!

*Because I think that’s about all I have left…

**Because it needs to be at least nominally plant-related. See here for details.

For regular readers, if you’re not familiar with Berry-Go-Round, I’ve re-posted and updated the FAQ I used last time:

Berry-Go-Round FAQ (v1.1)

Q: What’s Berry-Go-Round?

A: BGR is a blog carnival devoted to highlighting recent posts about plant life.

Q: What’s a Blog Carnival?

A: A Blog Carnival is a recurring showcase/grouping of a number of different posts related to a common theme or topic. There are carnivals about all kinds of things- birds, geology, music, astronomy, business, writing- there’s even a carnival about kidney stones! Every month the carnival is hosted by a different blog, and that blogger links to a number of participating blogs. So it’s like a dozen or so posts in one.

Q: Why should I care?

A: Two reasons: First, you’ll get a nice, convenient pointer to a whole bunch of interesting plant-related posts. Second, you’ll learn about a number of blogs you’ve probably never heard of before, some of which might be interesting enough that you want to become a regular reader of them.

Q: What if I don’t care about plants?

A: Here’s what’s going to happen when you die. You’re going to be buried in the ground. Eventually the coffin, urn or cereal box* containing your remains will fall apart and you’ll be mixed in with the soil. Eventually some plant will use organic nutrients- your stuff- from that soil to grow. So you are going to be a plant. Maybe you should learn something about them, so you know, you don’t come off as a total rookie plant in your next life.

*I’m updating my will to be cremated, and the ashes buried in a Peanut butter Cap’n Crunch box. Man, I love that stuff.

Q: But then won’t the plants be eaten by animals, like Moose and Pigeons and Porcupines and Pronghorns and Termites and Squirrels and Horned Lizards and Woodlice and Box Elder Bugs? And then won’t those things be eaten by things like Cougars and Magpies and Spiders and Yellowjackets and Bears and Bats and Bobcats and Dragonflies and Coyotes and Rattlesnakes? Won’t my stuff be part of those things too?

A: Yup, and I’ve blogged about all those things too.

Q: Wow, that’s awesome. This blog is way cool. I am totally checking out the next edition of Berry-Go-Round right here at Watching the World Wake Up.